Two Blind Men

To open up to Mark chapter 8, starting at verse 22. It's pretty much smack bang in the middle of the book of Mark. It starts, they came to Bethsaida and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village where, when he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, do you see anything? He looked up and said, I see people.

They look like trees walking around. Once more, Jesus put his hand on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, the sight was restored and he saw everything clearly. Jesus sent him home saying, don't go into the village. Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi.

On the way, he asked them, who do people say I am? They replied, some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, and still others one of the prophets. But what about you? He asked. Who do you say I am?

Peter answered, you are the Christ. Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. Let's pray. God, I pray that you open up every single one of our hearts in this room today, that you will open up our ears and that we will take on board what you say through your word to us. God, I pray that you might fill me with your spirit, that you might fill each and every one of us here with your Holy Spirit so that we might go out of this room encouraged and challenged by what it means to be a follower of you.

In Jesus' name, amen. Now, as I said before, my name's Ben. I'm originally from WA via Victoria and now living up in Brisbane. One of the good things about being a vicar and being able to come and preach somewhere new is that most of you have no idea who I am. There might be a few of you, but probably most of you don't know who I am.

And I'm not pulling a Ron Burgundy. I'm not a big deal, not expecting you to know anything, but the fact that you don't know much about me means that your expectations are probably set on the fact that I'm a pastor. It means your expectations are shaped by what you think a pastor should be. You don't really know my family, my background, so you don't really have anything to go by. Now, I have to admit this is both a good and a bad thing. It's good in that your expectations are built around what you think a pastor should be rather than anything else, so that's probably a good thing, but the bad side is that your expectations are built on what you think a pastor should be because I'm probably the last person that should be a pastor.

It would be silly for me to think that your expectations are built on anything else because you've probably only seen me for two minutes at most, for most of you. But it's also dangerous for you to assume that I fit into some mould that you've created about what a pastor should be. You only have to ask my wife or my parents or my high school teachers. They all say they're still surprised that I'm preaching as a pastor. But what does this have to do with today's passage? Well, there are two things.

Firstly, in the passage, we're twice confronted by Jesus telling people not to go and say what they've just seen or heard. Twice something amazing happens and twice Jesus says to keep it to themselves. Why? Because their expectations and their understanding of who Jesus was didn't actually match with who Jesus was and is. And we read today that Peter has called Jesus the Christ, and he's right on the money with his words. He knows what he said is perfectly right, but as we'll see, he's still a fair way from understanding what that actually means.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I know how Jesus felt. I have no idea, but I will say this, the way I viewed pastors when I was sitting in the pews is very different to the way I view pastors now that I stand up here at the front. My expectations were one thing, but the reality is something completely different. Now the other reason I open up with this is because I'm genetically disposed to poor sight. I'm the only person in my whole family that doesn't have glasses.

Every single person is short-sighted. So why does that matter? Well, that's actually probably what was wrong with this guy today because more than likely he had eyes that had degenerated to a point that he couldn't see. How do we know that? Well, because he saw trees and you don't know what trees look like if you've never seen trees.

That's a side issue. Let's jump in and start with the blind man. In the passage leading up to our story today, we see Jesus has had a discussion with his disciples about yeast and he hits them with this question at the end: do you not understand? They still don't get it. The disciples don't understand.

Now that question is pretty much a summary of all of Mark leading up to this point. The disciples, and maybe even us as readers, still don't fully understand who and what Jesus is. They don't know what they're seeing, but they had every reason to know what was going on. They had every reason to understand what was happening because the people of Israel were expecting God to save them.

They were expecting God to come down to earth as a man and rescue them from everything. In Isaiah 35, verses 4 to 6, it says this: say to those with fearful hearts, be strong, do not fear, your God will come. He will come with vengeance, with divine retribution. He will come to save you. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy. Now, for those of you who have read through the book of Mark, you'll know that Jesus has been travelling around the whole region healing people, miraculously healing people of all kinds and if you work through that list, it actually becomes pretty clear.

In Mark 2:1-11, Jesus heals a paralytic. The lame man has walked. Then in Mark 7:31-37, Jesus heals a deaf and a mute man. That's two crossed off in one. And then in Mark 6:53-56, we just get this whole crowd of healings. We're not told what they are but it's just an amazing array of healings done at once.

