Mark 8:11-26
Do You See Anything?
This year you are studying: Questions Jesus Asked from Mark’s gospel.
Did you know that in Mark 8 in the NKJV, there are at least 16 questions asked by Jesus.
You could have gotten your entire Summer Series from just this chapter!
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1. How many loaves do you have?
2. Why does this generation seek a sign?
3. Why do you reason because you have no bread?
4. Do you not yet perceive or understand?
5. Is your heart still hardened?
6. Having eyes do you not see?
7. And having ears do you not hear?
8. And do you not remember?
9. When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?
10. Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?
11. How is it you do not understand?
12. Do you see anything?
13. Who do men say that I am?
14. But who do you say that I am?
15. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?
16. Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
There’s a power packed package of probing questions right there!
When Jack James called to talk with me about your summer series and said you were doing the questions of Jesus from Mark’s gospel, I was curious. Then when, he gave me the scripture reference and question he wanted me to share on, interestingly enough, I had just listened to a lesson on this very text! And I mean, was finishing it when the phone rang!
So I have a couple of questions for you. First, do you suppose that God had a hand in this? Or, second, was this just a matter of coincidence? What I am really asking is the same question Jesus asked this blind man that he was healing, * “When the Lord is working in your life, *do you see anything?” When Jesus begins to shine and that light comes upon you… do you see anything?
The subtitle of my lesson is: *Opening the Eyes of our Heart.
Wow! Now that’s a subject we can talk a long time about and still not scratch the surface of it. But let’s go back and look at our text to see where God wants us to go with this.
Our text for tonight is Mark 8:11-26 and in this text alone Jesus asks 10 of the 16 questions in the chapter. Look at the text with me and underline the questions on the handout.
This text naturally divides into three sections. In each case Jesus has questions.
First we see Jesus and the Pharisees. Now we generally don’t like the Pharisees, do we? Well, it is for good reason. Whenever we see them, we see blindness. We see the light of truth bouncing off them. These Pharisees were not just blind; they were upset that Jesus told them so. When Jesus was finally fed up to here with their opposition, he shouted, “You blind Pharisees! Well, let me just read what Jesus himself said in Matthew 23:15-26, this will give us just a taste…
Jesus never took the Dale Carnage course on winning friends and influencing people. But He didn’t start out so aggressively against them. He just would not bow to their hypocrisy, nor would he compromise with them when they tried to win him to their side.
Jesus told them the truth.
The eyes of their hearts were shut tight! If you asked them the question, “Do you see anything?” in reference to Jesus, they would declare him an enemy! They saw trouble. They saw Jesus as a huge threat. They saw Jesus from the perspective of spiritual blindness and heard heartedness, and all they could see made them angry and upset.
And so when they come to Jesus here in Mark 8, they were looking for an argument. They wanted to dispute with him. The text says they were seeking a sign from heaven, testing him, verse 11. Listen to Jesus response. I want you to see something here…
Open the eyes of your heart to Jesus here and look at his response carefully.
Sighing deeply in his spirit… Do you see anything? Can’t you just see Jesus shaking his head with heavenly longing for these blind men to see, but knowing they are deliberately choosing to close their eyes? Here they come… We want a sign from heaven! Show us a sign! How blind! The sign from heaven is right there before them! Jesus is the sign! These guys couldn’t see the brightest light of heaven shining right there in their faces!
Jesus question is loaded. Why? Why does this generation seek a sign? Of all the generations that have ever lived, which generation had the clearest signs from heaven? Which one? This one!!! So when Jesus says, “Truly I say to you, no sign will be given to this generation.” He can NOT mean that there was no sign present. He has to mean that when the neon signs of heaven were flashing all around them, they would not look at them with faith. Therefore, no sign is given, because no sign is read. They knew that Jesus had done miracles; they just didn’t accept them as signs.
Hey, have you ever tried to get someone to see baptism as essential for salvation when they didn’t believe it? What scripture can you offer to someone who refuses to see it? What sign can you show that a blind person will accept? Yeah, I know it says that, but it doesn’t mean it… I want to say, excuse me, but do you see anything?
None are so blind as those who will not see. No sign is given to those who will not look with eyes of faith and good honest hearts.
The next section of the text involves Jesus and the disciples’ discussion in a boat.
Mark sets it up for us telling us that they are on the boat, but they forgot to bring lunch! Someone found a biscuit, but that’s all. Ok, ok. I don’t want to take any liberties with the text. Look at verses 13-14.
While they are thinking about food, Jesus is thinking about the influence of these Pharisees and Herod on God’s people. His words come out as a charge to them as he thinks out loud about this. Take heed! Watch out! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod…
Now, what goes on in the disciples minds when they hear this? Leaven? Oh, man! Who forgot the bread! Did you bring the bread? There’s got to be some food here somewhere! Let’s have a committee meeting about the shortage of food! Peter, call the meeting to order! Discussion item: we have no bread! What are your thoughts? Thus the disciples begin to deliberate about something that amounts to nothing!
Have you ever been in any of those kinds of meetings? I’m so glad churches don’t have meetings like this, aren’t you? All our meetings are about important matters that make a difference! Right? Do you see anything here?
While the Pharisees are blind in sin, even Jesus’ own disciples are often blinded by matters that don’t matter.
To open their eyes, Jesus fires several questions at them. Look at verses 17-21.
Circle the questions.
