Seeing Clearly: Mark 8:22-26

Well, sermon scripture reading this morning comes from Mark.

We continue in the Gospel of Mark this morning, chapter 8, verses 22 through 26.

And so please follow along in your bulletins.

You have your Bibles there and your cheers in front of you, however, you'd like to follow along.

Hear now the reading of God's holy word.

And they came to Bethsaida, and some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him.

And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village.

And when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, Do you see anything?

And he looked up and he said, I see people, but they look like trees walking.

Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and he opened his eyes.

His sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

And he sent him to his home, saying, Do not even enter the village.

Let's pray.

And we pray, Holy Spirit, that we're desperate to see you work in and through your word in ways that would reveal your glory to us.

Oh Lord, we we need you.

We need you.

And so Lord, give us the eyes to see, we pray.

In the precious name and power of your Holy Spirit.

Amen.

So, as I said, we began, we continue on our study in Mark's gospel this morning.

The benefit, I think, in reading through the gospel in a way that's kind of from beginning to end like this is apparent in a situation like we've just read.

Because without context, this remarkable miracle that we just read of can just raise a whole lot more questions and answers and can confuse us a little bit.

Because on the surface of things, when we look at what we've just read, it looks like that Jesus may have just encountered some sort of short circuit in his power and ability to heal this man, and that he needed uh just another go of it in order to make his healing complete.

But you see, by now we know that Jesus has power over nature, he has power over the demonic realm, he has power over storms, he has power over uh illnesses and ailments.

He's healed from afar and he's healed up close.

And so what we know of Jesus having seen this is that he could have easily just healed the man.

But he chose not to on this particular occasion.

And the question that is raised, and it can puzzle us, is why?

What are we to make of a situation where Jesus leads this man out of the city and performs this miracle?

What are we to make of this situation where he gives him partial healing only then to go on and give him full restoration of sight?

And essentially all the commentators on this passage agree that Jesus is doing more than just healing the blind man here.

Although this healing happens in real time, real space, real history, Jesus intends to use this healing to teach the disciples, and therefore us.

Nothing that Jesus does is without intention, without purpose.

He knows what he's doing.

And so he's clearly doing something purposeful here.

And all of this is headed toward the question that we later read on in a few verses later that Jesus asked the disciples, Who do you say that I am?

Who do you say that I am?

All of it's heading toward that kind of question.

And that's kind of a quite a question, is it not?

Imagine uh if you and I were to study for three years or so under a certain professor, and that professor were to say at the end of that time of learning, guys, we've been studying all of this and spend all this time together to ask you a simple question.

Who do you say that I am?

We might ask for our money back.

Right?

But but you see, when it comes to Jesus, this is a question of ultimate reality.

And so Jesus intends to teach the disciples and therefore us through this healing miracle.

But before I get to uh to to spend time on what I think he intends to teach us, I want to give a moment just to seeing once again the importance of intercession.

We see that the man here was led to Jesus once again by others.

He he came in a community of others.

And that began by begging.

They began by begging to Jesus, imploring him for his intervention.

And so I hope that's starting to sink in by now as we read of this once again.

This earnest request, this earnest intercession on behalf of another, how many times have we already seen that in the Gospel of Mark?

A father, a mother, uh a neighbor, a friend.

This time we don't even know what the relationship was.

It says some people brought to Jesus this man.

And so as we see Jesus' willingness to come again and again and answer bold, earnest requests.

I hope it has you being spurred on in your own prayer life, in your own intercession for others, seeking his intervention in the lives of others.

I hope it's causing you to develop a more richer prayer life, humbly pleading the mercy of God for the things that are on your heart.

Again, this encounter has so much, I think, to give us hope in this regard because it reminds us that whereas we may come to our limits in relating with others, we always have hope.

It may be the sincerest desire of your heart and mind to see someone change in our lives.

Perhaps that's you now.

You may be holding the hand, as it were, of a child, a friend, a spouse, a parent.

And you may be at the limit of knowing how to help.

You don't know how to move forward.

There are times when we feel our limitations and knowing what to do, and we feel our powerlessness to do anything about it.

