Eyes to See

Introduction

I want to start with a few questions. First, consider this: what has God been doing in your life that you are totally unaware of? What have you missed? Do you have eyes to see the work that God is doing in your life? The other question is for anyone who has had any doubts in their faith: what would it take for you to believe? How would you finish this sentence: If God would only do…blank…then I will totally believe, never doubt again. What would it be?

I ask those questions today because here is something true about people: we are forgetful, we are skeptical, we will miss the point, we are cynical, and we are pre-conditioned to unbelief. That’s what we’ll see in the passage today, but we’ll also see good examples of faith, and that gets us to our main idea today:

Main Idea: We’re invited to have eyes to see the presence of Christ in our lives and the power of Christ at work in us and therefore respond with faith.

Let us have eyes to see and thus believe!

Good faith of the Gentile crowds

I want to start with the positive example of faith, the crowds of people that Jesus compassionately feeds. This may feel like deja vu, a great crowd has gathered, they’re hungry, there’s not enough food. Haven’t we heard all this before? Of course, we just read this in Mark 6 when Jesus fed 5,000 people. But the text makes clear that this is a unique event.

This is a different crowd. Because of, geographically, where Jesus was, this was probably a crowd of Gentiles, he’s in a heavily Gentile populated area whereas at the first large feeding in Mark 6, the audience would have been mostly Jews. In Mark 6, if you remember, Jesus is actually trying to get away, but the crowd recognized him, then all the people are scrambling to get close to him. And in Mark 6 it is reported that Jesus “had compassion [same word as here in ch. 8] on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Mark 6:34. Jesus then began teaching to the people, the hour became late and the disciples bring up their concern about feeding the people.

But here it is almost an opposite situation. A great crowd had gathered and apparently they had been with Jesus for three days with nothing to eat. Three days in his very presence, hearing his teaching, captivated by this savior that was not one of their own.

They were so captivated by the message and teaching of Jesus that three days flew by. And it’s Jesus who finally has to say something to his disciples about getting the people food. Remember in the first feeding it was the disciples on the first day concerned for the hunger of the people; now it is three days and it’s Jesus that has to say something. He has compassion on them, not because they are without a shepherd for it seems as though they’ve found their shepherd in Him. He wants to feed them and care for them when they have demanded nothing from him, but they have taken great joy in his presence. So compelling was the simple presence of Christ that nothing else mattered. They listened to him teach for three days without complaint!

This Gentile crowd has come to the point that many of us get to in our lives: this Jesus and His message are what have been missing from our lives all along. They have found their shepherd and they are ready to put their faith in Him, they have ears to hear his message and eyes to see His work.

We don’t know what he taught, but it seems that this crowd of people recognized something in Jesus that could fill that longing in their hearts, that ache that every human heart has for a savior. So many people fill that ache with different things, with comforts, by chasing after idols, by searching for success or good works, thinking these things will satisfy us. But all those things will fail, we will inevitably find ourselves hungry for something more that can only be satisfied by him. This crowd, they’re all in on Jesus, letting go of the things of this world to be with Him.

And Jesus responds gently to these people, taking care of their needs, meeting them in their hunger, but also meeting them in their great faith. The crowd has demonstrated their spiritual values by sitting rapt by the teacher for three days. It reminds me of when Jesus says in Matthew 6:33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” This crowd embodies the seeking-first mentality, embodies that beatitude that says: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” They were satisfied, spiritually and physically by their savior.

But look at how the disciples respond: Mark 8:4 “And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?””

How can we feed them? These are the same disciples that were present when Jesus fed the first crowd of 5,000. Did they forget? Or is it something else? I think they fail on two counts that are connected: first, they fail to remember fully the first miraculous feeding, they have forgotten God’s provision in the past. Has this ever been you? God worked miraculously in your life, an unexpected provision, an unexpected relief, a healing, something so evidently of God there was no doubt in your mind that it was Him showing His care for you or moving through you only to kind of forget all about it a year later, five years later. I’m guilty of this kind of forgetfulness.

