On Blindness

We come again to the heart of Mark’s Gospel and what begins its central theme. The section stretching from Mark 8:22 to 10:52 begins and ends with the healing of the blind, and these miracles serve as bookends to the growing understanding that Jesus is the Messiah. In this section, the disciples and the crowds grow in their realization that Jesus is the promised king of kings. This literary fact helps us to understand what can seem difficult about this particular miracle. So, let’s read Mark 8:22-26 together. From this text see two points: The Malady of Spiritual Blindness and the Miracle of Spiritual Sight.

First, from verse 22, see the malady of spiritual blindness. As I just said, this miracle is one of two healings of blindness in the Gospel of Mark, and they both serve to point us to a deeper spiritual need. We’ve just seen Jesus’ struggles with the religious leaders. They were hardhearted and disbelieving. They could not see the truth. As Jesus would say of them, in Matt. 15:14, “they are blind guides.” We’ve also just seen the dullness of the disciples, as they repeatedly fail to catch the significance of Jesus’ miracles. Three different times, they lack the faith to believe that Jesus can feed them. As Jesus asked in 8:18, “Having eyes do you not see?” In scripture, blindness is often used as a metaphor for spiritual faithlessness and disbelief. The metaphor fits so well for a number of reasons.

First, blindness describes the natural inability of fallen humanity to believe the things of God. A blind person has no ability to understand the world in the same way a sighted person would. How would you describe a color to a blind person? Or a sunset? Certainly, they can feel the warmth of the sun and hear the bristling of the wind, but they will never know the majesty of an auburn sky behind a mountain range. This is why it is futile to try and reform a person’s behavior without first leading them to the Savior. Certainly, they can adopt some disciplines that will help them avoid sin. They might even be able to totally give up a habit. But they will never understand the need for it or be empowered by God to keep it unless they turn in faith to Christ. As Eph. 4:18 says, “[Unbelievers] are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.”

Blindness can also be inflicted, and spiritual disbelief is much the same. Many who suffer from blindness are not so because they were born that way, but because of an accident or a disease that led to it. Similarly, spiritual blindness has two causes outside of our natural fallenness. One cause of spiritual blindness is the influence of Satan. 2 Cor. 4:4 says, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel.” In the parable of the soils, Jesus gives two different types of soil that are influenced by Satan. There is the bare ground where the birds come and take away the seed before it can grow, representing those from whom Satan steals the Gospel before it can take root. This very hour, there are around 500 million people who live in countries that outlaw or severely restrict the proclamation of the Gospel. There are little babies born today in those countries who may never hear the Gospel because of the influence of Islam, Hinduism, and Communism. And, even in our country, there are false religions that snatch away the seed of the Gospel before it can grow. There are Mormons, Jehovah’s Witness, and Secularistic Atheists who distort and dismiss the Gospel. I see it most days on TikTok and Instagram, some supposed “Scholar of the Bible” who creates a video to “debunk” traditional Christian claims. They are anti-Christs, working in league with Satan to take away the blessing of the Gospel to those who are blind.

Spiritual blindness can also be caused by false worship. Psalm 135:16-18 rebukes the idols of the nations because they “have eyes but do not see”, and then it says, “those who make them become like them.” False worship leads to a dullness and blindness of heart. This is an eternal truth: you become what you worship. If you worship money, you will become the epitome of greed. If you worship pleasure, you will destroy yourself in its pursuit. Like Fantine in Les Miserables, who went to the Red-Light district of Paris to sell her hair, is enticed further down to sell her teethe, and ultimately to sell her body, the allurement of sin is enticing, but its end is utter blindness.

