Mark 8:22-26
22 And they came to Bethsaida. And they brought a blind man to Jesus and implored Him to touch him.
23 Taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?”
24 And he looked up and said, “I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around.”
25 Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly.
26 And He sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.”
(Mark 8:22-26)
Jesus healed 7 blind men in the bible. But, this is the only progressive miracle recorded in the bible.
The best things in life take time. Our relationships are like that. In order to have a meaningful and lasting relationship, we must spend time building that relationship. Not all of us have instant faith. Sometimes faith must grow. But it certainly is worth nurturing and worth waiting for.
God always deals with His people on the basis of faith. And that means we do not always get what we need from God instantly. Sometimes things come gradually as our faith grows. But that's OK. We will see in our text today, how the blind man of Bethsaida received his sight through the repeated touch of the Savior's hand. What he got he did not get instantly. But he did get it. It came, not all at once, but gradually. He needed more than a single touch, a first touch, but he needed a second touch. We need that, too. Sometimes, we must come again and again. The encouraging news is that God is a God of the Second Touch.
The incident of the blind man of Bethsaida is a wonderful story of how God deals differently with different people. It is the story of healing. But unlike many of Jesus' healings, this one did not occur instantly. There was a developing process involved in this healing. This story communicates to us the needed truth that God deals with each of us on the basis of what we need. Just as we are not all stamped out of the same mold, so God's miracles do not come in "cookie-cutter fashion." Just as we are not a machine, so God does not deal with us with a method. He meets each of us personally, where we are, and deals with us as individuals.
The Expectations of People
"And they came to Bethsaida. And they brought a blind man to Him, and entreated Him to touch him." (v. 22)
When Jesus comes to Bethsaida, He is met by a group of people with a blind man in tow. These people undoubtedly wanted to see the blind man healed. And so they began to ask Jesus to touch him. What we see here are the expectations of people, as those expectations relate to God and His work. All of us have expectations in this regard, and it may well benefit us to look at the expectations we have, to see whether they are indeed accurate and reasonable.
What were these people's expectations in reference to God? We can only speculate as to their views based on certain evidence in Scripture about the region. Bethsaida was not on our Lord's list of the top ten best cities in Israel. We have every indication from Scripture that it was an insensitive and hardened area. In Matthew 11:21, Jesus cries out and says,
21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
This indeed was a strong rebuke from our Lord. Undoubtedly, great miracles had occurred in Bethsaida, and they had only hardened their heart. No repentance had occurred. They were spiritually insensitive. Perhaps this may account for Jesus' command to this blind man after He had healed him, in verse 26, where He says, "Do not even enter the village." Maybe they were so perverted that he didn’t want the healed one to contaminate himself by going there again. Or, perhaps these people only wanted to see God perform again as a spectacle, with no desire for God encounter for themselves. Perhaps all they wanted to see was another miracle to tantalize their senses. We can only speculate.
People have all kinds of expectations about God. Many see Him not as an appliance repairman, but as a divine life repairman, who is there entirely for our benefit. To some, we have a right to expect from God anything we want, whether it is right or not. Some see God as a kind of heavenly vending machine, where you put your money in, pull the right levers, and get what you want. Other people believe that since God exists we shouldn’t have trouble, pain, or illness. That death should never happen. This is why it is so important for us to study what the Bible has to say about God. We say we worship God. But what kind of God do we worship? One of our own devising? One that we would prefer to worship? One that is here only to serve us? Or the God revealed in Scripture, the true God?
God is not some impersonal force in the universe. He is not merely a "supreme being." The Bible reveals God as a person. And He must be related to as a person. God is someone who is intimately concerned with getting to know us and our getting to know Him. In the section of Scripture we will come to next week, Jesus asks His disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" and "Who do you say that I am?" These are the key questions we must answer about God. Who do we really believe God is, and how does He relate to our lives? Do we know Him personally? Do we understand that He is the Creator God, the Lord of this universe? Have we surrendered our lives in humble obedience to Him? How you view God determines how you view yourself. We need to make sure that we are serving the God revealed in the Bible, and not some fabricated version of our own making that meets our whims and wants.