But the eyes of the blind have not yet, up to this point, been opened. Now as the old saying goes, if it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, it's probably a duck but in so many ways Jesus has shown he is what they expect. Jesus has walked like a duck. He's talked like a duck, but for some reason, the disciples still think he might be a goose. There's only one box left and Jesus hasn't yet restored the sight of the blind. Now, he doesn't need to, but he still does, and like every other healing miracle in the Bible, it's got three main points.

There's compassion, fulfilment, and education. Jesus always has compassion on the people he heals, yet it also fulfils Old Testament scripture and all the while educating the disciples and us about his character and his purpose. So now this blind man is brought to him and like the deaf and the mute man a few stories earlier, Jesus goes down to his level. He spits in his eyes and then touches him. Now, I haven't yet been to an optometrist, but I'm pretty confident that optometrists don't spit in your eyes.

I'm pretty sure all the videos I've seen of Fred Hollows, he's never spitting in anybody's eyes. So why did Jesus do it? Well, first and foremost, it was just a really common medical practice in ancient Rome. This is one of the main ways people used to heal. They spat on things. But secondly, it's very much a sign of personal connection. It's a physical touch.

It's an exchange of me, part of me, part of you. Now, we might say this is unhygienic or gross, but we actually still do it today. I'm sure most of us have kissed a loved one. Making out with somebody is one of the most disgusting things you can do and yet we still do it. Even the most germaphobic, neat freak people will still kiss loved ones.

So this is Jesus just getting down to this man's level. He's loving this blind man, which is essentially what Jesus' life was all about. It was getting down to our level and loving us and it's still true of him today. But then something really weird happens because it doesn't work. It doesn't work properly at least the first time. It's kind of like Jesus has given this guy a new pair of glasses and he's got the prescription just terribly wrong.

What can you see? I think it's people but they kind of look like trees. It's kind of like, oh, no. Now if Jesus had a careers adviser, he'd probably say, from what he's seen, oh, I think you could probably be an exorcist, maybe an ear, nose and throat specialist. You've fixed that a few times. You might even be able to be a magician, but I don't think you should be an optometrist. But thankfully Jesus fixes it on the second go. But why on earth did it not work on the first attempt?

What does it mean? Did Jesus not have enough power or did the man or his friends not have enough faith? Because some people believe those two options about this story, but I'll tell you something. If they are the things that you believe this story is saying, there's some pretty big issues here. Because if it's about Jesus' failure of power, then Jesus just can't be God and you should probably close your Bible and just stop listening now.

But if you think it's a problem of faith, then where do we all stand as we all wrestle through issues of faith every day? So if it's not about faith or power, what's it about? Well, this story, this healing is about as much about Peter as it is the blind man who is healed because this story actually points to the blurry vision of Peter himself. Now, Jesus and the disciples leave the area and they're possibly still confused by what's happened. So Jesus throws this question at them: who do the people say I am?

It's a pretty easy question. It's easy to answer that kind of question. What's the public opinion about me? Jesus is asking? So they all seem to reply.

Well, some of you think you're like Johnny the Baptist or others the great Elijah, or some people think you're just one of the prophets. Simply people think that you're Jesus Christ the superstar, to use a musical reference. Now this first question is a really easy one because it just disconnects the disciples directly from their answer and it's actually a marketing technique we still use and that I learned about at uni. When you ask an individual or a group about the opinion of a wider group, they disconnect and they give their own ideas in the voice of the crowd. They answer the values of themselves because they disconnected from the answer.

It's easy to answer and talk about other people when you're actually talking about yourself. So Jesus tightens the screws a little bit. He says, okay, well, who do you say I am? Who am I? And that's when Peter pipes up.

You're the Christ, which pretty much means you are the Messiah, or you are God's anointed one. Now, I'm sure all of you, especially any of us who are teachers, know a kind of Peter. Every classroom has a Peter. The kid who's always the first to speak, always fires his hand up whenever a question's asked. That kid's never a genius but he's never an idiot.