This is Israel in the wilderness. In Exodus 15, the people of God have been delivered from Egypt and across the Red Sea, and they come to the wilderness with no water to drink. The Lord then miraculously gives them clean water and then feeds them with Manna! Only two chapters later in Exodus 17 they grumble again about having no water to drink. And this is what they say after God has already provided so abundantly: Exodus 17:3 “The people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”” And yet God delivers again, miraculously with water from Heaven.

You see, we forget, it’s what I said at early: we are pre-conditioned to unbelief. It’s why I asked that question: what would it take from God to get you to put away all of your doubts. That’s not how faith works, and that’s not how we fight against our condition of unbelief. Because our forgetfulness of God’s previous provision reinforces our doubts about today. We forget what God did before and that leaves room for our doubts now.

The other way the disciples failed was in their inability to see that Jesus would do a miracle like this for a Gentile crowd. For three days it never occurs to them that Jesus might want to care for this Gentile crowd with food. If the disciples had the first feeding miracle on their mind, you can almost see them saying, “Yeah, but he wouldn’t do that again, not here, with these people, these Gentiles.”

They failed to understand the widening dimensions of Christ’s Kingdom, that He would provide bread for Gentiles just as God provided bread for the Israelites in the wilderness. And you see the consequence? Their lack of care for the Gentiles reinforces their lack of faith in Jesus. They did not have eyes to see that surely Jesus would compassionately care for these people just as well.

And that kind of self-importance is only magnified by the next section of our text today: the appearance of the Pharisees.

Bad faith of the Pharisees

The faith of the Gentile crowd stands in stark contrast with the encounter with the Pharisees. Jesus and his disciples set out again on boat and return to a Jewish region and Mark 8:11 “The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, seeking from him a sign from heaven to test him.”

And we know know that they’re asking in bad faith, they’re NOT asking for a sign with an openness to believe but rather as a way to test or trap him. This request becomes an excuse for continued rejection despite plenty of evidence through Jesus’ teaching and his miraculous ministry.

They’ve seen Jesus heal the sick, give sight to the blind, feed the hungry, cast out demons, teach as one with authority, fulfill the prophesy of scripture, and yet they still deny Him, they still cannot put their faith in Him. And now they want a sign? What would be enough? What would be sufficient to rescue them from their condition of unbelief? No sign could do that. They are settled in their rejection of him.

Jesus sighs, I think not with disappointment or anger, but out of deep grief for this people who were rejecting him so readily. Jesus’ grief is that they fail to see the continual, ever-present miraculous work of God all around them. Psalm 19:1 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” From Jesus’ perspective, anyone with eyes to see would recognize God in even the smallest details of his creation. Let us not be like this, demanding God work in our lives (“God if you would only come through in this situation…this promotion…this test result…then I’ll really believe!”) only to miss the miracles all around us, his work all around us.

I should say here that doubt is OK, doubt can be so constructive. When we doubt, when we name it, that’s a part of the process by which we wrestle or struggle through our doubt into deepened faith. The Pharisees are not doubting in good faith, they’re rejecting him outright.

They are lost in their self-importance, their desire to control Jesus (we demand a sign!), their self-righteousness and self-centeredness, these reinforce their condition of unbelief and further blind their eyes from seeing the work of God all around them.

Let us not be tempted into this kind of self-importance that we think we can demand something from God in order to test him. If our posture is demand and ultimatum, then we are further down the road of unbelief that we care to admit.

If the crowds respond in good faith and the Pharisees in bad faith, this, once again, brings us to the disciples who seem to continue on in their confused faith.

Confused faith of the disciples

Again and again, they’re showing us what it means to miss the point. The final scene in our passage is Jesus giving the disciples a warning when they’re alone again on the boat. The warning is about the “leaven” or “yeast” of the Pharisees and Herod.

Mark 8:15 “And he cautioned them, saying, “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.””

His warning is about how even a small amount of rejection and staunch unbelief has the potential to effect everything and everyone else. And that is an important warning about our condition of unbelief, that it can be infectious and perpetuated throughout a community. But they don’t hear this.

You see, what was their concern? They were worried about not having enough food for themselves for they only had one loaf of bread. Jesus gives them this separate warning and uses the word yeast and all of a sudden they’re worked up again about their perceived lack of bread.