We lack the resources, whether that's knowledge, whether that's strength, whether that's ability, and how comforting it is to go once again to Jesus so that where our hands and abilities may and power may find their end, we can entrust them to Jesus, to take them into his hand and intervene in ways that we cannot.

So let's intercede for others and ask for a growing heart of intercession.

So that being said, there are three truths that I want to draw out from Jesus' miracle.

The first is that we are all spiritually blind.

The second, we mustn't be content with blurry vision.

And then third, the cure to blindness.

We're all spiritually blind, we mustn't be content with blurry vision and the cure to blindness.

Jesus' point here is that without divine intervention, we can't see spiritually.

And we only have to look at the landscape that Jesus is in here to see this.

We see the Pharisees, the Pharisees can't see.

They were the religious leaders, and they they were earnest, and they weren't earnest inquirers of Jesus.

They had come to Jesus with their minds made up.

And although they acknowledged the scriptures, although they knew the scriptures actually quite well, being familiar with them, studying them, they couldn't see.

They just said to Jesus, Jesus, if you're the one, if you're the Christ, we want a sign.

And Jesus says to them, No, I'm not going to give you another sign.

And the reason he does that is because he knew that even if he'd give them another sign, that wasn't going to change anything.

They'd already told him when he performed many signs before.

They said, Well, actually, let's use this against them.

They conspired against him.

They said, Well, actually, the power that you're doing these things is from Balgebo.

It's a dark power.

And so they were willing to even turn these signs and try to discredit Jesus' ministry.

And so Jesus says, I'm not going to give you another sign because that's not the root of the problem.

The root of the problem is your hearts.

You see, the Pharisees had envisioned what they thought the end ought to be.

And Jesus didn't fit their mold.

He wasn't shaping up to be the kind of king that they had pictured.

And all the while the scriptures are being fulfilled right under their noses.

I mean, that's why we read from Isaiah earlier.

To see that Jesus was accomplishing all that the prophets had said would be accomplished.

There's another promise, Isaiah 35, 5.

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

We just read in chapter 7, 31 through 37.

The deaf man has his ears opened.

Ears were being unstopped, as the promise said.

Jesus is doing that in their midst.

They can't see it.

Here in this encounter, this man has his eyes opened.

Again, fulfilling the promise.

It was happening in their midst, and they couldn't see it.

They lacked the spiritual perception.

That's the pervasiveness of the darkness.

I think this is very important when it comes to how we view the scriptures, because there's still a great problem in this regard that keeps many in darkness.

Many today, I think, they want to, you want to use the world as a lens by which to make sense of God and the scriptures.

And the problem is that when it doesn't fit their view, they begin to tamper with it or reject it.

Now, many might not be quite as honest as Thomas Jefferson, who cut out sections of his Bible and tried to glue it together and paste it to his own liking.

But it's the same posture of heart.

The sense is we need to, we need, we want to be the authority over Scripture rather than submitting to its authority.

Humility, you see, does the opposite.

It submits to the authority of the scriptures and the authority of Christ, and it seeks to change according to what it reveals.

You see, it wasn't only the Pharisees that couldn't see, it was also the crowds who couldn't see.

A few moments later, Jesus says to the disciples, he says, Who do people say that I am?

And they they reply with the prevailing theories.

Well, Jesus, uh, some say John the Baptist.

Uh others say, Jesus, that you're that you're Elijah.

And others still say that you're one of the prophets.

So even the crowds, despite what they've seen, whatever the what they've heard, they were still blind to the truth.

And then you have the disciples.

The whole reason we just read that they began fretting about bread and having only one loaf in the boat was because they lacked the ability to be able to perceive what Jesus had been doing and who he was saying that he was.

Right?

So when Jesus talks about the leaven of Herod and the Pharisees, they think he's talking about bread.

And they're saying, we only bought one loaf from the boat.

And they start to go back and forth about this.

And Jesus is saying, Can't you see?

I'm not talking about lunch.

How many baskets were left after I fed the 5,000?

Or 12, Jesus.

And how many baskets were left over when I fed the 4,000, guys?

Or seven, Jesus.

Can't you see?

Completeness, perfection, I'm the Christ.

