Begging Jesus to Touch

Mark 8:22-26

Rev. Billy Kristanto

The biblical passage that we just read is a bit strange. I think it is very unique because it is really unusual that Jesus did the miracle in steps or in stages. Of course it is absurd if we say this is because of not enough power as we read so many stories recorded in the gospel where, humanly speaking, there are more difficult miracles and Jesus did not need any steps. Whether it is about healing or even raising the dead, it takes only just one step. So it is not about whether the power of Jesus is sufficient, but there is a certain important lesson that we can learn from this beautiful passage today.

We do not know the motivation of the people who brought this blind man, but Mark writes that they begged Him to touch him. There is no negative, redactional comment, so I think we can safely assume that they had a good motivation, although there is a strange description in verse 23, ‘Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village.’. One of the commentaries says that the action to separate this blind man from the village is most likely because of unbelief, and Jesus is very context-sensitive towards this unbelief. I think we misunderstand God if we see a kind of figure who is always patiently waiting at your own convenience because God is always waiting with open arms. That is hardly a biblical depiction of God, because that kind of god is a weak god, not a sovereign god. Here Jesus reacted to the unbelief. I do not want to say that Jesus is a reactive person, but this is an important, small gesture, that Jesus separated him from the village due to their unbelief. That is why it was rather ambiguous whether they brought this man and begged Jesus to touch him out of a correct motivation or perhaps to test Jesus. We cannot be sure of the motivation, but we can be sure that Jesus indeed took the blind man and led him out of the village. So it is not only about privacy here, but also the context sensitivity of Jesus about the unbelief.

And when Jesus had spit on his eyes and laid His hands on him, Jesus asked him, ‘Do you see anything?’. Perhaps before we discuss the importance of the question, we should take notice of the action of touching and laying of hands. If you compare this with stories in the Old Testament, there are ample stories of laying on hands, usually categorized into three purposes: a dedication or a sacrifice to God (which is probably the most frequent use), the installing of the Levites to priestly office, and as a means of blessing. Jesus certainly had knowledge of the Old Testament custom of the laying on and touching of hands, but there is a certain interesting progression here in the New Testament concept. In the Old Testament story, the laying on of hands usually meant the transfer of animals or persons from the profane to the sacred. It was an act of consecrating them to God. But here, what happened was precisely the opposite: the movement was from the sacred to the profane. Through the laying on of Jesus’ hands, Jesus, who is most holy, brought blessings to the profane: to the blind, or in other stories, to the lepers and unclean people. You see here the movement is the direct opposite. It is not from the profane to the sacred, but rather from the sacred to the profane. This is the beauty and the substance of the New Testament story and our gospel. We celebrate the coming of God Himself in our midst, in our sinful condition. That is basically the beauty of Christianity. It is not merely about the elevation from the non-sacred to the sacred; you can find that in almost all other religions, where the movement is always from the profane to the sacred as you try to elevate from below. Christianity teaches the other way around: it’s the coming of God into the sinful condition. Jesus took the human form; He became flesh and lived among us. This is basically the Christmas pattern in the story.

Now, how should we make sense of the question when Jesus asked, ‘Do you see anything?’ As I said before, this is very unique because you do not find it in other miracle stories. Why did Jesus have to ask this kind of question about the healing itself? After Jesus did something, it supposedly directly happened, but then Jesus seemed to be testing or confirming if it was happening. I do not think that is the correct interpretation. Jesus did not have to ask to confirm whether He truly healed or not. To understand this question, ‘Do you see anything?’, we should link this story with the previous passage. Last Sunday we talked about the story regarding the hardness and the difficulty to believe in the hearts of the disciples, and the seven questions. Verse 18 from that previous passage says: ‘Having eyes, do you not see, and having ears, do you not hear?’ It is like an echo in this passage when Jesus asked the blind man, ‘Do you see anything?’, so the miracle here was not only about making a blind man able to see, but this was also a lesson for the disciples, and certainly for you and me as well. These stages in the doing of the miracle had nothing to do with the sufficiency or insufficiency of Jesus’ power, but rather it is for you and for me to learn something. Usually, when Jesus does a miracle, he speaks with an authoritative voice and the miracle follows because He is the Word of God. But with this question, we know that Jesus wanted to teach the disciples with regard to the story of the miracle. For us it is a story, but for them, they experienced this very story in their lives. It is an echo of Jesus’ pleading questions previously to the disciples: ‘Do you still not see?’ Verse 17 says, ‘Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?’-’. It is like an echo that should be answered by the disciples. That’s why it is very important when you read the Bible that we reflect about our own spiritual condition. Sometimes, perhaps even many times, since the Enlightenment, we tend to see things as an objective reality that has nothing to do with us. In psychological observations, if you keep reflecting on everything that happens as being related to you, then perhaps you are suffering from a certain kind of paranoia. For instance, when you listen to the news and ask, ‘Is it about me?’, perhaps you have some paranoia. But the other extreme is also dangerous: having an unreflective life where everything that you see and hear around you does not help you to reflect about your spiritual condition. When Jesus did this miracle in two steps or two stages, he wanted to teach the disciples, as if Jesus was repeating the same question, ‘Do you still not see?’.

