From Blindness to Sight: Mark 8:22-26

Audio available here.

There are two miracles in Mark’s Gospel which are not recorded in any other Gospel. This is one of them, and the other is the healing we read about in Chapter 7, verses 31-37. Why the other Gospel writers did not tell these two stories is beyond our knowledge, but there are some interesting parallels between the two. In both stories, we have the perhaps surprising usage of saliva by Jesus; in both, Jesus interacts with a person who has completely lost one of their senses; in both stories, He leads the afflicted individual away from the crowd; in both, Jesus orders silence following the healing miracle. But one unique feature of the miracle here in Chapter 8 is that it occurs in progressive stages. In fact, it is the only miracle in the gospels to occur in stages. It is somewhat surprising that Mark would be the only one to give us this story, considering his frequent usage of the word immediately. Here a miracle is performed which is not effected immediately, but progressively.

Now, one may wonder, what is it about this case that necessitates healing in stages, rather than instantly as with every other healing miracle. This is the first case of blindness Jesus has encountered in Mark’s Gospel. Is blindness so difficult to cure that it takes two touches of Jesus to accomplish? That cannot be, for in the only other instance of blindness that Jesus heals in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus heals Bartimaeus without any touch, only a spoken word. So we are left to ask why Mark, and no other Gospel writer, has given us this story of this healing in two stages.
One obvious purpose of including this story is its messianic significance. Luke records for us a moment in time when John the Baptist sent two of his disciples to Jesus asking, “Are you the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?” Apparently, like everyone else, even John was becoming disillusioned about the fact that Jesus was not the kind of Messiah everyone was expecting. Jesus sent word back to John saying, “Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM. Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me." In stating these six signs, Jesus was referring to the explicit prophecies of the Old Testament that stated what would happen when Messiah came. Thus far in Mark’s Gospel, we have seen the lame walk (2:12; Isa 35:6); we have seen lepers cleansed (1:40; Isa 29:19); we have seen the deaf hear (7:37; Isa 35:5); the dead have been raised (5:42; Isa 61:3); the poor have been hearing the good news at every turn, and here finally we have seen the blind receive sight. And so we have a messianic purpose for including this story here. If Jesus is going to be shown to be the Messiah, then the stories of his healing the blind must be told.
But another, less apparent purpose of including this story is found by examining the context. Just prior to Jesus’ encounter with this blind man, we read a series of questions Jesus asks of his disciples. One of those questions is, “Having eyes, do you not see?” And of course, by this question, Jesus was not asking about their physical ability to see, but rather their ability to understand spiritual truth. A person who hears the teachings of Jesus but does not understand them is like a person who has eyes but cannot see. And the disciples have shown themselves to be spiritually dense on occasion, such as when Jesus was warning them against the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod, and they thought he was talking about bread. So they heard Him, but they didn’t understand Him. And Jesus asked if they had eyes but couldn’t see.

So in the providence of God, the next encounter that Jesus and the disciples had was with a man whose physical condition matched their spiritual condition. He had eyes, but could not see. And the two-stage process of healing this man physically parallels what Jesus will do spiritually for the disciples and for all of us in a spiritual way as He rids us of our spiritual blindness and makes us to see.

We begin by examining the initial condition …

I. The condition of blindness

Unlike the blind man whom Jesus healed in John 9, this one was not born blind. We know that because as his sight returns, he recognizes the shape of men, and compares them to the shape of trees. If he had been born blind, these would not be familiar to him – he would be seeing men and trees for the first time. At some point in his life, because of disease or injury or accident, this man had become blind. We can safely assume from the description of him that his condition was total blindness, the complete inability to perceive forms or light. He would be totally dependent on others to lead him from one place to another, unable to discern by his sight what is good and bad, safe and dangerous, clean and unclean, light and dark. His entire world was dark.

As it is for this man physically, so it is for humanity spiritually. We are spiritually blind in our natural state, and we are born that way. But humanity was not created that way. Just as this man became blind at some point in his lifetime, so humanity plunged from the abundant life of unimpeded fellowship with God to the darkness of spiritual death when sin entered at the fall. Now, because of spiritual blindness, we are unable to rightly perceive good and evil, sin and righteousness, truth and error. We are totally incapable of perceiving spiritual truth. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that the minds of the unbelieving have been blinded so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. And as a blind man is dependent on the aid of another to get him from one place to another, so we are dependent on someone else to move us from our state of spiritual blindness into a state of seeing and perceiving spiritual truth. And like this man in our passage today, the only one who can help us is Jesus.

And so we move from the condition of blindness to …

II. The Entrance of Light

As Jesus confronts the blind man, we see that He takes him aside from the crowd. And so it is that each of us must personally interact with Christ. We cannot personally benefit from the faith of others. This man’s friends brought him to Jesus, but their faith was incapable of healing him. And so it is that we were brought by our Christian friends and family members to that place where we could deal with Him personally, but their faith could not save us. We each have to make an individual decision.