And so the point is, it's not just the Pharisees, it's not just the crowds, it's everyone.

We can see how pervasive the darkness is.

It doesn't matter if you're white collar or blue collar, it doesn't matter if you're you have degrees by your name, if you have great resources or few resources, neither age nor stage, the pervasiveness of the darkness doesn't escape anyone.

I think we like to give ourselves far too much credit.

We think that we just need to keep searching and keep looking, more education, more study, and particularly now more content with the internet at our fingertips.

But you see, we can do all of that and there'd be no change to our spiritual vision.

Why?

Because we're still living in the pride of our own self-sufficiency.

We Washingtonians are particularly challenged in regard to this.

We're so addicted to self-sufficiency.

We're so addicted to our own independence.

We don't want to be in a place of need.

We want to feel competent.

We want to feel able and knowledgeable.

And we would rather posture that kind of life than submit to Jesus' control.

Would rather work for something or rely on our own knowledge than admit that we don't know.

And so the Bible says you're so dominated by self-sufficiency and pride that you can't see.

And the only way to change that is to humbly admit your need for Jesus to show you what you can't see.

What do we say to that?

Well, we say, well sure, sure.

I perhaps don't know all that I could know or should know, but I'm on the path.

With a few more podcasts and a few more classes, I can be led to see.

I think Jesus is saying here, no, you can't.

Not without divine intervention.

Not without me choosing to reveal myself to you.

Because you see, relationship involves self-disclosure, uh, the sharing of feelings, of thoughts, of experiences, sharing plans, sharing intentions, sharing purposes.

So in order to see, Jesus must reveal himself, and the good news of the gospel tells us that he came to do that.

I mean, that's where the hope for us lies.

Jesus discloses himself through his word and spirit, ultimately giving us a window into ultimate reality.

So when Jesus intervenes in our lives and our hearts, he shears himself.

He illumines.

It's a change from darkness to light, from blindness to seeing the kingdom of God.

So what are the implications of this, practically speaking?

One of the implications of this is that we ought to have a degree of sympathy toward others.

Why so?

Because anyone who has experienced this kind of light knows it to be a gift.

It's not something that we can muster up or that comes from us.

It's something that comes to us from God.

And because it's a gift, we can have compassion on uh on other people.

We can say, but for the grace of God, I would also be there.

Uh Paul, the apostle, said this about the rulers in his day.

He said, he said, none of the rulers understood the wisdom of God that we see in the gospel.

If they had, they wouldn't have crucified the Lord of glory.

And so, although he doesn't excuse it, we we see the charity in the statement.

Right?

In other words, they weren't stupid.

They weren't uncapable people.

Many of them likely possessed great intelligence.

They were just acting in line with what they thought was right.

And so we can have compassion on people around us and have an understanding in some respects about why they do the things that they do.

And that was us.

The way in which you know that you're seeing with this light is that the gospel takes on a whole new meaning and dimension in your life.

It's not something just nice to know.

You begin to see it as a power that's at work within you.

You see it as something that brings you to see the glories of Jesus.

Right?

And his light and his love and his riches.

And so we can have compassion upon people around us.

You can look back in five and ten years and you can be like, man, I was so foolish and ignorant.

And you can and you know that it was because you didn't possess the same spiritual understanding as you do now.

You realize that if Jesus didn't choose to reveal himself to you in the way that he has done, you wouldn't know what you know now.

And that means you can hopefully say the same thing about yourself in five or ten years, which means you're still foolish, just less so.

Are you seeing the glory of Jesus in a way that you could never see before?

Are you seeing the gospel as a power?

Jesus came to bring us out of darkness.

That's the first thing.

The second is what are we blind to?

What do we make of this partial sight that this man was given?

This need for Jesus' ongoing touch.

The point Jesus is making in this particular healing by doing it in stages is a kind of parable where he's saying, you guys, you disciples have some degree of spiritual perception, but it's limited.

You mustn't rest content with blurred spiritual vision.

In other words, when it comes to the darkness, Jesus is saying that we need a holy dissatisfaction with seeing the way that we see now.

None of us has perfect vision.

We all need his ongoing touch.

