Last night, I was talking with Sarai after she had prayed, and we were discussing the new Jerusalem, and what the new world (that God will create) will look like
As she spoke about her thoughts, Sarai paused, and then asked a rhetorical question about there being no sickness or need for healing for all of eternity, but she made a statement that ”floored me” with her line of thinking (she’s eleven-years-old) she said:
“It’s amazing how a blind man could see what Jesus would do, yet others who could see, were blind”
Sarai Brand
I was laying on Sarai’s bed, and the spiritual weight of her comment literally stopped me in my train of thought, and God instantly bought Mark 8 into my mind, which our conversation then turned to
In Mark 8:18-21, Jesus is asking His disciples if they remember what had happened previously when he fed the 5,000 and then the 4,000, but Jesus asks the question in verse 18: “Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears and fail to hear?” Then from verse 22, Jesus heals a blind man
You see, the disciples who saw and experienced so many of Jesus’ miracles, were still so slow to comprehend who He was, and yet, we read about a blind man whose sight was restored simply because Jesus touched him
Sometimes we can be so slow to catch on, and what we have experienced in the past, with God, we don’t believe He will do it for us in the future
Friends, we can have spiritual eyes/believe in Christ, and still be blind to His goodness
The exciting thing, with how Jesus healed the blind man, was the way He did it, because it was unusual – He healed in two stages. We need to remember that the disciples, too, are about to receive their spiritual sight in two stages, because very soon, Peter acknowledges Jesus is the Messiah, but the disciples will still fail to see that being the Messiah will involve suffering and death, and therefore, the disciples won’t fully recognise Jesus (with who He truly is) until after the resurrection
Therefore, I want to encourage us this morning, that this passage wasn’t about whether Jesus healed or not, but more about the faith to believe for what was to come
“‘You have eyes—can’t you see? You have ears—can’t you hear?’ Don’t you remember anything at all?”
Mark 8:18
Categories: Mark
