The God of the Second Touch!
A. Good Morning! I am reading from Mark 8:22-26… Of all the stories of Jesus we might read and study, from the perspective of a believer, this story might just be the strangest of all.
1. Just a simple unadorned look at the facts raises some disturbing questions.
2. We know the blind man was from the town of Bethsaida.
3. We know that some people obviously cared about him because they brought him to Jesus and begged the Lord to make him whole.
4. We know that Jesus healed him partially with imperfect vision and then provided a complete healing.
B. What we don’t know is what is so disturbing and compelling.
1. Why the initial partial healing? Was it a lack of faith on the blind man’s part?
2. Did Jesus have some sort of power failure or a glitch in transmitting his healing touch? Was there a heavenly hiccup at just that moment?
C. There are a couple of scenarios that offer some kind of explanation and I’ll share those with you briefly…
1. First of all, the notion of a power failure in Jesus or a heavenly hiccup is really contrary to everything we see and know about our Lord from scripture.
2. On the other hand, some scholars have postulated that Jesus was using a living metaphor to make an illustration to the disciples…
a. In the very next section of Mark 8, Jesus asks them about his identity and Peter recognized Jesus as the Messiah.
b. Yet the NT record is obvious that not until Jesus’ death and resurrection could they see him clearly as the promised Savior!
3. And still another theory regarding this peculiar instance has Jesus only partially restoring the blind man’s sight to increase his faith by showing evidence of the power to make him whole and illustrating that he, along with all men, was dependent on Him!
D. Whether I have the answers to this strange story or understand it completely or not, I can read this story and see that Jesus is beyond doubt the God of a Second Touch!
1. So many are celebrating the Easter story today—of a God who came to earth as a man, lived among us, died a cruel death and defeated that death by being resurrected from the grave—and I thank God for the resurrection story and for those who celebrate it!
2. The resurrection of Jesus brings us the power of the Second Touch!
I. See a specific example in the story of Lazarus!
A. John 11 tells us of the death of Lazarus.
1. We read of his sisters’ great and overwhelming grief.
2. We understand their frustration and anger when Jesus does not respond in the manner they wish.
3. We see the words of Jesus about resurrection and life.
4. And for those who are uninitiated into the power and might of Jesus, his somewhat puzzling response and shocking words are a mere punctuation mark for what is coming next!
B. John 11: 38-43… Lazarus was a human being just like us!
1. He lived in a different time and place and culture.
2. He spoke a different language and lived in a way that would be wholly foreign to life, as we know it in America!
3. Yet he was essentially no different—he was born to parents, lived through childhood, had an adult life with relationships and a place in the world.
5. As all people are born, he was, and as all people will die, he did.
C. But in a world of harsh realities, Lazarus experienced something quite different!
1. Lazarus experienced the second touch of God.
2. The first touch brought life and ushered him into the world as a squalling baby and the second broke the bounds of death and allowed him to live again!
II. With the death and resurrection of Jesus, the story of Lazarus is multiplied for the entire world!
A. Matthew 28:1-10… Jesus lived, died, and was buried.
1. Today we acknowledge and remember as we do from week to week and day to day that Jesus did not stay dead!
2. Jesus did not stay in the grave! And so we sing Hallelujah, Christ Arose!
B. The world was created in perfection.
1. Man was placed in the garden and had faultless harmony with his world and with his God.
2. But man sinned, harmony was disrupted, relationship with God was broken.
C. And on a fundamental level, nothing between God and man changed until some 2000 years ago!
1. But Jesus came, God in the flesh, to walk these dusty roads, to live and share and touch and bless the lives of men.
2. He came to bring the healing second touch of heaven.
3. And with his death and resurrection, the second touch destroyed the power of death and brought the power of life to all who would believe and call on his name!
Conclusion:
A. Like the blind man, we cannot see clearly—we see controversies over worship and personalities—and that has become our focus.
B. Like the blind man, we cannot see clearly—we see jobs and families, getting ahead, school, marriages that have soured and all manner of life issues—and that has become our focus.
C. Like the blind man, we cannot see clearly—we see the desire for pleasure and the striving for acceptance and all that those desires and strivings turn into—and that has become our focus.
D. Like the blind man, we cannot see clearly—we see the homeless, the addicts, those who are afflicted with the very worst this world has to offer and instead of seeing them as people who are worthy of being saved by virtue of their needing Jesus Christ, we see what is different and wrong and disgusting—we have lost our focus.
E. How we still need the second touch of God today!
1. If you are a Christian and you cannot see your place in the world, if you cannot see the need to grow and become more in the Kingdom of God, you need the second touch of God!
2. If you are a Christian and caught up in a sin that is slowly but surely destroying your life, you need the second touch of God!
3. If you are not a Christian, and your life is topsy-turvy and spinning out of control, then it is also time for you to experience the second touch of God by having your sins washed away, being baptized into Christ and experiencing the resurrection of a brand new life!
F. Whatever your circumstance or situation, the Second Touch of God is available to you—and if we can help you experience that in your life, we ask you to come as we stand and sing!
