Mark 8:11-38, Spiritual Blindness
Introduction:
Sight. It is one of the senses that we treasure most. If we were told that we would have to lose one of our five senses, I doubt that we would be volunteering our vision. I will let smell and hearing go before I would give up vision. Our sight is very important to each of us. It is the times that we cannot see that we are fearful. None of us likes the cold blackness of a dark room. If you have ever been to any of the caves that our national and state landmarks have across this country, you know that they take you into the heart of the cave and turn out the lights. There is no greater darkness that I have ever felt. Although I knew people were right next to me, I could not see them to know. I felt alone. To be in darkness certainly has some amount of symbolism as well. One of the ten plagues that the Lord brought against Egypt was darkness. For three days the nation of Egypt stood in darkness such that the people could not see one another and would not leave their homes (Exodus 10:23). As Jesus was crucified on the cross, in the middle of the day, darkness stretched over the land for three hours. The Lord also warns us about spiritual darkness. 1 Thessalonians 5:5 says, “You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.” Being in spiritual darkness means that you are no longer in the light of God, but are now blinded. Jesus gave this warning in John 12:40, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.” This is the theme of Mark 8. We are going to read about the extensive blindness of the people in Jesus’ day and then make application to the blindness that we may be experiencing.
Mark 8:11-13
Seeking a sign
As Jesus and His disciples reach the other side, the Pharisees come out to Jesus. As we have seen by now, the Pharisees are not coming to Jesus to honestly learn more about Him. They are not coming out of curiosity as to if Jesus may truly be the Messiah. The Pharisees’ purpose continues to be one of trying to discredit Jesus. The Pharisees rejected Jesus and are doing everything they can to make sure that the whole nation rejects Him as the Messiah. The Pharisees come to Jesus and they are beginning to argue with Him. The Pharisees begin to argue that they wanted a sign from heaven. We can probably see how this argument went. The Pharisees are probably asking Jesus to truly prove Himself. Notice that the Pharisees do not simply ask for a sign. Jesus has been giving signs left and right--healing the lame, the blind, the mute, the leprous, and so forth. The Pharisees wanted a sign from heaven. The Pharisees are looking for Jesus to truly prove Himself. He was called upon to do something to the level of greatness that Moses or Elijah had done. “Do something spectacular! Prove your divine authority!”
Why didn’t Jesus oblige these Pharisees? Why not have the clouds open up? Why not part the Sea of Galilee? Why not have God speak to Jesus that this is the Messiah and they need to hear Him? I think there are a few reasons why this would not be done. First, it is clear that it did not matter what Jesus did, the Pharisees were not going to believe Him. The Pharisees were not honest seekers of the Messiah, or devout followers of God, as much as it appeared to others to the contrary. Second, Jesus was not going to bring glory to Himself. Jesus did not perform miracles to be a show off. He did not perform miracles to glorify Himself. This is what the Pharisees are asking Him to do. “Prove that you are truly from God.” He was not going to give them the satisfaction. The glory belonged to the Father. Finally, a sign had already been given, and one more would be given. Isaiah 7:14 says, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” God gave His sign that the Jews were to be looking for. God was going to give one more sign from heaven, according to the Matthew account. God was going to raise Jesus from the dead, another sign from heaven.
The error of the Pharisees
The problem with the Pharisees was that they did not want to receive any of the signs Jesus gave. They wanted their own signs. God’s signs were not acceptable. The Pharisees had in their minds all the things that Jesus would need to do before they would be willing to believe in Him. They wanted to accept Jesus on their terms, and it just does not work that way. This attitude is one stage of spiritual blindness. This is one of the contributing reasons why the Pharisees were unable to see Jesus as the Messiah. Jesus was not meeting the standards the Pharisees had in their minds. The Lord had another way of putting it. He called it “putting the Lord to the test.” When a person says to God, “Here are my demands and if You will fulfill all of these things, then I will be Your follower,” we can fall into the same trap. We can have our expectations of the way God ought to operate and if it does not fit our schedule, then we will reject. We need to see that our Lord does not operate in this manner. We think that we are coming to God, but He is rejecting us because we are looking for a sign. Consider the signs that we expect from God: A perfect family, money in the bank, a nice house, good health, time for ourselves, convenient worship times, and many such things like these. We have expectations of God, but God does not work with us in this way. And many turn away from Jesus because these things are not fulfilled. We are also a wicked and adulterous generation when we look at God for what we can get out of Him, rather than what we can do for Him. We are in spiritual darkness and blinded by the prince of this world when we demand a sign.
