Seeing in Stages

This is a true story: When I was a child my parents my brother and I home alone while they went to a Christmas party at the Povanchah’s, two doors down the street.  They left me the neighbor’s phone number and I was to call for my parents in case there was any problem.

Some time after my parents were gone, there was a knock or the ring of the door bell.  I was old enough and tall enough to look out the peek hole to see who was at the door which I did. To my shock and surprise I saw several men with bags, what looked like brown paper grocery store bags, over there heads.  I immediately went to the phone in the family room and called the Povanchah’s and told then this is Steve Sevy and could I please speak to one of my parents.  I don’t remember which one got on the phone but with tears running down my face and my voice quavering, I told my mom or dad that there were men at our door step with bags over their heads.

There is a story of a blind man that Jesus had to pray for twice who thought he saw men like trees walking in Mark chapter 8.  If you would open your Bibles to Mark chapter 8, I will read this story, then I want to talk about the context of how this story fits in and how it might personally apply to all of us.

My dad ran home and burst in the front door and said there was no one there.  Whoever it was had gone away.  I don’t know if my dad was quick to figure it out or knew immediately that a Christmas wreath decoration made out of IBM punch cards was obscuring the peek hole and with it’s fish eye lens having a couple pieces of the wreath in front of it.  Someone was at the door earlier, but I thought I saw something else.  My mind had played tricks on me.

Mark 8:22-26   And they came to Bethsaida. And they brought a blind man to Jesus and implored Him to touch him.  Taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?”  And he looked up and said, “I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around.” Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly.  And He sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”

At the beginning of this same chapter of Mark, we have Jesus feeding the four thousand, and two chapters earlier, we have Jesus feeding the five thousand.

After the four thousand are fed at the beginning of Mark chapter eight, let’s pick up and read at verse eleven through twenty-one:

11 The Pharisees came out and began to argue with Him, seeking from Him a sign from heaven, to test Him. 

12 Sighing deeply in His spirit, He said, “Why does this generation seek for a sign? Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” 

13 Leaving them, He again embarked and went away to the other side.  14 And they had forgotten to take bread, and did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them. 

15 And He was giving orders to them,   saying, “Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” 

16 They began to discuss with one another the fact that they had no bread. 

17 And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet see or understand? Do you have a  hardened heart? 

18 Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember, 

19 when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces you picked up?” They said to Him, “Twelve.” 

20 “When I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?” And they said to Him, “Seven.” 

21 And He was saying to them, “Do you not yet understand?”

When Jesus said, Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” , he was using leaven in a non-literal sense, but the disciples did not get it.

Jesus was not rebuking them for not understanding that he was using the word leaven in a non-literal way, but for the disciples being worried about bread right after he multiplied bread twice right before there eyes.

Jesus was not teaching them that he will always do a food miracle every day, but he will if it is needed and he did it out of his compassion for people.

What is the leaven of the Pharissees and the leaven of Herod?

In Matthew 16:11-12 Jesus says this:

11 How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you  concerning bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”  Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

And in Luke 12:1 Jesus said this:

Under these circumstances, after so many thousands of people had gathered together that they were stepping on one another, He began saying to His disciples first of all, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

Herod taught through the example of his irreligious life while the Pharisees taught through their hyper-religious life.

Religiosity and holiness or piety are very different.

You can’t love God too much but you can be more religious that God.  Jesus called the Pharisees white washed tombs because they were not righteous on the inside but were just actors.

Righteousness, a person’s inside out character is what matters to God rather than religious activities.

Religiousness is about routines and rituals without any inner transformation.

The leaven of the pharisees is the teaching that we want to look good.

The leaven of Herod might be the teaching that “you only go around once so have a good time and look out for number one and be your own god”.

And leaven is a small thing that impacts the whole thing: Apostle Paul said this about leaven in the church in 1st Corinthians 5:6-8:

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?  Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.  Therefore let us celebrate the feast, not with old    leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

The attitudes that the Pharisees and Herod carried could infect a person and infiltrate every part of a person’s life.

As we come to the story of the blind man I want to mention that Jesus healed a deaf and mute man at the end of Mark chapter 7, telling the people not to advertise the miracle, but they did anyways

Now we come to the two step miracle story of the blind man and Jesus.  I believe that this is the only miracle of Jesus that took two prayers to get it done and I      believe that this story is here in this chapter for a reason.

First of all it says: And they came to Bethsaida. And they brought a blind man to Jesus and implored Him to touch him.

