Many of us played “Blind Man’s Bluff ” as children. It works like this if you have never played it: One group member is blindfolded, and the other players disperse. Then, the blindfolded one must go and find the other players. In some versions, the first person tagged becomes “it.” In other versions, the tagged players are eliminated from the game until all are found.
This game dates back to ancient Greece. The original name was “Blind Man’s Buff.” The buff was a little push given to the person who was “it” to start them in the direction of one of the other players. The account of Jesus healing the blind man in Mark chapter eight brought the game of ‘Blind Man’s Bluff’ to mind. Just as in the game, we humans can often be ‘blindfolded’ to the truth, and we sometimes need a push or nudge to get us headed in the right direction to find it.
The text for our study today is Mark 8:11-26. The healing of the blind man occurs at the end of this account, but to me, it seems clear that the man’s healing is an object lesson for what is happening in the earlier part of the text. My teaching is titled “Can’t You See?”
Listen carefully as I read this portion of Scripture. See if you can trace the unique stages of healing in the blind man and how they correlate with the overall narrative. Even though I’ve read this account many times, I saw some things I had never seen before in this text. See if you, too, can gain some new insight as I read. That’s Mark 8, beginning with verse 11.
The various stages of Jesus’ healing of the blind man are not just physical but also connect with our spiritual vision, serving as a metaphor for our own spiritual growth.
The First STAGE of Spiritual Vision is,
Total Blindness
Our text opens with a confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders. Mark mentions only the Pharisees and the Herodians, but Matthew includes the Sadducees. These groups hated each other, but their mutual hatred for Jesus fulfilled the saying, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” They found common ground in their hatred for the Light.
Having just returned from effective ministry among the Gentiles, Jesus is immediately confronted by the hostile religious leaders. Their menacing attitude was in stark contrast to the open-hearted welcome Jesus received from the Gentiles. Mark says, “They found Him and began disputing with Him.” They began at once and kept it up!
They were asking Jesus for a sign from Heaven. Mark says they were testing Him, and the KJV says, “They were tempting Him.” The difference between a test and a temptation is found in the tester’s motivations and expectations; the devil tempts the believer to fail God’s standards of faith and so sin; God tests that he might determine and sharpen true character, with no focus on making the believer fail. So, tempting seems to be the better word choice here.
Notice, too, that the sign they asked for was from Heaven. It pointed to something beyond itself, a mark of the doer’s power, grace, or connection with the supernatural world. The Rabbis assumed that some of Jesus’ miracles had a natural explanation, and they even accused Him of using the power of Beelzebub. So, they specifically asked for “a sign from heaven.” Most likely, they hoped He would try and fail, and they could discredit Him. Knowing what we know, they would not have believed even if Jesus had fulfilled their request. Skeptics are like that.
In response, Jesus groaned deeply in His spirit, anastanadzo. This word is used in no other place in the New Testament. It is a compound word whose prefix, ana, intensifies its meaning. The Lord’s human spirit was stirred to its depths. It seemed to come, as we say, from the bottom of His heart. The root word, stanadzo, is used in Mark 7 during the healing of the deaf man.
The depth of Jesus’ compassion is genuinely remarkable. His groaning brings to mind His poignant words from Matthew 23:37-39 and His weeping over Jerusalem in Luke 19:41-44.
After they requested a sign, Jesus said, “Why are you asking for a sign? Assuredly, I say to you, no sign shall be given to this generation.” The word generation refers to the people living while Jesus was on earth.
Matthew’s Gospel states, “An evil and adulterous generation craves a sign. Yet no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah because just as Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights, the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment and condemn the people living today, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah. But look—someone greater than Jonah is here!The queen of the south will stand up and condemn the people living today because she came from so far away to hear the wisdom of Solomon. But look! Someone greater than Solomon is here!”
These people, despite their knowledge of the Scriptures and the most minor details of the Mosaic Law, were spiritually blind. They revered the Temple and its sacrifices, tithed scrupulously on the smallest garden herbs, and even knew the prophecies about the coming Messiah. Yet, they failed to recognize Jesus as the fulfillment of these prophecies. Their spiritual blindness is a cautionary tale, urging us to seek spiritual insight lest we fall into the same condition.
First, they refused to accept Scripture that didn’t fit their preconceptions. Oh wow! That error is so prevalent today. Many professing Christians today decide how they want to live and then try to conform God’s Word to their lifestyle instead of allowing the Word of God to shape and mold their lifestyle. If God’s commands bring discomfort in any given area, they reject the teaching as outdated or culturally irrelevant or twist the apparent meaning to suit their ends.
Second, the religious leaders responded to additional light with more intense rejection. You can trace this progression through the Gospel accounts. Like the Pharaoh of Exodus, they hardened their hearts more with each revelation of divine power. Second Corinthians 4:4 reminds us that the god of this age, Satan, blinds the minds of those who don’t believe. Their rejection of truth only leads to deeper darkness.
Further, the guidelines they established to help them obey God’s commands became more important than the commands themselves. They developed a religious system that gradually became devoid of a relationship with the true God. They also compromised the truth to retain their position with the political movements of the day. Even as they cooperated with pagan governments, they longed for autonomy and expected their Messiah to free them from the tyranny of Rome. As a result, they rejected Isaiah’s prophecies of a suffering Messiah.
After this interchange, Jesus left the Pharisees, got into a ship, and sailed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus leaving them is a sobering picture. It indicates that He abandoned them to their self-righteous delusion. Because they refused the light that had been revealed to them in the Scriptures and by Jesus, they became totally blind. And the saddest part of that blindness was that they did not know it!