I think of our children when they were infants, and uh on occasion I would I would try getting their attention from across the room, forgetting that their vision was was quite limited.

Right?

When babies are firstborn, they have very limited abilities to see.

And I would forget that, and I and and and I was reminded that I would have to go right up close to their faces in order to try to get a response from them.

It wasn't until they were more closer to like a year of age that they could see with greater clarity and perception.

Jesus is saying something like that here.

He's saying, don't get caught up in infancy.

Don't be tempted to think that just because.

You have seen something or can see something, that now you see everything.

When it comes to spiritual things, the state of the heart matters.

Tim Keller uses a helpful illustration in this regard.

He said he had a friend who would sometimes pick him up in his car and on occasion give him a ride.

And when he would come into his car, he would notice that he wouldn't be wearing, his friend wouldn't be wearing a seatbelt.

And he would say to him, You need to be wearing your seatbelt.

But although he heard it, it just didn't seem to be a sticking point with him.

But then on a different occasion, his friend came and he picked him up.

And Tim noticed that his friend was now wearing a seatbelt.

And he made a point of saying to him, You're wearing your seatbelt.

And his friend said, Yeah, I had an experience where a friend had an accident and it required them to get 120 plus stitches in their face and body.

And hit the windshield.

And so he saw the severity of not wearing a seatbelt.

And so they talked about it a little bit.

Tim was like, yeah, but didn't you know that an accident could do that?

And he was like, Yes, yes, I did.

But not like I know now.

Now, why the change?

Well, the issue wasn't that he had received more information.

He had been told plenty of times he ought to put his belt on.

It was that now he had reason to take it to heart.

His friend's accident, you see, had humbled him.

And so he was now where this was now previously an abstract thing to him.

Now it was personal.

Now it had moved into a place of understanding.

And sometimes the light of Jesus that he gives to us may not be more information, but a conversation about the posture and state of our hearts.

Sometimes that has led to my own examining.

Josh, are you really being humble?

Josh, are you really listening?

Are you really taking this in?

Is the truth really penetrating your heart?

Or is it bouncing off?

Dr.

Martin Lloyd Jones, pastor at Westminster Chapel in England, had a very interesting take on this when he preached a sermon.

He saw this as a condition of many that he thought characterized a number of people, certainly in his day, but certainly today also.

He said, There are people who are led into this first stage of sight, but they they never seem to go on further to a place of clarity.

He said, you know, they might know the doctrine of justification by faith.

We would understand them to be Christians, but they never seem to move beyond that.

They're tempted to think that this is all that is intended for them in the Christian life.

So they remain content in this first stage of sight, and they're stuck in this position of this man in the first stage who saw people, but like trees walking.

You see, they have some sight.

They know something of the truth of the gospel, but not with a holy dissatisfaction that seeks to see with clarity.

And so his point here was to challenge a contentedness with this limited sight, this blurry vision.

The temptation being that we can all settle with a limited spiritual perception and remain in infancy.

And yet we mustn't do that.

Jesus is saying there's far more to this faith that I would have you to see that leads to more stability, that leads to more certainty, that leads to more depth, that leads to more height, that leads to more beauty.

More of his light.

I think this is a good caution to familiarity.

Familiarity with Jesus is a great and a precious gift.

But we see from the disciples that familiarity, while beneficial, doesn't necessarily lead to spiritual perception and understanding.

Why?

Well, again, because when it comes to learning from Jesus, the state of our hearts matter.

Although we have been given Jesus' mind when we come to faith in Christ, we can fall into the trap of saying I've seen what I need to see, and fall into the trap of relying on human perception and reasoning and what we've been given to know to date.

It was the case in the church in Corinth.

You might remember a division was beginning to develop there where some in the church were saying, Well, I'm siding with Paul.

He's the church planter.

He's the one who planted this church.

I'm siding with Paul.

And others said, No, but but I'm siding with Apollos.

Apollos is the one who's came after Paul and we've developed this relationship with him.

He's the one who's been watering, as it were.

And so I'm in his camp.

And it was beginning to create this jealousy for one over the other and this friction between the members.

And Paul says here, he says, guys, you're lacking spiritual perception.

