Week 5 - Healing the Blind

I Can See Clearly Now Mark 8:22-26 – Healing the Blind 12 September 2021 Rev’d Chris Johnson This morning we’ve heard a beautiful story about a blind man who receives his sight from Jesus healing touch. It’s a story which wonderfully illustrates the theme of our whole series – “I can see clearly now.” What makes this healing so appropriate to our theme is the way it takes place gradually. At first the blind man sees people as trees then with the second touch his sight is fully restored, and he sees everything clearly. This parallels beautifully the spiritual insight which is only coming gradually to the crowds and the apostles as Mark’s Gospel progresses. You could easily read the stories in Mark as individual unrelated vignettes of Jesus ministry, but if you look closely you will see them building an intentional theme. The stories operate at, at least two levels and it is important to understand this to pick up the themes that link them. The stories we have read over the last three weeks have been • the healing of the deaf and mute man • The feeding of the 4000 • The misunderstanding of the disciples about the feeding of the 4000 And now we come to the healing of the blind man. Firstly, the parallels of the two healing stories are quite remarkable. • • • • -In both stories it is friends who bring the disabled person to Jesus. -In both stories Jesus takes the person aside from the crowds to do the healing. -In both stories Jesus uses spittle and touch to effect the healing. -In both stories there is a positive statement of faith about Jesus following the healing. For the deaf and mute man the people are amazed and say, “He has done everything well.” With the blind man it is Peter who a few verses later will declare Jesus is the Messiah. • In both stories Jesus shies away from publicity. He commands the crowd with the deaf man to not tell anyone. He tells the blind man to go straight home and not enter the village. • Both stories are presenting us with an act of compassion on Jesus part healing a person in need. But at another level they are pointing to the need for spiritual healing and spiritual sight. This comes with a true understanding of who Jesus is and what it came to do. There is of course one big difference between the two stories. • The deaf and mute man is healed immediately. • The blind man is healed gradually. 1 But in both cases the healing is thorough and complete. In the case of the blind man it is reinforced three times. V25 says • • • His eyes were opened His sight was restored He saw everything clearly I think Mark wants to convey the idea that he really was healed. Next if we look at the feeding of the 4,000 and especially the disciple’s response; once again there are parallels with the healing of the blind man. The disciples see the feeding of the crowd purely at a material level. They got food for their hungry tummies. But Jesus says in v17 • • • • Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see? And ears but fail to hear? These are very pointed questions when they are positioned between the healing of a deaf man and the healing of a blind man. Jesus is talking about their spiritual ears and spiritual eyes. Their hard heart and lack of understanding is about not understanding who Jesus is and the mission he is accomplishing. This mission of course is the fulfilment of the prophecies of Isaiah. Previously we looked at Isaiah 35 verse 5 –“Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped and the mute tongue will shout for joy.” This morning our Old Testament reading points us to Isaiah 29:18, “In that day the deaf will hear the words of the scroll, and out of gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.” Isaiah is talking about the coming of the Messiah. The Jewish understanding was that the Messiah would introduce a new age of God's Kingdom where the creation would be restored and all sickness and disease healed. The disciples should have been reading the signs and working out who Jesus really was. But instead, Jesus has to say to them, “Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened?” Let’s now look at the passage which follows the healing of the blind man. Of course I will look at this in more detail next week but I want you to see the connection with the blind man. The story which follows is Jesus taking his disciples to Caesarea Philippi and asking them those famous questions, “Who do people say I am? And who do you say I am?” The people say that Jesus is a prophet, like John the Baptist or Elijah. Peter answers on behalf of the apostles, “You are the Messiah.” Just as the blind man received his sight progressively, I want you to notice the progression of understanding here about Jesus. Remember we are looking at spiritual sight, spiritual understanding. The crowd understand Jesus to only be a prophet. It is Peter who has a deeper understanding, Jesus is the Messiah. It is Peter who is seeing clearly; … or is he? There are actually a couple of steps here in Peter’s understanding as well. Yes, he knows that Jesus is the Messiah, but he doesn't yet understand the mission of the Messiah. Jesus says he is a Messiah 2 who will have to suffer many things and be rejected and killed, but after three days rise again. This is not Peter’s understanding. He is still blind to this level of understanding. So for now we could say that Peter is at the level of seeing people like trees. He has yet to see everything clearly. He does get to that point and it's his speech on the day of Pentecost which is clear evidence of that. There he pulls together a number of Old Testament passages to show that the new age has come. He shows that Jesus is a crucified Messiah who has been raised from the dead. He now gets it. He sees clearly. APPLICATION I want to draw two applications from this passage this morning. The first one is to do with the planning process. Some of you may be scratching your head and wondering what's it all about, how's it going to work? Don't get too worried if your understanding is gradual. Just go with the flow and involve yourself at each point where you are invited to participate. God will provide the insight you need about the process, but more importantly he will provide you with the contribution that is needed at each stage. So far you have been • invited to prayer - in your personal prayers, in your Connect group, in our special prayer groups we’ve set up. I encourage you to join one of our special prayer groups. • invited to be part of a survey which was sent out last Thursday. If you didn’t receive it please let us know. Please take the time to fill it in and make your contribution. • and you are invited to an all of Church Planning Day on 2 October. Please come and be a part of planning for our future. So at this stage of the process we are probably still seeing people like trees. We can see we have a great mission before us but we are waiting for it to come into full focus. Keep praying because I believe Jesus is with us and he will keep touching us until we see clearly. So I encourage your involvement in the planning process. My second application arises out of my personal testimony. • There was a time when I thought the gospel stories were simply good moral teaching to help me be a better person. • There was a time when I thought they were all individual stories without much relationship to one another. I thought I was a Christian because I was working hard at being a better person from reading them. But they were always a burden to me and to be honest I didn't read them very often because quite frankly they were just too hard to put into practice. But the problem was, I was only reading them at a human level. It was like you read a self-help book to try and help you cope with life better but in the end it's still all about you. At that point in my life I was spiritually blind; as Jesus said elsewhere ‘having the form of religion but denying the power of it.’ What made the difference? The difference is understanding who it is who is giving this teaching. The difference is discovering that I can’t live up to this teaching, so I have to stop trying to save myself and turn to Jesus to save me. And you know the wonderful thing is that when I trust him, he wins my heart to a new obedience. 3 So when you read the stories in Mark, or for that matter in any of the Gospels, do you read them as simply good moral teaching, or do you read them in order to understand more about your Saviour. Do you read them asking God to open your spiritual eyes about the enormity of who Jesus is and what he's done for you in his death and resurrection. Are you reading them in order to fall more in love with Jesus. I recently heard the testimony of a person who said that in the younger years they went to a church school and their memory of the Christian teaching was about trying to be a better person, trying to live up to certain ideals and being person of good character. They said they didn't hear a lot about who Jesus was and his mission accomplished at the cross. Now it may be those things were talked about and it is just that this person’s spiritual eyes were not open to see it. But how sad if the Church is teaching morality and ethics but not Jesus. CONCLUSION So my friends what about you? Is your Christianity primarily about you trying to be a better person or about coming to a deeper appreciation of Jesus. Spiritual sight is not about personal moral striving, it's about understanding who Jesus is and that he came to save you. It is really quite simple, stop trying to save yourself and simply trust him as your Saviour. Let Jesus touch your life like he did the blind man in our story. And you will have your eyes opened, you’ll be healed, and you will be able to say with the blind man, “I can see clearly now.” 4