Mark 8:14-26
Fundamental teaching of Christ
Mark reveals to us that the disciples had forgotten to take bread with them as they got back into the boat and crossed over to the other side of Galilee. More important, however, the disciples have just had another run in with the Pharisees. They had wanted a sign from heaven to authenticate who Jesus was and what He was doing. Jesus proceeds to give some words of warning in verse 15. “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” Jesus issues a double warning. Notice the emphasis Jesus makes as He says to “take heed” and to “beware.” The Greek word that is here translated “take heed” is found 59 times in the New Testament, 53 of those times the word is translated: to see, behold, or perceive. The same with the word “beware.” The word is used 135 times, and 111 times it is translated “see, behold, or look.” Jesus is saying with two different words that the disciples need to open their eyes and truly see what is happening. See the error of the Pharisees. See their hypocrisy. See their false teaching. See that the Pharisees are spiritually blind and have hard hearts. The Pharisees’ teaching spreads like leaven, which is the way most false teaching does spread. Just a little bit of false teaching and it has infected a whole congregation. This is an important, fundamental teaching that Christ makes to His disciples. You have to always keep your eyes on those who are false. We must always be watching those who would spread their false teaching. It may look like it is only one person or just a harmless disagreement, but it can spread and infect a whole body of Christians. This is how congregations have dissentions, splits, and divisions. Simply by letting a little leaven remain. The leaven will grow larger and larger until it has overcome the whole lump of dough.
Disciples’ reaction
Are the disciples taking note of this important teaching of Christ? No, instead they hear the word leaven and they start talking about how they forgot to bring the bread with them. The disciples begin to discuss among themselves what Jesus has said and determine that Jesus is saying these things because they forgot the bread. This is like asking what is for lunch in the middle of Bible class! Who cares! We are doing more important things right now. Our focus is not on what we are going to do about lunch. Our focus is on worshipping God and encouraging one another. The disciples had the wrong focus and Jesus is now going to call them on it.
Jesus’ teaching
When Jesus notices their discussion, He turns to them in verses 17-21 and begins to teach the disciples again. Jesus first condemns them with being spiritually blind and hardhearted. “Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts still hardened?” Jesus goes further and says, “Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear?” This verse is actually a quotation from Jeremiah 5:21 and Ezekiel 12:2. In Jeremiah 5:21 we read, “Hear this now, O foolish people, without understanding, who have eyes and see not, and who have ears and hear not.” Jesus uses the words of Jeremiah that condemned the hard hearted people of Israel against His disciples. Jesus then asks them to remember the events that have just happened concerning the feeding of the 5000 and the feeding of the 4000. In verse 21 Jesus asks “how is it you do not understand?” The disciples were unable to see that Jesus had full control over physical events. Jesus could make food for His disciples. He had just fed thousands and thousands of people with amounts that could only fill two people. Yet the disciples could not recognize the power of Jesus. Further, the disciples could not understand that Jesus’ teachings went beyond the physical. Jesus is teaching about leaven and the disciples can only make a physical application. This problem is true in the religious world today. Many groups take the teachings of Christ and boil them down to physical blessings, having entertaining assemblies, preaching that everyone will be healthy and wealthy if they tithe, and the like. Jesus did not center upon the physical. His teachings were to be understood beyond the fulfilling of physical and earthly things. The disciples were spiritually blind and hardhearted for their inability to understand these things.
Physically blind man
It is rather interesting that in the midst of all the spiritual blindness, we now encounter a man who is physically blind in the town of Bethsaida. The Pharisees have been spiritually blind, the disciples are spiritually blind, and now here is a blind man. The people of the city bring this man to Jesus to be healed, and that is exactly what Jesus does. Now there is certainly a question that comes to our minds in this passage. Why did it take two efforts for this man to be fully healed? We have seen Jesus heal others immediately. Why does this blind man see people as trees and then he is fully healed? The most complete answer is that we do not know. Unfortunately it is not revealed to us what Jesus is trying to accomplish by allowing this man to see things blurry. Notice the words that I used to describe what happened. Jesus allowed this man to see things blurry. Any other answer is unacceptable. Jesus did not have to do this miracle twice because He did not have the power. Nor was it because of a lack of faith. Any answer except that this is the way Jesus wanted to do it is unacceptable because it then shows that Jesus was not God and did not have full power. That is clearly not the case. I believe that Jesus used this, at the very least, as a teaching example for His disciples. Mark does not record what Jesus was trying to teach, and this is the only account of this event in the gospels. But we do learn that Jesus has the power to do things in ways that we do not expect. We may have expectations that God will answer our prayers in one way, but God can answer us in a whole different way. Further, Jesus is able to heal of all blindness. But He will not heal the spiritually blind. That is up to each and every one of us to take care of ourselves. Jesus could force the Pharisees and force the disciples to understand and truly see who He is. But Jesus does not override our free will. We have the choice to truly see Jesus for who He is as the Messiah, or to be foolish people who will remain blind to the power of the Savior.