You're behaving only in a human way.

You're relying on your own understanding and your own preferences here.

He says, you have the mind of Christ, but you need to rely on the Spirit to reveal how He sees these things.

Isn't that true for all of us?

We need to see how God sees, not how we think we ought to see.

So what's the cure?

The cure is the humble place of begging and abiding.

It's a reliance on Jesus for continued sight.

And vulnerability is an avenue for grace.

A lot of us don't like to be vulnerable.

But vulnerability is an avenue for grace.

So that we can say, Lord, we thank you for the grace that you've given me.

I thank you for what you've taught me.

We thank you for what you've shown me.

But please help me to see you more clearly and to see how you see.

Is that the desire of your heart?

To see you as he sees you, to see others as he sees others, to see his world as he sees the world.

Is that your desire?

Sometimes I think we can buy into this idea that to be a Christian you need a great mind.

But even a weak mind in memory, when pierced by the light of the glory of Jesus, is enough to bring joy to anyone's spirit.

Alright, one can be weighed down with books, one can be weighed down full of learning and be no more enlightened spiritually.

And yet another person comes and consumes just a page of gospel truth, and they skip through the day because it's come with a perception of God.

Hundreds of pages of human learning can't be compared to one shaft of light brought by the Spirit that pierces the needy heart, declaring, Thus is the Lord.

There are times when I've been preparing to preach, and I've been unable to see the glories of Christ laid out in a particular scripture.

And of course, knowing that I have to speak and have something to preach on, in anxious fear, I've been led to cry out, Lord, send more light, send more light.

And the grace that until that point has seemed to be held up like water in a dam has suddenly gushed out and started pouring out of my thirsty soul.

That's the power of the Holy Spirit.

Vulnerability, humility creates space to listen, to be curious, and depend fully on the Lord.

We can so often get in our own way.

I can think also of a number of instances where someone's been facing difficulty or been depressed in their spirit, and while conversations with others have provided them with some comfort, the spirit has been pleased to go on and reveal himself as the one who sees, the one who provides, the one who can see them.

And in taking this to heart, you just you come away just realizing that that kind of ultimate reality has left them with a skip in their step in a way that no one else or nothing else could.

Other times we allow fears and thoughts to cloud our perception, but but scripture is clear that we are to take every thought captive in obedience to Christ.

And so, what would it look like for us to surrender these things to Jesus, the things that hold us captive?

The fears that hold us captive.

And to surrender them to Jesus and ask him, Lord, would you speak into them with your light?

That's the kind of vulnerability that Jesus loves to answer.

Now, why does all this matter?

Because to have our eyes opened in this way is to be given to see the glories of Jesus Christ.

Alright?

To see ultimate reality, to enable our hearts to be satisfied and not like nothing else, and no one else can.

The psalmist knew it.

You have put more joy, he said, in my heart than when wine and grain abound.

Do we know it?

We have the mind of Christ.

Are we seeking for more of his touches?

And so while we might ask for more light today, let's also keep pressing on with hope to the light that still awaits us.

Let's keep looking to the one who knew us before we knew him, who saved us despite our darkness and dullness of heart, the one in whom there are no surprises, the one in whom loves you and I enough to minister to us and to keep us from falling, and who will one day present us faultless before the presence of his glory in unceasing joy.

Because today, although we see in part, one day we will see in full.

And when the day of the Lord comes, which it will, at that time we will see fully.

And we will know fully, even as we are fully known.

Praise God.

Amen.

Oh Lord, we praise you and we thank you for your light.

We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are the light.

And Father, we do ask and we pray that you would give us hearts that are humble enough to continue to seek your truth, your grace, your light into our hearts.

Lord, we are so thirsty.

Lord, we praise you and we thank you that you're God who delights to reveal himself to us.

And so, Lord, we ask and pray once again.

Can give us to be a people who have have a holy dissatisfaction.

Even though we praise your name for the grace and the glory that we've seen, Lord, give us a holy dissatisfaction that we might see more and enter into more vistas of your beauty and your majesty.

Oh Lord, we praise you and thank you for your goodness and your love that desire us to do so.

We give you praise in the precious name of your Son.

Amen.