The next thing we notice is that Jesus spit on his eyes. Now, aside from the grossness of this, it is a really interesting feature of the story. For one thing, I believe it does much to affirm the authenticity of the story, for if this were written much later by people who wanted to concoct a believable story, I think this is probably not a detail they would have invented. And if the Gospels we have in our Bibles today were the product of centuries of redaction and editing, one would assume that this detail would have been omitted at some point along the journey. But the presence of this somewhat embarrassing detail of Jesus spitting on the man’s eyes goes along way in validating the historicity Gospel of Mark.

We have to plead ignorance here as to why Jesus used saliva. Ancient literature includes stories involving superstition and magic “where saliva was used as a curative agent,” as well as “mentions of its use in more normal medical practice.” The use of saliva by Jesus in Chapter 7, we saw, had more to do with sign-value, as Jesus spit to indicate the removal of the barrier to the man’s speech. We don’t know if it is used here for medicinal or symbolic reasons, but it is applied to the blind man’s eyes. Now as we draw parallels between the physical healing of this man’s blindness and the healing of our spiritual blindness, we can say that the saliva signifies that which comes from the mouth of Christ – His Word. And as His word is applied to our condition, light begins to enter. In Psalm 119:130, the Psalmist said, “The unfolding of Your words gives light,” and the imagery is that as the scroll of God’s word is unrolled, light breaks into the darkness. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”

After Jesus spit on the man’s eyes and touched him, He asked, “Do you see anything?” And the man said, “I see men.” Function has returned to his eyes and now he can see again. But his sight is not perfect yet. It is still a little fuzzy for he says that they look like trees walking around. And so it is for us and for the disciples, that when at first we are touched by Christ, light enters and we begin to see, but we are not yet seeing perfectly clear. Again the context will show this to be the case.

Just as Jesus asked the man, “Do you see anything?”, so He will soon ask the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” And like a man whose eyes have been opened to spiritual truth for the first time, Peter will say, “You are the Christ.” But just as the men looked fuzzy like trees, so too Peter is able to see, but not clearly enough just yet. Immediately following his landmark confession of Jesus as the Christ, Jesus begins to tell the disciples about the suffering He will soon endure, and His death, and His resurrection. And the one who so boldly asserted Jesus to be the Christ is next seen taking Jesus aside and rebuking Him, causing Jesus to say, “Get behind me Satan, for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” So, Peter and the other disciples are starting to get it, but it isn’t perfectly clear yet. Their spiritual perception is still a little fuzzy.

And so it is for us as well. When the Word of God begins to dawn on blinded eyes, light begins to enter and things begin to take shape, but they aren’t yet clear. At some point, the eyes open enough to perceive Christ for who He is and the heart will trust Him for salvation. But there is still a clearer picture not seen. Still we must grow in our perception of Him and His Kingdom and His Word.
I can remember some conversations I had immediately following my conversion to Christ that I just thank God were not recorded! And unfortunately, there are about ten years of preaching that has been recorded, and let me tell you, some of it, you don’t want to hear. There are still plenty of days that I don’t see like I want to see. And the same is true for you as well. You are growing in your spiritual perception. Along the way, there have been plenty of times that the men looked like trees walking. But God is faithful in bringing us to a place of spiritual maturity, beyond the condition of blindness, beyond the entrance of light, to that place of …

III. The Clarity of Vision

In verse 25, this man who formerly could not see at all, and who recently saw men as if they were trees is now able to see everything clearly. And to what does He owe the transformation? He was brought from blindness to imperfect sight by the touch of Jesus. And he was brought from imperfect sight to clear vision also by the touch of Jesus. And like him, if the disciples are going to grow beyond their imperfect understanding of the Messiah and His kingdom, it is going to be by remaining close to Him and allowing His continual touch to transform their lives. With each parable and sermon they will hear, with each miracle they see, their spiritual perception will progress further. But it will still be imperfect. They will continue to buck the notion that Christ must die, and when the pressure is put on each of them, they will resort to treason, flight, and denial. But with the crucifixion and the resurrection, their focus is sharpened even more, and with the arrival of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, even more yet. And each day that they live in faithfulness and obedience to Christ, their spiritual vision is made clearer still, a process that will never end in this life.

But it continues just as it starts. It is by grace through faith. It is Christ alone working in us, transforming us, making us more and more like Himself as we abide in Him and walk faithfully with Him. Only He can shape us and open our eyes to see and perceive. Only He can lead us to spiritual maturity. And He will continue to do it throughout our lives. And the day of clear vision is coming. John tells us in 1 John 3 that when we see Him, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. This says to us two things. First, one day we will be able to have perfect spiritual perception. But that day will be when finally stand face to face with Christ. And second, not only our vision but our entire being will be transformed in that instant.

And so, we have gone a long way to answer a question – why, when all power and authority is at His disposal, does the Messiah Jesus heal this one man’s blindness in a different way than every other miracle He performs? Why does He heal this man in progressive stages rather than immediately? And it seems appropriate to say that He did so to illustrate physically with this man what He will do spiritually for the twelve and for us as well. We are blind. Our spiritual perception is utterly darkened. But His word goes forth from His mouth and light begins to enter. Sight comes to our eyes, imperfect at first, but ever moving toward sharper focus as we maintain contact with Christ.

C. S. Lewis once said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else.” The blind man in our passage today might agree, and say that He believes in Jesus, not because he sees him, but because of Jesus, he sees everything else. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind, but now I see.