People have many expectations of God. And they also have expectations in reference to God's work. We see this clearly in the people who brought this blind man to Jesus. It says in verse 22 that they "emplored Him to touch him." No doubt, these men had seen Jesus heal other blind people. Generally, He healed people with a touch. Jesus loved to touch people, and through His touch, He imparted His grace. The touch was something people could see. So these people assumed that the touch of Jesus was His method. They expected Jesus to touch him and heal him. Here again, we are not altogether sure of these people's motivation. Perhaps they only wanted to see a miracle. In any case, Jesus didn't fulfill their expectations in quite the same way they had asked Him. Look at verse 23:
23. Taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?”
(v. 23)
The first thing Jesus does is take the blind man by the hand and lead him out of the village. Why did He do this? Again, we can only speculate. Perhaps there was a great crowd waiting to see Jesus perform for them. Perhaps Jesus wanted to get the blind man alone. After all, it may not have been his idea to come to Jesus in the first place. Nothing is said about the blind man desiring to be healed. We do not even know that he had any faith at all in Jesus. Perhaps Jesus needed to spend some personal time with this man. Maybe that village was filled with evil self-indulgent people only looking for personal self-gratification, maybe being in that place and having been influenced by those people brought about the blindness to begin with. In any case, we have a picture of Jesus personally taking this man by the hand and leading him out of the village, getting him out of that place, taking him around obstacles in the path, perhaps telling him where to step and where not to step. It is a beautiful picture. It is a picture of the involvement of our Savior in a single human life, of the man’s complete trust and dependency on Jesus. This should remind us that Jesus is willing to take time with us as individuals, to move us from where we are to where He wants us to be, to make a change in our dwelling place, just as He took time with this blind man.
In addition to leading this blind man down, Jesus did not simply touch him. The Scripture says that Jesus spit on his eyes and then laid His hands upon him. God's methods cannot be reduced to a mere formula. Jesus obviously did not treat this blind man as He had treated others. Blind Bartemaeus, for instance, was treated in a different fashion. Why the change? Undoubtedly this blind man needed the method which Jesus used. It was a personal application for an individual situation. What we expect God to do is not always what He does. But we can be assured that what He does will be precisely what we need.
The Symbols Of Grace
So we may ask ourselves, just what is the significance of the action of Jesus? Why does He take the man by the hand? Why does He spit on his eyes? Why does He touch Him? These are all outward actions. And why does He treat others in different ways. I believe the answer lies in the fact that these are all the symbols of grace.
It is important for us to understand that the symbols of grace are not the substance of grace. When these men brought this blind man to Jesus, they besought Jesus that He would touch the blind man. No doubt, they had seen Jesus touch other blind men with the result that the blind man saw. But the touch was not the grace. They could see the touch. They could not see the grace. But it was His grace that was the substance of the miracle. The Bible says that by grace we are saved through faith. That is the way it always works. Both faith and grace are at work in the touch of Jesus. But we must not confuse the touch for the grace. Symbols are not the substance.
But symbols do serve to stimulate faith. After all, they are symbols of His grace. Jesus always dramatized His work based on the need at hand. Sometimes He would simply speak to people, and His word was sufficient. Other times, He would lay His hand upon people as well as speak to them. The very act of laying His hand upon them must have served to stimulate their faith. Now we see Him spitting on the man's eyes and laying His hand upon him. No doubt, this served to encourage the man's faith.
Actually, this process began when Jesus took the man by the hand and led him out of the village. Even then, Jesus was letting the man know that He was about to do something for Him. Then when He spit on the man's eyes and laid His hands upon them, this further indicated to this blind man that Jesus wanted to heal him. We must remember that this blind man may not have been the instigator in coming to Jesus. He may not have had very much faith at all, if any. Perhaps Jesus knew that this man needed special attention in order to stimulate his faith in what God could do for Him.
Throughout the entire Bible, God has symbolized His grace in various observable ways. That is the whole significance of the Tabernacle, and later the Temple. We see there the altar for making sacrifice and for burning incense. We see the laver for washing. We see the most holy place, where God met with man. All of the ceremonies and rituals were speaking of God's grace. But it wasn't in the symbol. It wasn't in the ceremony. Even then it was in faith toward God. These outward symbols were there to point people to God. In the same way, in the New Testament, we see in the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's table, symbols which seek to point us to Christ. It is not in baptism that we are saved. It is not in the Lord's table that we are forgiven. It is by the grace of God operating through our faith. The symbol is not the substance, but the symbol does stimulate faith that we might receive God's grace. We need to remember this as we minister to people. Often times, people need an outward manifestation of the grace God desires to impart to them. Sometimes we need to lay our hands on people when we pray, to let them know that God desires to meet their need.
