Healing the Blind Mark 8:22-26

A 67-year-old woman scheduled for routine cataract surgery in November thought it was just dry eye and old age causing her discomfort, she told her surgeons. But what doctors at Solihull Hospital in the UK found to be the real cause of her discomfort was much more concerning: 27 contact lenses, stuck in the woman's right eye. A consultant anesthetist at the hospital was beginning to numb her eye for surgery when he found the first cluster of contacts. He put a speculum into the eye to hold the eye open as he put the anesthetic in, and he noticed a blue foreign body emerging from the top eyelid. That mass was a clump of 17 lenses (bottom picture). The other 10 were discovered in an additional examination. The lenses were clumped together in a “blueish mass” and were bound together by mucus. The woman had been wearing monthly disposable contact lenses for 35 years, but it's unclear how long they had been gathering in her eye. Sometimes, she told the surgeons, when she would try to remove a contact from that eye, she couldn't find it. The patient had just figured she'd dropped it somewhere, but it was actually getting stuck in her eye with the others.

-Jesus opens the eyes of the blind, physically and spiritually.

I. Jesus Opens the Eyes of a Blind Man vv. 22-23

In our passage tonight, which is a very brief one, we see Jesus healing a man of blindness

Jesus is in Bethsaida and a group of people bring a blind man to Him, hoping that He can bring healing

Jesus is on a mission of mercy and so He does is exactly that, but His method here may catch us off guard

Jesus uses His saliva and lays hands on the man; it is as though He is wiping away the blindness from his eyes

This is a spiritual exercise and Jesus clearly has the power to bring this healing in anyway that He sees fit

However, this is the method that He chooses to use

This is another messianic moment

The Christ will open the eyes of the blind

As has happened countless times before, Jesus acts in ways that expose us to the truth: He is the Christ

Isaiah 35:4–6

[4] Say to those who have an anxious heart,

“Be strong; fear not!

Behold, your God

will come with vengeance,

with the recompense of God.

He will come and save you.”

[5] Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

[6] then shall the lame man leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.

For waters break forth in the wilderness,

and streams in the desert; (ESV)

II. Jesus Offers Sight in Stages vv. 24-25

What happens next gives us a picture of how this realization often takes place.

Jesus pauses and asks the man what he sees

He reports back that he sees, but not clearly. The people look like trees, walking

Why in the world would Jesus do something like this? Why does the healing take time?

This is one of the critical issues that we all face: sometimes healing takes time

It does not always happen when I think it ought to happen

It does not always happen how I think it ought to happen

However, I do know that I can trust the Lord to work in His own wisdom for my greatest good and for His greatest glory

I think there are three primary reasons that He might have done it this way:

First, it is still an act of mercy and we see that He ultimately accomplishes what He intends by bringing complete healing

Second, He does it in stages as a demonstration of His design. This is frequently how Jesus bring spiritual healing and maturity to us. There is an initial opening of our eyes, followed by a progression in sight

Third, I believe He does this to challenge His disciples on their inability to see and understand Him

What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

-AW Tozer

III. Jesus Invites Us to Consider Our Blindness v. 26

Throughout this entire section, we have seen the disciples’ shocking blindness

They are not bad men, but when it comes to understanding Jesus, they are not much better off than the Pharisees

Seeing, they do not comprehend; they see enough to align themselves with Jesus and they remain with Him

Unlike the Pharisees, they are not living as enemies of Jesus

However, they still have a kind of blindness

They do not see Jesus for who He is, though they appreciate Him as a healer

They are not completely submitted to Him as Lord, though they are interested in Him as a teacher

They see, in part, but they do not yet see the whole picture of who He is

Where are we? Are we living in blindness?

In his book, An Anthropologist on Mars, neurologist Oliver Sacks tells about Virgil, a man who had been blind from early childhood. When he was 50, Virgil underwent surgery and was given the gift of sight. But as he and Dr. Sacks found out, having the physical capacity for sight is not the same as seeing.

Virgil's first experiences with sight were confusing. He was able to make out colors and movements, but arranging them into a coherent picture was more difficult. Over time he learned to identify various objects, but his habits--his behaviors--were still those of a blind man.

Dr. Sacks asserts, "One must die as a blind person to be born again as a seeing person. It is the interim, the limbo . . . that is so terrible."

To truly see Jesus and his truth means more than observing what he did or said, it means a change of identity.