But, I have good news today! Jesus is the Messiah who has come to cause the blind to see. For that, let’s consider my second point – the Miracle of Spiritual Sight. In verses 23-26, we read that Jesus carries out a very familiar process of healing with this man. As he did with the deaf man of chapter 7, Jesus goes through a ritualistic process of spitting because it would have been familiar to this man. The man is blind, so he cannot see what Jesus is doing. And, as we’ve already established, faith is the way in which we receive the blessings of God. So, for this man to be healed, he must understand what Jesus is doing. Therefore, Jesus allows him to hear and to feel a process that would have been common among healers of the day. But, there is something odd about this healing. It is unlike any other that Jesus performed in any of the Gospels, because it did not immediately take. Verse 24 says that he saw people but they were like trees. I think I know something of what he saw. I did not realize until I was eight or nine that I had poor vision. I remember getting my glasses and seeing tree leaves for the first time. I always thought that trees just looked like giant green blobs until then. When he says this, Jesus touches his eyes again and he can see fully. In fact, the sense of the phrase “sight was restored” is that of perfect vision.

This staged miracle raises an important question. Does this mean that Jesus’ ability to heal was in some way limited? Some have theorized that he was limited by the man’s initial lack of faith. Unbelievers would argue that this proves he was no better than other healers of his day. But, there is good reason for why this happened, and Jesus fully intended for it to happen. Again, it is a living metaphor of spiritual blindness. This man’s experience of blindness represents three stages of spiritual blindness. First, there are those who are completely blind to the truth of God. Like the Pharisees who refused to see, or the crowds who were blinded by false teaching, there are many today who have no understanding of the Gospel. Second, there are those who are beginning to see, but have not fully come to understand. Like the disciples who know that Jesus is exceptional but have yet to understand completely who he is, there are many today who are being enlightened to the Gospel, but who have yet to truly believe. The psychologist and philosopher, Jordan Peterson, is one such person. I pray to God that he is on a path towards faith, because with every year he grows to love Scripture more, but he has yet to fully confess Christ. As an important aside, we have to be careful of this group, because I believe, in our recent past, we have taken partial sight to be a complete conversion, when it is not. Just because someone says they believe in God or because they put a Bible quote on the bio or they have a religious bumper sticker or they have an experience at a church retreat, it is not evidence of conversion. It may be evidence that God is working on them, but we should be careful and work to disciple them.

Finally, there are those who have had their sight completely restored so that they can wholeheartedly confess and follow Christ as Lord and Savior. As we work through this section of Mark, we will see this happen with the disciples. I hope you can testify to this experience of spiritual sight in your own life. I hope you can remember what it was like to be blind, to lack understanding, to struggle with disbelief, and how God, through his Spirit, led you to see the truth of the Gospel. If you have never had that kind of awakening, today can be your day of salvation.

With all spiritual blindness, it is worth asking, “How can one ever see the truth of the Gospel?” If we are naturally blind because of sin and kept that way because of Satan, how can we ever see? Again, this living metaphor answers that question: it is only by the miracle of God that you see and believe the Gospel. Nicodemus (a Pharisee) came to Jesus by night in John 3. We don’t know why, but we can assume that he came to ask how he could enter the kingdom of God. Before he can ask, Jesus says, “Unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus then asks for the process of new birth, and Jesus answers, “Flesh is born of flesh, and spirit is born of Spirit. Do not marvel that I say you must be born again.” The only hope for the hardhearted Pharisees like Nicodemus is for the Spirit to open their eyes. The only hope for the dull disciples who have a blurry view of Jesus is for the Spirit to enlighten them. And, the only hope for you is that the Spirit would convict and convert you. If you’ve already come to Christ, this truth should humble you, because it means that nothing about your salvation was something you earned or deserved. You could not even see, and God opened your eyes. You were dead, and the Spirit made you alive.

This morning, we have a table set before us with bread and drink. This table and its elements are here to nourish our souls. They remind us of the covenant that God has made with us through Jesus. They remind us of his perfect body that brought healing and life to our bodies and will ultimately cause us to rise on the last day. They remind us of his blood that was shed to cover our sins and satisfy the wrath of God. So, let us come to this table with thanksgiving, because Christ has given us eyes to see.