The first thing to notice is that the man’s friends or family brought him to Jesus.  It seems that they had faith in order to do this.  We also bring our friends or our family members to Jesus because we have faith.  But for something good to happen and in our time that would be the miracle of salvation, that other person will have to express their own faith in order to become saved.

The next thing that happened is that it says: Taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village;

Jesus took the man to a place out of the public eye where they could be alone.

Jesus took the man for a walk by his hand.  Jesus reached out and made a connection with this blind man.  The blind man says nothing as far as we know through what Mark tells us, but he does walk or go along to where  Jesus wants to lead him.  And the man let Jesus probably take his hand since he was blind and lead him to another place.

Now it says: and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, 

I read a scholar say that when is says literally “and having spit on his eyes”, we think of someone spitting on someone’s eyes, and if Jesus did that it is okay because he knows what he’s doing.  But the Phillips paraphrase says it this way:  Then he moistened his eyes with saliva and putting his hands on him, 

Some scholars written that the man’s eye condition may have kept his eye lids sealed shut and the saliva would have moistened the outside of the lids to help them open.

The next thing that happen was that it says, He asked him, “Do you see anything?”  And he looked up and said, “I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around.” 

And then it says:  Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly.  And He sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”

What can be learn from this story?

That sometimes God does things in two steps.  It could have all happened in one step but sometimes it is two.

Sometimes something, an answer to prayer, happens all at once or suddenly.

But sometimes change or an answer to prayer happens over time or in steps, gradually.

Answers to prayer are not one size fits all.

The way God answers the same prayer for the same thing with two different people may be different in terms of timing or the answer.

A deeper application in the context of this chapter in Mark is that we go from not seeing something about Christ or the Christian life, to seeing it, but blurred or ‘men walking like trees’.  Seeing blurred or men like trees is so wonderful compared to seeing nothing that we might convince ourselves that we now see clearly and really get it.

Before the story of the blind man healed in two steps, Jesus says this in verse 18:

Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? 

Jesus is talking about their spiritual awakening of seeing him for who he really is

After this story of the blind man healed in two step, we come to the climax of the first half of Mark’s Gospel: It says, starting in verse 27:

Jesus went out, along with His disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He questioned His disciples, saying to them, “Who do people say that I am?” They told Him, saying, “John the Baptist; and others say Elijah; but others, one of the prophets.” And He continued by questioning them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ.” And He warned them to tell no one about Him.

Peter as the spokesman for the disciples got the answer correct.  He and they now see Jesus as the Christ.

But in the next section, we are told that Peter needs to have clearer sight about what Jesus as Christ has come for:  Picking up again with verse 31.

And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.  And He was stating the matter plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. But turning around and seeing His disciples, He rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind Me, Satan; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”

Peter went from “I see” to “You need to see better”.

What we also learn from the story of that man healed by Jesus praying twice, is that is is great to have friends or family that lead us to Christ and we have to humble ourselves and cooperate with our friends or family trusting them.

Then we have to encounter Christ in our blindness,  We have to let him take our hand and lead us.  This also takes humility.  This man may have said, “I’ll give it a shot” or “okay, I’m in”.  We don’t know what he said but we do know that he    willing walked with Jesus and let Jesus minister to him.

By our modern standards spitting or rubbing one’s saliva into another’s eyes is    unconventional.  But even if this sort of thing was more normal in first century middle eastern culture, having your eyes touched was something that also would have taken humility.

In this story, after Jesus prayed the first time, the man could see but poorly.         Because he described men and trees, we can say that he probably saw before and lost is sight somehow perhaps through a disease.

But in applying this to the disciples and us today.  We could make the mistake like Peter did on on the one hand seeing that Jesus is the Christ, but then not seeing that he needs to suffer on the cross to fulfill what he came to do.  The antidote of the worked out way of Jesus praying for us the second time so we can see clearly is discipleship.  Even after we get it that Jesus is the Christ we need to go further to see things more clearly.

It would be a paradox or is the word oxymoron to say you are a Christian but not be a disciple.  And I think disciple means student or learner.  There is a temptation to say “I see it” and believe you have finished learning.

I am almost at my 6 month anniversary of being obedient to Christ and getting  baptized after confessing that I believe Jesus is the Christ.  And after that night many things are clearer and keep getting clearer every day and I intend to let Jesus cause me to see things clearer and transform me inside out.

Let me close with these words of Peter as a benediction:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.

-1 Peter 1:3-9