Questions like this have a way of showing us where we are. How many parents are there here tonight? Have you ever asked your kids a question like this: “Do you want me to spank you?” Now, think about that question. What is the point? Are we really interested in whether or not our children have a desire to be spanked by us or is there some other matter that we want to get across?
Jesus questions here are awakening questions. Prioritizing questions. Jesus is showing them something about where their eyes are focused. If you asked Jesus, “Do you see anything?” He would say, “I see the danger caused by the influence of the Pharisees and Herod on God’s people. I see the danger they are in as well.”
If you asked the disciples, “Do you see anything?” They would say, “We are going to miss lunch today, unless we find some more food.”
Jesus says the word, “leaven” and the disciples focus on food. Notice the big gap between what Jesus is concerned about and what the disciples are concerned about. It is training time in the boat. Jesus works to open their eyes to see heaven’s priority system so that they can be more like him and walk in the light of God instead of the blindness of the world. And brothers and sisters, Jesus wants to work on our eyes too.
Our last section is the one we are building up to. In this section, Jesus heals a blind man, and in the process asks him one single question. Let’s look at the text and notice the details as we go.
Verses 22-26. This is one of the strangest healings in all of Jesus’ ministry. It’s the only one that I know about where the healing happened in phases. But the timing of this event is no accident. And the performance of Jesus to heal him like this is not a coincidence either. Mark records this in the context of blindness of the Pharisees, and partial blindness of the disciples. Over and over in this chapter we have been confronted with what people in the text are seeing.
It should come as no surprise that along with spiritual blindness, Jesus encounters physical blindness too. But there are some unique things about this event that should give us a heads up.
First the text says that they bring this blind man to Jesus and beg him to touch him. I don’t know who “they” are, but it seems like whoever they are, they have faith that Jesus’ touch can help this blind man see. They not only believe this, but they are actively willing to bring this blind man to Jesus to request his help. They not only request his help, the scripture specifically says that they were begging or entreating him to touch him. The word is: parakalew which means to beseech, implore, to entreat, or to pray.
Now that tells me that they want this man to see!
Well, guess what? Jesus wants people to see too. In fact, that’s why he came. The prophet Isaiah had said, Isaiah 35: 3 Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble.
4 Say to those with anxious heart, "Take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; The recompense of God will come, But He will save you."
5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, And the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.
6 Then the lame will leap like a deer, And the tongue of the dumb will shout for joy.
Jesus has been around blind people all day! Pharisees, disciples, and now this blind man. But this is the first time in this text that someone wants to remove the blindness! And Jesus is the answer.
How about us here tonight… do we have any blindness that only Jesus can remove? Maybe a better question for this context would be: do you know of someone that needs to have their blindness healed by the touch of Jesus? Isn’t it great that these people cared so much for this blind man that they took pains to get him to Jesus and to persuade Jesus to open his eyes? Maybe a good lesson for us might be, that we should care about the blindness of others enough to do what we can to put them in touch with Jesus.
If we were to ask those people that brought this blind man to Jesus the question, “Do you see anything?” Their answer would probably be, “We see Jesus as the one who can open this man’s eyes again.” And they would be correct. This blind man of Mark 8 seems to be beloved by whoever the “they” are that bring him to Jesus. And Jesus responds to their faith by performing this miracle of opening his eyes. And he does it in a deeply intimate way involving lots of personal touch.
So Second, let’s notice the personal touch of Jesus to this blind man. Verses 23-25. He takes him by the hand. He leads him outside of the village. He spits on his eyes. He puts his hands on him. Now that’s a lot of touching.
Have you seen anyone who is blind lately? We just got back from Honduras from a mission trip. One of our stops was at a school for the blind. This is our seventh year to go on this mission trip and we go to this school every year. There are about 70 children there. Among the many things we experience with them, one is that of how important touch is to them. They want to feel of you. Their hands are like their eyes. They see with their hands and ears. They hold onto one another and walk around together. And the highlight of every visit is when they sing for us. We always sing to them too. For most of us, it is a highly charged emotional time as we share the love and light of Jesus with them and they with us.
Jesus knows how to be with people in need. He can be as tough as nails when he needs to be, or as gentle and tender as a servant when that is called for. Someone referred to Jesus as the man of steal and velvet. Here we see him up close and personal with this blind man.
I don’t know why, but Jesus didn’t just say a word and heal him like he did with Bartimaeus, in Mark 10:52. He could have just touched him right there and healed him and gone on his way, but he didn’t. Maybe Jesus wanted to teach something to us. We can only guess. But his question to this blind man leaves the door wide open for interpretation. *In Greek there are just three words. Ei ti blepeis, literally: if anything (you) see?
Jesus asks the question as if he wants to know… do you see anything? When the man answers, saying that his vision is distorted, Jesus touches him again.
I like that. Jesus doesn’t give up on us easily. He will touch you again if you need it. He’s very interested in what we are looking at and what we are seeing, because Jesus knows that what we look at for a long time, we start looking like!
That’s why over and over the Bible teaches us to be careful with your eyes, what you see.
We need to keep our eyes focused on something worth looking at. We need to have the eyes of our hearts focused on things that matter.
Hebrews 12 tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus. He is the only one who can touch us and open the eyes of our hearts so that we can walk by faith through a world of darkness and blindness.
We should make it a practice to look for Jesus everywhere in our lives. One of the questions we always ask on our mission trip devotionals is: Where did you see Jesus today? I’ll tell you. If you are not seeing Jesus, you are missing out on what your eyes were made for. But if you will just open the eyes of your heart and look for Jesus…
