I was recently intrigued in preaching the passage out of Mark 8:22-26 where Jesus returns the sight of a blind man. While Jesus performing miracles is not a new thing, this miracle still intrigued me because of how vastly different it is from most of the other miracles Jesus performed.
The gospels in their entirety records the healing of seven (7) blind men all healed in a variety of ways; whether sent, touched, or told to wash, they were all healed. The intriguing thing for me in this miracle is that it was done gradually rather than instantly. Compounding my intrigue is the fact, Mark is known as the Instantly, Straightway, Immediately gospel writer so this miracle seemed out of place.
Therefore, the question is begging to be asked, "Why did Jesus heal this man in stages", Why didn't he do it instantly" Did the man lack faith, Was there more power in the second touch than there was in the first touch"? Questions abound, it is very intriguing.
Because of Context and Content, I am left with a deeper meaning of this miracle. Some may intrepret and I couldn't argure with them if it was said that this was a two-stage miracle but I think that is swimming on the shallow end of the pond. To delve deeper, one would really see,
this is really two miracles in one. The first miracle is
Vision, the second miracle is
Perception.
I always miss the first miracle in this message because I waste time time trying to understand meaning. Sometimes you have to learn to shout where you are so you can get to where you want to be. The shout is found in the question Jesus asks in vs 23 and the answer found in vs 24. The shout is in the content but admittedly, it is a fast shout, here it is:
“Do you see anything?” 24 And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.”
Did you see it? No, ok I will try again and reduce some words!
“Do you see anything?” 24 And he looked up and said, “I see people,
Do you see it now? Let's reduce to the least common denominator .
“Do you see anything?” 24 And he looked up and said, “I see
The shout is found not in WHAT he sees, the shout is found in the fact that HE DOES SEE. Before Jesus, he saw nothing, after Jesus, He sees something. We have to learn to shout where we are. Things may not be like I want them but after spending time with Jesus, there are better than they were before. I couldn't see any hope, no joy, no peace, no chance, no way, now I see SOMETHING. and in my book SOMETHING IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN NOTHING.
We see the buts in life. I have a job BUT its a dead end job, I have a church BUT its a bad church, I'm married BUT I have no joy in it instead of realizing there is someone that wishes they had a job, a marriage, that God would let them Pastor. Our shout is in the I ONCE WAS.
All of us have an I ONCE WAS Story. I Once was a drunk, a whore, a liar, a gambler, a wrectch undone, a misfit, a miscreant, a disapointment, a sorry excuse for a man but THANK GOD all of our I ONCE WAS Stories have now become a BUT NOW STORY. I would hate to end my story on the I ONCE WAS side, I have to tell you BUT NOW, after I met Jesus I HAVE A BUT NOW, I once was Blind but now I see.
Here in the part of the story, the preacher would concentrate on the second touch of Jesus. We will say, and rightfully so that we all need another touch. After the first stage, the man can see but his vision is very blurry. Only when Jesus touches him a second time can he see clearly. Cloudy spiritual vision afflicts every Christian to some degree. None of us sees as clearly as we would like for now we see through a glass darkly.
That's what this blind man experienced. When he was partially healed, he saw men as trees walking. No one sees life with perfect clarity. All of us have spiritual nearsightedness to one degree or another.
I agree with all of this but that is still missing the context of which this content rests in. The context teaches us that what Jesus did for the man is the same thing he was trying to do for the disciples. The man has received VISION but now he needs PERCEPTION.
In the New Testament Sight is a metaphor for understanding. The disciples had sight but they had no understanding. The blind man has sight but he does not have perception, the power to perceive and understand what he sees accurately, so he seems trees that look like men,
If you go back to the beginning of
Mark 8, you have the miracle of the feeding of the 4000 (
vv. 1-10). Immediately afterwards the Pharisees came to argue with him (
vv. 11-12). After Jesus and the disciples got into a boat, he warned them to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees (
v. 8:15). Leaven is another word for the yeast necessary for baking bread, but in this case it refers to the false teaching of the Pharisees.
But the disciples thought he was talking about literal bread. Jesus then rebuked the disciples by saying,
"Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?" (
v. 18). Or we could paraphrase it this way: "How can you be so blind after having been with me so long? Don't you understand anything I'm saying?"
Hellen Keller said, "The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision". To give this man sight without the perception to understand that which he sees would cause him to misinterpret what he sees and act wrongly based on misconstrued information.
Perception sees past the problem, past the complaint, past the bickering into the solution, into the suggestion, into the sereneness of peace. SOme people can only see the problem. It used to upset me until I understood that Vision and Perception are two different things.
WHEN YOU KNOW BETTER, YOU DO BETTER, When I understand what I see, I don't walk into the same traps, pitfalls and snares that I did when I was blind. It is for this reason that Jesus tells the man, Don't go to the village but go home. When you don't understand what you see, you fall for the same traps, the same lines, the same ditches, but when you have understand, when you have perception,........
Owens