He doesn't sit back and think about his answer before he gives it. He simply says exactly what he thinks which can be both a good and a bad thing. Now, for better or worse, I am a Peter. I was that annoying kid at school, always answering. But in this story, it's Peter and he fires his hand up: you are the Christ. And then Jesus says, say nothing more about it.

Now, it's important to know that Jesus, that Peter isn't giving Jesus a surname. This, the Christ, is not Jesus' last name as some people think. He's giving him a title. Jesus the Christ is like saying Elizabeth the Queen, but it's also important to note that this is the first time in the whole book of Mark that somebody has verbally acknowledged who Jesus actually is. Jesus is and was and will be the Messiah.

Now, if it was a giant game of messianic Guess Who? Messianic being anything to do with Jesus. Peter's just won it, and for those of you who were born in the eighties or nineties, I'm sure you know Guess Who? Or if you've had kids born then, I can finally kind of see Peter playing it with what's said before. Peter's sitting there going, Jesus, is your head still attached to your body?

Yes, well you can't be John the Baptist. Are you two and a half thousand years old and were you taken up into heaven? Doesn't look that way. Down goes Elijah. Now what about the prophets? Have you cooked on a fire built with poo or have you laid on one side of your body for three hundred and ninety days or have you called down bears on children who teased your baldness?

No. Well, that's the prophets down. Now for those of you who don't know those prophets, you need to read your Bible a bit more. They're great. But back to the game, there's only one thing left. The only thing that Jesus could be is the Messiah.

Peter sticks his hand up: Jesus, you're the Christ. You know what? He gets it right. Peter is the first of the disciples. He's the first human being to correctly answer the question.

He wins, and that's great, but what does all of this mean? What you have to do is actually step back because once you understand how Mark has constructed his book, then it actually begins to make sense because it can be pretty confusing on the surface. Now, every time we open up the book of Mark, the author is answering the question: who is Jesus? That's the whole point of the book. Who is Jesus? And in this passage, we actually get Jesus asking that question himself: who do you say I am?

And you know what? Peter gets it right, and we're only eight chapters in, so somebody's answered it correctly eight chapters in. Why bother continuing? If Peter has the answer right, if we have the answer right, if we say that Jesus is the Messiah, what more do we need to know? Well, this is where the two stories we read today collide because Peter has the answer right.

Peter can see what is right in front of him. He sees Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, but for Peter, and for many of us, what is beyond that, what it actually means, is still very, very blurry. So to understand what it all means and why it's important, we need to see the big picture. Now the story of Peter and the story of the blind man have so much more in common than we realise at first glance, and it comes because we often read the Bible little snippet by snippet, story by story, and we fail to miss what the author is saying in bigger sections. Because in both the healing of the blind man and in the wider story of Peter, we see this two-stage process in truly seeing what is in front of us.

Now, the blind man can't see, so Jesus spits in his eyes and his vision becomes blurry. He begins to see and in the following passage, you know, we actually see the same thing in Peter. Now Peter's not physically blind but in a sense, he's spiritually blind. Up to this point, he doesn't really understand who Jesus was and the rest of the disciples seem to be in the same spot. But then in this passage, all of a sudden, Peter seems to get it.

This is as if Jesus has spiritually spit in his eyes. Well, at least he seems to get it because Peter's confession is only words. He's still very spiritually short-sighted. Now he knows exactly who is in front of him. He sees Jesus.

He knows he's the Christ. He knows he's the Messiah, but he doesn't understand what that means. He isn't blind, but he doesn't fully see. How do we know this? Well, you keep following the story. If you follow Peter through the rest of Mark and all the other gospels, Peter actually really goes downhill from here before he comes up.

In the space of a paragraph, the paragraph that we read today, Peter goes from winning this messianic Guess Who to being likened to Satan in a single story. But the question is, where do we fit in all of this? Well, there are three categories in the story and I would argue that these three kind of still exist today. There's the blind, the blurred and those who have sight. And the question is, what category do you fall into?

Are you just spiritually blind? Can you see what is here in front of you? What is all around you? Can you see God in this world, even in your life, in anything and everything? Now, if you can't, then you probably fall in the first category.

You're probably blind but the reality is we want you to see. We want you to see and meet God and we want you to know and feel the joy of a relationship with the creator of the entire universe. That's what we want. But I'd say there's probably far more people in churches, outside of churches that fall into the blurry category. But what does that actually mean and look like?