All humans begin life in a state of total blindness to the things of God. Many, like the Pharisees, persist in that blindness because it serves their selfish goals. They may even adopt an outwardly religious appearance, but darkness still controls their hearts. Let’s ensure we don’t remain in this stage of spiritual blindness.
The Next STAGE of Spiritual Vision is,
Partial Blindness
Now, the focus shifts from the Pharisees to Jesus’s disciples. When embarking on the boat, the disciples had forgotten to take bread, except for one loaf. There was only one loaf to share between the 13 of them, and one loaf wouldn’t be enough for all of them. Bread seems to have a central place in Mark’s narrative; he only records this detail.
As they sail across the Sea of Galilee, Jesus repeatedly admonishes them to “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” Watch out for the adverse effects of this influence! The disciples grew up in a Pharisaic atmosphere and had just met it again in Dalmanutha. The pseudo-spirituality and religious pride were insidious. Jesus combines the leaven of the Pharisees with the leaven of Herod—lousy theology and bad politics combined! In Luke’s account, he identifies the leaven of the Pharisees as hypocrisy.
At any rate, the disciples were discussing Jesus’ warning. They concluded that Jesus spoke this warning because they had forgotten to bring bread for the journey. They had already forgotten the previous interaction with the Pharisees.
I imagine Jesus listening to their discussion with growing dismay. They were missing the point entirely, so He asked them a series of probing questions—six to be exact. First, “Why are you discussing that we have no bread?” Like them, our primary concerns also center around our physical needs. They were wondering where their next meal would come from.
Then, Jesus appeals to their intellect: “Don’t you yet perceive or understand? Don’t you realize I’m not talking about physical bread?” Jesus warns them about the insidious influence of the Pharisees’ teaching; like yeast spreading through the dough, it affects the whole batch.
Next, He appeals to their hearts or spirits by asking, “Is your heart still hardened?” In our earlier teaching from Mark chapter six, we read about the feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus’ walking on the water. At the conclusion, we read, “And they were greatly amazed in themselves beyond measure, and marveled, for they had not understood about the loaves because their heart was hardened.” Jesus is wondering if anything has changed in their hearts.
He continues, “Do you have eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear?” Had their senses failed them? They had witnessed many miracles and heard Him teach so often, yet it all seemed forgotten. “Don’t you remember my miraculous provision for the multitudes?” They had witnessed these events even to the point of participating in distributing the bread and fish. Yet here they were, concerned about where they might find bread.
Jesus follows up these six questions with a few more questions about feeding these two large groups of people. “When I broke the loaves for the 5,000, how many handbaskets of fragments were left over?” They answered Him, “Twelve.” “And when I broke the seven loaves for the 4,000, how many large baskets of fragments did you gather up?” They answered, “Seven.”
Jesus returns to the second question of verse 17: “How is it that you don’t understand?” After all this rebuke and explanation, the greatest of all teachers with the greatest of all classes struck a snag here. These questions reveal Jesus’ disappointment at His disciples’ intellectual and spiritual dullness. They could see, but they couldn’t see clearly. Their focus on the physical obstructed their intellectual and spiritual sight. Jesus’s patience is admirable!
How much we are like Jesus’ disciples today. We are so preoccupied with the physical aspect of our existence that we lose sight of what really matters. How often do we allow heavenly realities to be crowded out of our lives because we focus on the material? Consider the words of Jesus. “Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
Let’s learn from the disciples’ mistakes and ensure our vision is clear and unobstructed.
The Final STAGE of Spiritual Vision is,
Perfect Sight
Jesus caps this teaching section by giving the Twelve an object lesson they will never forget. As their boat lands at Bethsaida, immediately, a blind man is brought to Jesus by his friends. They begged Jesus to touch him and restore his sight. Remember, Bethsaida is not far from where Jesus fed the 5,000. (The wheel has made a full circle).
Jesus takes the man by the hand and leads him out of the town, away from the crowd. Remember that Jesus is in that season of His ministry where he is retiring from the public eye. This event marks His fourth withdrawal from Galilee.
Once Jesus and the blind man were alone, Jesus moistened his eyes with saliva and laid His hands on him. Then He asked, “Do you see anything?” The man responded, “I see men, like trees, walking.” This is the only miracle that Jesus performed gradually, in stages. The formerly blind man could tell that what he saw were men because they were walking, but evidently, they were quite blurred.
So, Jesus put His hands on the man’s eyes again. This time, his sight was fully restored, and he could see everything clearly. His blindness and blurred vision were gone! His healing was complete, and he kept seeing everything clearly, whether near or far away. The grammar assures us that his healing was permanent.
Jesus sent Him away to his home after the healing was completed. Try to imagine the joyful event that was. For reasons we learned earlier in our study of Mark, he was forbidden to enter the village and create excitement, and Jesus also forbade him to spread the news of his miraculous healing.
The blind man mirrors the progression of sight in this text. He went from entirely blind = Pharisees, to partial sight = disciples, to seeing everything clearly. His healing illustrates the clarity of sight Jesus wants to give everyone.
Would Jesus ask these same questions of you and me today? At what stage is your spiritual vision? Are you still willfully blind to the truth like the Pharisees? Are you hiding behind a cloak of religion?
Is your vision distorted or blurry because of your focus on the temporary things of this life? Ask Jesus to touch you and clarify your sight so you can focus on what is eternal.
Or has your sight been completely and gloriously restored by the touch of the Master’s hand? If so, praise God and tell others how they, too, can have their sight restored.
If you are spiritually blind or can’t see clearly, today is the day to accept Jesus’ touch and gain your perfect vision!