Mark 8:16 “And they began discussing with one another the fact that they had no bread.”

You can almost hear Jesus sigh. If it were me, I might respond with an exasperated: Really?? They had now seen him do two miraculous feedings, nearly 10,000 people with a few loaves of bread and fish and each time, there were leftovers! I love the way he reminds them: Mark 8:19–20 “When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They said to him, “Twelve.” “And the seven for the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” And they said to him, “Seven.””

Mark 8:21 “And he said to them, “Do you not yet understand?”” They had seen the miraculous work he could do, they’d seen the healings, heard his teaching, and yet when it came to themselves, their own anxieties, worries, and emotions got in the way of faith. Well, maybe he would do that for the crowds, but for not for us, right? Yet even one loaf is far more than they needed, for they had Christ with them!

Are you ever tempted to think that? To believe in Jesus for someone else but not your own situation? You ever give that good advice to a friend who’s going through a trial to remain strong in their faith, to trust God, but for whatever reason you can’t apply that same trust to your own trial? To your own grief or sorrow?

And when we are guided by worry, we revert that impulse in all of us toward unbelief. But Jesus pivots, reminds them of what they’ve already so clearly seen from him, they’re meant to take Him at his word and trust in what they’ve already seen. I said it earlier, I’ll say it again: Our own forgetfulness of God’s goodness yesterday reinforces our doubts today.

Because of our condition toward unbelief we vacillate between our own self-righteousness like the Pharisees or to our own self-pity like the disciples. But instead of looking toward ourselves, let us look toward Jesus. Let us be like the crowd of Gentiles that found themselves in his presence for three days, so captivated by his gospel teaching.

C.S. Lewis wrote this about the surprising challenge of unbelief in Mere Christianity. He talks about humans being ruled by our ever-changing moods and emotions rather than by reason or conviction. But he then offers a strategy toward deeper faith:

“Make sure, if you have once accepted Christianity, that [the Gospel] be deliberately held before your mind for some time every day. That is why daily prayers and religious reading and churchgoing are necessary parts of the Christian life. We have to be continually reminded of what we believe. Neither this belief nor any other will automatically remain alive in the mind. It must be fed. And as a matter of fact, if you examined a hundred people who had lost their faith in Christianity, I wonder how many of them would turn out to have been reasoned out of it by honest argument? Do not most people simply drift away?”

Lewis commends us to be reminded of the Gospel each day. Are you looking for a reminder? Are you looking for a miracle? Look no further than your own heart. What’s a greater miracle than feeding 4,000? It’s that any one of us could be saved from our sin and into eternal life with Christ. And it’s not just you or me, it’s a whole community. Look around, it’s a miracle that this community of people have all found faith to some degree and gather together to praise the Lord. The care and love we have for one another in this place and into our community is a miracle of our changed hearts in Christ, thus our acts of love and service are themselves reminders to one another of the Gospel. [faking it?]

You’ll see in your outline today a question for reflection: What is something God has done in your life in the past year? It’s a good question because we might be able to say intellectually God is at work, but how often to we really pause, look backward to recognize and remind ourselves of what He has done. Was it provision when you thought there was no way forward? Maybe it was the first steps of a relationship being healed? Or did He guide you through an important decision? Make this a regular practice, make this a question you ask others. Let us be reminded of the good work of God so that we would have eyes to see it all around us.

And if that question is challenging for you, if it’s been a particularly difficult year, I would start by asking God to show you. Ask him to give you eyes to see. Rest in the fact that even through great trial He has sustained you, He has had compassion on you, even if you are hungry and waiting for relief, He is with you.

The passage ends with these words: “Do you not yet understand?” this is far deeper than just about bread or miracles, they don’t understand yet who Jesus is. He came not to offer bread, but to offer himself that his body and blood would be a sacrifice not just these disciples, not just for the crowds, but for all who would believe in him. Jesus went hungry on the cross so we could be fed, He was forsaken so we could have the greatest miracle: his death and resurrection for us. He died so he could reach into each one of our hearts and rescue us from our fatal condition of unbelief. He gives us new hearts, he gives us eyes to see. Let us believe this and be reminded of it often. Amen.