Well, if you're blurry, if you're a bit spiritually short-sighted, then you might be able to see what is right in front of you. You might even be able to say things like you love Jesus. You might call yourself Christian. Well, you might just even be here today, but you don't really see or know what that means. Because the apostle Peter, at this point in the story, didn't get it, and this Saint Peter had been privy to almost every single one of Jesus' miracles.

He'd seen all this amazing stuff happen, but he still didn't get it at this point. I'm sure there are people here like that today. People who call themselves a Christian, but the title is little more than that. It's just the title. Because there is a massive difference between calling yourself a Christian and actually being one.

We can see it clearly when we watch things like the American election. People who call themselves a Christian like Donald Trump, but what they say and do is completely different and all of us are in danger of doing that same thing. Calling ourselves a Christian, but not actually being one because that's what Peter was doing. Peter didn't get it. He said the right words, but he didn't understand yet.

But the apostle Peter didn't stay like that because he went from calling Jesus the Messiah to actually living and believing he was the Messiah. And for Peter, when that happened, it changed everything. Peter became so convinced that Jesus was the Messiah that he was willing to die on a Roman cross upside down for his Messiah. That's more than just saying you believe. That's actually believing. Now, let me say this: declaring with your mouth that Jesus is your saviour is vital for being a Christian.

You can't be a Christian without saying it, but you also can't say that Jesus is your saviour without living it. So if you say that Jesus is the Christ and yet you go home and you spend your quiet time hunting through your computer looking at things you shouldn't, you're probably spiritually blurred. If you spend your free time on your phone coveting and gossiping, you're probably spiritually blurred. If you spend your nine to five at work cheating, lying and stealing your way through the day, then you're probably spiritually blurred. If there is any conscious sin in your life that you have no desire to stop, then you're probably spiritually blurred.

You might see Jesus right in front of you. You might use the right words, but you really have no idea what it means beyond that. The comfort in both the stories that we looked at today is that Jesus didn't leave either of these men in their state of blur. Both Peter and the blind man saw eventually in full. Now, we see Jesus confront Peter head on in the book of John towards the end, and at that point, it kind of looks like Peter gets it.

Peter understands then, but he didn't now. And for the blind man, Jesus touched him a second time and then he saw in full. Now, do you need to see Jesus for the first time? Do you need to see things blurrily, up close and right in front of you? And if you do, I'm sure one of the elders or leaders here would love to walk you through what that means for you.

But the same is also true if you want to know Jesus in a way that is deeper than simply saying you're a Christian. Because saying that you believe in Jesus doesn't mean anything if it doesn't change you, if it doesn't change the way you live. When Peter got it, it changed his life forever. Now, the blind man he saw trees. Peter saw Jesus, but neither could see properly at first.

Living in a state of blur is no way to live. We know that. As soon as we lose sight, we go get glasses. But we can miss the forest through the trees ourselves if we fail to understand what it all means. Because ultimately, for Jesus to be the Christ that we all say he is, it meant he had to die.

That's what Peter said to him. Peter is saying you are the Christ. You have to die. He didn't know that yet, but that's what he's saying. It meant that Jesus had to be nailed to a cross for you and me. So for us to say that Jesus is the Christ, for us to say that he is the Messiah, it has to mean more than just words.

It has to change the way we live our life because if Jesus is the Christ, as Peter said he was, as we say he is, then that changes absolutely everything. Let's pray. God, we thank you so much for the fact that you don't leave us in the dark, that you open our eyes, that you allow us to see and God, I pray that if there is any people, anyone or any people in this room that are still blind, that are spiritually blind, that you will allow them to see. But God, I also pray that if there are any people in this room that are spiritually blurry, who don't yet fully understand or acknowledge what you mean, what Jesus being the Messiah truly means, then I pray that you'd work in their lives. God, we pray that we all might be challenged in places in our lives where we might be a little blurry.

We pray that you might confront us with our sinfulness, that you might challenge us to live lives that reflect all that you have done for us and God we pray that you equip us with your spirit to live lives that glorify you. In Jesus' name. Amen.