Mark 8:22-26
“Half a Cure Just Isn’t Going to Cut It”
By: Ken Sauer, Pastor of East Ridge United Methodist Church, Chattanooga, TN www.eastridge.umc.com
This cure is unusual in that instead of it being instantaneous, it is marked by stages.
Usually Jesus’ miracles happened suddenly and completely, but this one suggests to us that there is a process.
There is a symbolic truth here.
No one ever sees all God’s truth all at once.
There is a danger in thinking that making a personal decision for Christ suddenly makes a person a full-grown Christian.
I know that when I had my conversion experience, I suddenly thought I knew it all.
I kind of miss that feeling sometimes…
But if my born again experience had been the “end of the road” where would I now be…some 25 years later?
Thankfully, it was just the beginning!
There is just too much to learn…
…God is just too big…
…we are too finite…
The discovery of the riches of Christ are inexhaustible!!!
William Barclay once wrote, “If any of us lived 100, or 1,000, or 1,000,000 years, we would still have to go on growing in grace, learning more and more about the infinite wonder and beauty of Jesus Christ”!!!!
It is true that sudden conversion takes place, but we are to go on for a lifetime and still need eternity to know as we are known!!!
How exciting is that?
After Jesus first put His hands on the man and asked him, “Do you see anything” we are given the vivid picture of a person half-cured of blindness.
It has been said that there are many Christians in whom the process of healing seems to have stopped at this stage.
And that they have never allowed Jesus to perform the service of restoring full, clear sight.
There are so many folks who only get a dim view of Christ and a clouded view of His possible meaning for their lives and for the world.
I suppose it can be said that many Christians are in a state of “arrested development.”
And this is not a safe nor a healthy place to be.
It takes time, much study and practice to learn to follow Christ.
We must fall down many times before we learn to walk.
There are a lot of scrapped knees and bruised elbows along and throughout the Christian journey.
It’s kind of like learning to ride a bike or skateboarding.
A few years ago, when I decided to start to skateboard I constantly had some painful reminder of my activities.
But we get up, dust ourselves off, apply the bandages…
…learn from our mistakes…
…I mean, who wants to take a fall like that again?...
And get back on that board.
…and are better for it!
So it is with Christ!
In the Lord’s prayer, for example, Jesus takes it for granted that we will trip, stumble and fall all over the place.
Why else would Christ teach us to pray, “forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”?
We’re gonna sin.
We’re gonna make mistakes.
But we are called to repent, get back up and get on with it!!!
If we didn’t fall so short so often, how in the world would we be able to relate to others?
How in the world would we learn one of the most important lessons of Christianity, “Do not judge”?
When we live our lives with a clouded and dim view of Jesus, how in the world can we expect His revelation of Who God is to radically change our lives?
How can our experience of Him bring us deep and lasting joy?
To follow Christ means just that—to follow Him!
How can we follow if we can’t see?
And how can we see unless we allow Christ to open our hearts and minds—our entire lives to the meaning of Scripture and a deep and abiding love for others?
A half cure of blindness gives us only a dim view of other human beings.
In our Gospel Lesson, the blind man saw people, but they looked like “trees walking around.”
A tree is a thing!
It’s a commodity.
It is something we use.
Trees are often seen as being expendable.
If they are growing too close to our home, we chop them down.
If we are making a road, we level them by the thousands.
I have read that the most horrible word to describe other human beings that came out of World War 2 was the word “expendable.”
People are not objects.
People are not things.
People are loved beyond measure by the Almighty God Who came and died to set us free!!!
There is not one of us who does not have sacred worth!!!
There is no such thing as a “worthless human being.”
No one is a “throw-away,” and no one is to be “given-up” on.
How can the love of Christ live in us if we see other people as commodities to be used?
One of the many great things about Christianity is that it makes every human—truly human!!!
I am loved; therefore I am!!!
Every one of us should be able to say that with certainty tonight!
Another thing a half-cure of blindness does is give us a dim view of the world.
We don’t see the pain in things.
We continue down the road undisturbed by injustice.
We don’t see the suffering, nor do we see the need.
And we don’t see the sin.
We don’t see the sin in our own actions nor do we see the sin and corruption which results from greed, selfishness, and…well, treating other people as if they were trees!
Jesus tells us that whatever we do for the “least of these” we do it unto Him.
You gotta be able to feel, care, love and see somewhat clearly in order to see Jesus in others…
…especially when the “others” in question are persons whom we might not naturally be tempted to call “buddies.”
Thankfully, our Christian lives are marked by stages; stages of growth!
Everyday we should be converted to a new understanding of what it means to follow Jesus.
We can never peal enough layers off the onion.
Even the Apostle Paul did not feel as if he had yet “made it.”
In his great love passage in 1 Corinthians 13 Paul writes, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
And in Philippians 3 Paul writes, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death…Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me…
…I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Are we pressing on?
Are we growing and becoming more mature in our faith?
Are new truths about Christ’s love coming at us daily?
Is our understanding of God’s grace moving and pulsating?
Is our faith alive?
And yet once we were blind, do we now see?
Or are things, at least, beginning to come more and more into focus?
Are we studying God’s Word?
Are we reaching out to others, without discrimination, with the love of Christ?
Are we asking for forgiveness and forgiving others as Christ has forgiven us?
Note that in our Gospel Lesson for this evening, Jesus Christ insisted on a complete healing, a complete cure!!!
“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.”
May it be our goal to look out onto this world with the clear vision of Christ, sharing His concern and love for people.
May we be used by Christ to bring healing and sight to the rest of the world as well.
In Luke Chapter 6 Jesus uses kind of a comical word picture to make a very important point: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?
A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher.”
What a goal to live for!!!
To be trained in order to be like Christ!
May it be so.
Amen.
