Scripture Daily

Context No. 1655 of 4322 · Mark

Context · Reflection

Mark 8:20-24: in context

20“When the seven loaves fed the four thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?” They told him, “Seven.” 21He asked them, “Don’t you understand yet?” 22He came to Bethsaida. They brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. 23He took hold of the blind man by the hand, and brought him out of the village. When he had spat on his eyes, and laid his hands on him, he asked him if he saw anything. 24He looked up, and said, “I see men, but I see them like walking trees.”

After feeding the crowds, Jesus presses the disciples about their dullness: do you not yet understand? Then at Bethsaida a blind man is brought to him. Jesus takes him by the hand, leads him out of the village, puts spittle on his eyes, and lays hands on him, then asks whether he sees anything. The man looks up and says, I see men, but they look like walking trees. His sight has come, but only partly; Jesus lays hands on him again, and then he sees everything clearly.

This is the one healing in the Gospels that comes in two stages, and there is something to learn from it. The blind man does not go from darkness to full sight in an instant; at first he sees, but dimly, men like walking trees, and only after Jesus touches him again does he see clearly. Jesus was not thwarted by the partial result, nor did he leave the man half-healed; he completed what he had begun, bringing him from dim sight to clear. There is comfort here for the way understanding and healing often come to us. We would like our sight, our grasp of God, our healing, to arrive all at once, complete; but often it comes in stages, dim at first and clearing over time. The disciples themselves were like this, half-seeing, not yet understanding, and Jesus was patient with them, leading them on. If our own sight of God is still partial, if we see him and his ways only dimly, like shapes not yet clear, this is not cause for despair. Jesus does not abandon those he has begun to heal at the halfway point; the one who gave the blind man his first dim sight touched him again and brought him to clarity. He will do the same with us, bringing on to fullness the sight he has begun to give, if we keep coming to him. Partial sight is not the end of the story; it is a stage on the way to seeing clearly, under the hand of the one who finishes what he starts.

If my sight of God is still partial, if I see him and his ways only dimly, can I trust that Jesus does not leave half-healed those he has begun to heal, and that the one who gave the blind man his first dim sight will touch me again and bring me on to seeing clearly, if I keep coming to him?

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