Then the blind man answered, “I see people, but they look like trees walking.” This is an interesting answer, like a condition in between. We cannot say that the blind man remained blind because he was able to see, but we cannot say that he saw clearly or was completely healed. He had not been completely healed at this stage. He said, ‘Yes, I see people who look like trees walking around.’. If we compare this with the other gospels, Matthew and Luke, we know from biblical scholarship that they used the Gospel of Mark as one of their resources. When Matthew and Luke read this story of the miracle, they omitted it. Biblical scholars suggest this is probably because they were afraid it could give a false impression that Jesus was somehow unsuccessful on his first attempt. This kind of story could be a stumbling block. You cannot find this story in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke, although there are so many parallel stories recorded similarly in different contexts. It is also interesting that this is the only miracle in all the gospels that proceeded in stages rather than as an instant happening. What is the point here? How should we interpret this two-stages miracle? What can be learned from this biblical passage? It is useless and even absurd to speculate that perhaps Jesus was tired on this day and so he needed to do it in stages. That is a very funny interpretation. The problem does not lie in Jesus, but rather in the life of the disciples, and perhaps also in your and my life. It is suggesting a process of progressive revelation. It is not enough to operate with a dualistic thinking where either we are blind or we are able to see, or identifying people strictly as believer or unbeliever. It is not about whether you totally and perfectly believe in Jesus or God, or otherwise you are an atheist. The reality is more complex; there is always progress in believing and in seeing Jesus clearly. Our spiritual journey can be accompanied with doubt and even unbelief, as was the case with the disciples. It is recorded in the Bible, meaning this difficult journey is accommodated. Christianity is not about ‘Just believe with your whole heart, or if you cannot, you are damned and not a believer.’. There is a process of knowing Jesus, a progressive revelation, a deeper and deeper seeing.

I think this is good news because you will not get bored in your spiritual journey. One Orthodox theologian, one of the Cappadocian fathers, even developed an eschatological vision that even in heaven there is this kind of progress. It’s a rather daring statement, and from our Reformed traditional perspective, we have to be critical as well. We do not believe that we keep growing in certain aspects in heaven, because the Bible teaches we are perfected like Jesus. But what Gregory thought is that he could include the notion of happiness and joy that keep increasing in heaven - an unending increase. I heard a sermon by our senior pastor, Rev. Stephen Tong, who gave a simple illustration: when people are in heaven and they worship Jesus with their heads bowed down, when they lift up their heads, they see Jesus somehow more beautiful than before. They bow again, and after lifting their heads, He is more beautiful than previously, keeping this progressive amazement. This kind of concept can be accommodated. Even the idea of perfection itself, to a certain extent, is not without progress. The Greek static notion of perfection, where you arrive at a certain stage and say, ‘Now I already decided, I became a Christian, and now I’m a fully Christian man’ perhaps does not really help. This biblical passage is important to remind you and me that as long as we are on earth, we will always be partaking of this kind of progressive revelation, progressive knowing of Jesus, and progressive knowing of God himself.

If you take a look at this story again, the ability to see is completely a gift from God; this is not a human ability. When Jesus asked, ‘Do you see anything?’, he replied, looked up, and said, ‘I see people, but they look like trees walking. Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.’ What is the role of this blind man? Did Jesus say, ‘Believe harder’? No, there is no such story telling him to try harder or look more clearly. We do not find the role of this blind man. The process of seeing deeper means we have to give all glory to Jesus alone because this is completely a gift from God. We hear nothing about the faith of this man contributing to this healing progression. We can conclude that the complete sight he received came solely from the touch of Jesus. This is where we want to emphasize the notion of grace alone - sola gratia. I do not want to stretch that as if in our spiritual journey we do not have responsibility; of course we have our own part to play. But with regard to this story, when we talk about progressive seeing and deeper seeing, we have to ascribe all glory to God alone.

You can see this progress pretty clearly in the lives of the disciples in the Gospel of Mark. There is a movement from non-understanding in Mark 8:17-19 which was the initial state of no understanding. To anticipate the next passage in Mark 8:29-33, there was a misunderstanding about Jesus’ suffering and death. In verse 33, after Jesus foretold His death and resurrection, He was rebuked by Peter. Turning and seeing his disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.’. This is the misunderstanding about Jesus as the Messiah. Finally, they came to a complete understanding, in Mark 15:39, ‘And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, ‘Truly this man was the Son of God.’’. This is the complete knowledge and full understanding that Jesus is truly the Son of God, and precisely from the perspective of the cross. We cannot know or understand God fully without Jesus, and we cannot understand Jesus fully without the perspective of the cross. Without the cross, you will have a distorted picture of Jesus, such as in the prosperity gospel where Jesus is described only as a healer. Of course, Jesus as healer is part of the story, but without the cross, it tends to bring a distorted or political picture of Jesus, whether ultra-right or ultra-left. People try to create a Jesus according to their political agenda, but we cannot know Jesus without the perspective of the cross, which is the moment where the full understanding of Jesus is revealed.

Of course there is a kind of foretaste in this life, as recorded in the confession of Peter in Mark 8:29. Jesus asked them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ and Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ.’. He strictly charged them to tell no one about Him. The confession is correct, but there is still a misunderstanding attested in the next passage where Peter tried to rebuke Jesus after Jesus foretold His suffering and death. This foretaste of the full knowledge of Jesus Christ has been revealed and received by Peter, but as it is with our lives, it will remain imperfect and blurred during this earthly journey.

Paul also said that our knowledge about God, how we see things, and how we know each other is always partial and dim. It is the love of God revealed on the cross that helps us to see clearer and clearer. Without the love of God revealed in Jesus, there is no possibility of seeing things clearly, and by things, I do not mean only God and His kingdom, but everything else in this world. We always see things in this blurred manner. Let us pray to God and ask that we can grow day by day so we see more clearly, and that our love for God and Jesus can grow deeper daily. We can also gain better self-knowledge day by day, as we like to deceive ourselves and pretend that we are good enough or better than wicked people. But when spiritual growth is truly happening in our lives through the perspective of the cross, then we know that we sinful people are forgiven by God through Christ. Let us grow in this knowledge and ask God to reveal Himself deeper, so that our foretaste of the heavenly glory will grow day by day.