Mark 8:27-38
Simple questions of Jesus
Jesus and His disciples have come into Caesarea Philippi and while they are walking Jesus asks the disciples “Who do men say that I am?” This is an interesting question posed by Jesus. The answers are even more interesting. Some of the people said that Jesus was John the Baptist. We recall that Herod had thought this, that somehow John had arisen from the dead (Mark 6:14). Some thought Jesus was Elijah and others thought that Jesus was one of the prophets who had come back to life. In all of these instances, the people had seemed to believe that one from the past had risen again, either John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets. Jesus now turns and asks the disciples who they say that He is. The word for “you” is plural, thus Jesus is asking all of the disciples who they say that He is. Peter is the one who quickly gives his response. Peter answers that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one. Peter answers rightly about who Jesus is. Peter had not listened to what all the other people had to say about Jesus. Peter was fully convinced that Jesus was the anointed one of God.
Jesus’ teachings
This confession leads Jesus to teach the disciples about how He would suffer many things, be rejected, be killed, and be raised in three days. Jesus is only months away from His death and so He now begins to teach the disciples about what is going to happen to Him. Now this is not what the Jews, nor these disciples, had in mind when they talked about a Messiah. Some viewed the Messiah as a political leader who would rule over Israel. Some viewed the Messiah as a military conqueror who would overthrow the Roman powers. Some of the Jews had in mind that there would be multiple Messiahs because they could not reconcile the passages of the Messiah ruling His kingdom and passages that spoke of a Messiah that would be beaten and bruised. Peter, who is the first to give His confession, is the first to react to the these teachings of Jesus. Peter pulls Jesus aside and begins to rebuke Jesus. You can see Peter saying that these things would not happen to Jesus. Jesus is the Messiah, the Holy One of God. These things cannot happen to you. But Jesus turns around and rebukes Peter saying, “Get behind Me, Satan!” Have you ever thought about what a stinging rebuke this is to call Peter the name “Satan?” This is a powerful charge and a hard discipline that Jesus is issuing. Why did Jesus call Peter this? Because Peter was not setting his mind on the things of God but on the things of men. After making his confession, Peter had already lost his focus. His mind was not on the will of God nor things of God, but what their concept of what a Messiah ought to be. Peter could not see how these things could happen to Jesus. Peter was blinded by the things of men.
Fundamental teaching of Christ
In verse 34 Jesus gathers all the people to Him and begins to teach them about what it means to follow after Christ. To follow Jesus, one will have to deny himself and take up his cross. Jesus is already alluding to how He is going to die. Here is given a reference that His death will be through the cross. More important, those who have their minds on the things of God also need to go to the cross. Disciples must put themselves to death in the sense that they will sacrifice all things, even their lives to follow after Jesus. But to put to death the desires in our lives now, to give it over to Jesus’ control, means that we will gain our lives in heaven. However, if we choose to live for ourselves, keeping our minds on the things of men, we will lose our souls. Peter needed to deny his expectations of what the Messiah would be. He needed to be ready to not be ashamed of the things that Jesus was going to endure and suffer. To say that Jesus is the Savior means that we must give our lives to Him so that He can save them. We cannot be blind to the realities that Jesus has taught here. To follow Jesus means to see things with new eyes. Spiritual life is the goal and the salvation of our souls. This can only happen by sacrificing our lives on this earth now to the will of the Father. Thus, Jesus tells us how to be a follower of Jesus: (1) deny yourself (vs. 34), (2) take up your cross (vs. 34), (3) lose your life (vs. 35), (4) change your goals to spiritual goals (vs. 36), (5) give everything up (vs. 37), and (6) do not be ashamed of Jesus. These are the true costs of discipleship. We must subjugate our own desires and wishes and serve the Lord first. To take up your cross means to be dead to yourself and alive to the will of God. Therefore we are sacrificing ourselves to Jesus, thus losing our lives. This requires a change in our goals of life. Life is not about accumulating everything for ourselves, but giving everything up for God. Finally, we are not to be ashamed of Christ, but must proclaim Him to all that we know so that their souls may be saved.