The Process of Faith
Notice here the process of faith Jesus took this blind man through in order to restore his sight.
23. Taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?”
24. And he looked up and said, “I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around.”
25. Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly. (vv. 23-25)
The focus is on faith. That is always the focus of what God does in our lives. God is interested in our faith. God is excited by our faith. God acts on the basis of our faith. Time and again, we here Jesus saying, "Go thy way, thy faith has made thee whole." What Jesus was after in this blind man was faith. God is far more interested in developing faith in us than He is in our physical healing. Jesus was willing to heal this blind man, but He was more interested in developing faith in him.
There is some indication, as I have said already, that this blind man may not have had very much faith, if any. He does not seem to be the instigator in coming to Jesus. It seems, from the account, that he passively goes along with what Jesus is doing. Even after Jesus laid His hands on him the first time and asked him did he see, his response does not seem to be overly enthusiastic. Perhaps it is because his faith was growing as Jesus was ministering to him. Sometimes that is the way faith comes.
This is very encouraging for us. But there may be some who claim to have the ability to believe God for anything. That is not always the case with many of us. Trusting Jesus more generally means getting to know Him better. And that is something which takes time. And sometimes we need a second touch from Jesus in order to clearly see what He can do in our lives. That is precisely what this blind man needed. And I know from personal experience that I need it many times as well. In fact, sometimes I need a third touch and a fourth touch and a fifth touch. If the truth were known, sometimes after the thousandth touch I still need another. But thank God He is willing to give us what we need. If we need a second touch, then He is the God of the second touch.
In this second touch we see the fulfillment of faith being worked out in this blind man's life. Jesus doesn't just leave us after He has touched us once. He is committed to stay in there with us until we come to the place where we can receive the fulfillment of all He wants to do in our lives. He doesn't deal with all of us in the same way. He doesn't use the same methods and the same means. But He does touch all of us by His power. Some of us have experienced dramatic identifiable conversions. We can identify the very hour and minute we were saved. We can tell what pew we were sitting in and what verse of what song we were singing when God spoke to us. Others, however, do not share such a dramatic conversion. Some, in fact, who were raised in Christian homes, cannot even tell you in what month they trusted Jesus. It was a process of taking one step after another closer to the Savior until those steps became a true conversion to Jesus Christ. The important things is not that we were all converted the same way. The important thing is that we all experienced conversion. You don't have to go to the same barn and get kicked by the same mule. What is important is that you know today that you have surrendered your life to Jesus. But some people get very upset unless everyone does everything the way they have experienced it.
We know that Jesus healed at least three blind men differently. In one case, He touched the blind man and he was healed. In a second, he spit on the ground and made mud and put the mud on the blind man's eyes and he was healed. In this case, he spit directly into the blind man's eyes and he was healed. Now suppose these three blind men met one day and began comparing notes. If they were like some Christians are today, their sharing would degenerate into an argument over the proper method of being healed from blindness. And because each had experienced a different method, they would probably be polarized into three distinct sects. Out of that meeting would become the "touchites," the "mudites," and the "spitites." And three new movements would be born. But they would miss the point, wouldn't they. Sometimes we miss the point on equally trivial grounds.
The point is that we get what God is trying to do in our lives. However God ministers that to us, know this: that Jesus is interested in giving you what you need. Whether it comes instantly or takes a period of time, submit to Him. Trust Him in the midst of your circumstances. He is working in them and through them to grow your faith. And as you trust Him more fully, your faith will grow, your expectations fulfilled as His grace is applied to your life time and again.
Have you come to Jesus to receive His touch? If you haven't, then come today. If you have, are you made whole? Be encouraged. God is the God of the second touch. Come back to Jesus again. Allow Him to minister to you. Come and keep coming, and don't ever quit coming. The Bible says, "Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened, seek and ye shall find." But the literal rendering of those commands is, "Ask and keep on asking, knock and keep on knocking, seek and keep on seeking." If you need another touch from Jesus, keep coming. He is the God of the Second Touch.
