On November 30, 1991, fierce winds from a freakish dust storm triggered a massive freeway pileup along Interstate 5 near Coalinga, California. At least 14 people died and dozens more were injured as topsoil whipped by 50 mile-per-hour winds reduced visibility to zero. The afternoon tragedy left a three-mile trail of twisted and burning vehicles, some stacked on top of one another 100 yards off the side of the freeway. Unable to see their way, dozens of motorists drove blindly ahead into disaster.

Blindness was one of the great medical curses of the Middle East. We find Jesus taking a blind man by the hand and leading him out of town so He could deal with him privately. The healing of this person is recorded only in the book of Mark and it is the only miracle that Jesus performed which happened gradually. In this miracle the blind man’s sight came back in two stages. After the first touch he had only limited vision, but after the second touch his eyesight was restored completely.

There is symbolic truth here. No person sees all of God’s truth all at one time. One of the dangers of a certain type of evangelism is that it encourages the idea that when someone has made his decision for Christ, he or she is a full-grown Christian. One of the dangers of Church membership is that it can be presented in such a way as to imply that when a person becomes a member of the Church he or she has come to the end of the road. This is so far from the truth because becoming a Christian and Church membership are only the beginning of the road.

Let us look together now at Mark 8, beginning with Verse 22:

²² They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him.

Some friends of a blind man find out Jesus has arrived so they do two things that we’re called to do as well.

• Bring people to Jesus. Look at the next phrase, “And some people brought to him a blind man…” The word “brought” has the idea of carrying, so you know it takes them some effort. This is similar to what the four friends did for their paralyzed buddy when they tore the roof apart to lower him to the Lord in Mark 2:3
• Beg Jesus to touch them. After bringing this man to Jesus, they “begged him to touch him.” To “beg” means to “to invite; to come to the side of.” Now that their friend is in proximity to Jesus they start praying and pleading for Him to touch him.

Do you have friends who push you closer to Christ or are they pulling you away from Him? Who can you think of right now that God wants you to bring to Jesus? Do you know of someone in misery? If so, it’s time to minister by bringing them close to Jesus and then begin begging Him to touch your friend or family member.

 ²³ He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man’s eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, “Do you see anything?” ²⁴ He looked up and said, “I see people; they look like trees walking around.”
²⁵ Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Mark 8:22-25 (NIV)

No other miracle is like this one. In a sense that is not strange, because Jesus never did two miracles alike. We tend to fall into patterns and habits. And when a change is made, it takes people abruptly unaware. But our Lord was not that way. He did things according to what the situation demanded, and so no two miracles are really the same. But this one is very remarkably different, because of two unusual aspects.

The first that captures our attention is that he spit on the eyes of this man. This may seem unhygienic to some of us, but in three of our Lord’s miracles he employed spit in this way. In Mark 7, in the healing of the man who was deaf and dumb, Jesus spit upon his own fingers before he touched the ears of the man. And in John’s Gospel we have the account of the healing of the man who was born blind. There Jesus spit on the ground, mixed clay with it, and used that to anoint his eyes. Now he spits directly on the eyes of this blind man. So there is some continuing use of spit in this way.

It is difficult to know exactly why. Many of the commentators have wrestled with this problem. William Barclay suggests that this was done as an accommodation of the people’s belief that there is something therapeutic about human saliva. People do immediately put to their mouth a finger that is cut or burned to soothe it. That may well be where this belief arose, and there may be some weight to the suggestion. But it does not explain fully what our Lord was doing.

It seems to me — that what our Lord does is symbolic, as were all of our Lord’s miracles. They were parables in action, pictures of the truth he was attempting to convey. And in this case, spit becomes a symbol of the Word of God. It is the visible form of that which issues from the mouth. Our Lord was perhaps awakening the faith of this blind man, who could feel but could not see. And through the application of spit to his eyes, he sensed that something was going to happen which would involve the power of the spoken Word of God. At any rate, Jesus was certainly teaching his disciples this lesson. It is the Word which is the creative agency in God’s work, always. The author of the letter to the Hebrews tells us that we understand it is by the Word of God that the worlds were framed out of things which do not appear (Hebrews 11:3). This is what I believe is symbolized here.

The second unusual aspect of this miracle is the incompleteness of the healing. We have no other account in Scripture of anything like this, of there being a process involved in our Lord’s healings. In every other circumstance he spoke the word, and instantly the person was made whole. He leaped, if he were lame; opened his eyes and saw, if he were blind; or rose from the dead. But for this miracle alone a two-stage process was involved. Again, many have wondered about this. Some commentators suggest that this represents a weakening of Jesus’ powers, that he had reached a stage in his ministry where opposition was so intense, hostility so increased, that his power was not quite adequate, and it took a double dose in order to accomplish the healing.

I cannot subscribe to that “double-dose” school of thought. Our Lord always had adequate power to deal with any situation because, as he tells us so frequently himself, it was not his power; it was the power of God the Father at work in him. And, again and again through the pages of the Scriptures, God teaches us that nothing is impossible to him. It was like he challenged the faith of Sarah, the wife of Abraham, when he told them she would have a child, after her body had long since passed the age of childbearing. Sarah laughed in disbelief. And God said to her, “Is anything too hard for God?” (Genesis 18:14).

Some commentators have suggested that perhaps this was a very stubborn case of blindness here, much more difficult than the usual. But that is saying the same thing — that Jesus’ power was not adequate to deal with it.

Rather, we must see this as a deliberate act, done for the benefit of the disciples. Jesus is teaching them again. This incident falls in that section of Mark which deals with our Lord’s attempts to instruct the disciples. He is teaching them lessons by what he does and what he says. Here he deliberately does this in a two-stage fashion, because he wants these disciples to see that they are like this blind man — they, and we who read this account — and that we need our eyes opened in two stages, as this blind man did.

We need a second touch, don’t we? We all struggle with this. Every Christian must be taught this by the Spirit of God. Jesus himself said there would be these two stages: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” (Matthew 11:28). There you learn who he is, in the fullness of his power to give rest to a struggling, weary, laden heart. Ah, but that is not all: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart [having lost all my pride, all my prestige and status], and you will find rest for your souls,” (Matthew 11:29) — two stages.

That is what our Lord has illustrated for us in this healing of the blind man, and now he begins to bring into our knowledge the second stage, by which we will understand and see clearly who he is.

Here are a few questions for us to consider:  When were my eyes opened spiritually? What stages of spiritual sight have I passed through? How do I know Jesus more today than in the past?  How can I help those who are spiritually blind?

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Sources:

The Turning Point, Ray Stedman

Seeing Clearly, Brian Bill

Overcoming Spiritual Blindness, Lou Nichols