On Line Bible Study - For the week June 1-7, 2009

Lesson 390

We concluded last week's lesson with the words: Guess what happens next ... Jesus had expressed ... what was it, frustration? ... with his disciples - Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? In Mark 7:31ff Jesus touched a man's ears and then spit and touched the man's tongue. (We made only a passing reference to that incident in Lesson 387.) The result was the deaf mute was able to hear and speak. This week we look at Mark 8:22-26:

²²They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. ²³He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?" ²⁴He looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around." ²⁵Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. ²⁶Jesus sent him home, saying, "Don't go into the village."

Some of the interesting characteristics of this pericope:

• "Some people" - unnamed people have amazing faith in Jesus' power to heal.
• Jesus leads the man outside the village, perhaps even away from the friends who had brought the man to him.
• As in Mark 7:33, Jesus "spits and touches the man's tongue"; in the text we are looking at today he spits on the man's eyes. In the passage from John 9 when Jesus heals a man born blind we are told he spit on the ground and made mud, with which he anointed the man's eyes.
• The healing doesn't "take" the first time. This story doesn't occur in Matthew or Luke, and some commentators speculate they intentionally left it out because of the failure of the healing to be immediately effective.
• Notice - the man's sight is restored. This is an individual who used to be able to see, then was made blind, and after Jesus is finished, he is able to see again.
• Don't go into the village ... Why not? We are not given a reason. (Some manuscripts read: Don't go and tell anyone in the village.)
  

One of the challenges of these studies each week is to decide which points to pick up on! Each story is literally its own world of lessons. Let's talk about the gradual healing that takes place, not so much from the perspective of questioning why Jesus didn't or "couldn't" effect the healing immediately, but from the perspective of our own spiritual growth. How many of us "get it" the first time around?

A number of years ago I began to pray a very specific prayer: Lord, please let me learn the lessons you are trying to teach me today so that I don't need to re-take the same test tomorrow! It's not a difficult prayer to pray; but it is a most difficult desire to accomplish!

When I was a music student majoring in piano performance, every day I would spend two hours practicing scales and arpeggios. It was monotonous work, and my classmates learned that the practice rooms next to mine were not the rooms they wanted to be in! One day, a friend of mine burst into my practice room - I had been doing the scales for about an hour and a half at that point - "Mark", he said with great agitation in his voice, "you have to practice something else! You are driving us crazy!"

Any teacher knows that a big part of learning is repetition. But maybe one of the reasons repetition is necessary is because we don't focus on the lesson at hand. In some cases, it is a matter of training muscle, and that takes time and repetition. In other cases it is a matter of taming our spirit, re-directing our priorities. That takes concentration and a willingness to change. It takes faith.

In this story Jesus is tenacious. He probes, questioning the man as to the clarity of his sight. Would we be as honest as the man? Can we admit that we do not see things as clearly as we know we should? Are we willing to submit to repeated lessons in order to learn what Jesus is trying to teach us?

You have eyes but fail to see ... It doesn't have to be that way! Jesus is tenacious. He won't quit. The question is: Will you?

Next time we will consider another reason why this is not only an important story, but a pivotal one.