DO YOU STILL NOT UNDERSTAND?
Mark 8:1-38
In the story about the blind man who at first saw “people; they look like trees walking around” we are confronted with the possibility that even with the direct intervention of Jesus, restoration may not be complete. To me, the situation where “some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him” reeked of them treating the blind man as a sideshow for Jesus to perform. Instead of responding to their request, as Jesus often does, he instead led the man away to the outskirts. In such a situation, where the blind man would not really know and understand what is happening, who might not even know who Jesus was, we can understand the half-hearted response to Jesus’ question, “Do you see anything?”
In the second attempt, we were told that “he looked intently and was restored”.
In telling us this story, in the midst of telling us how Jesus struggled to help his disciples see things in the light of who he is, the Messiah, the anointed one of God, rather than business as usual with everyone on equal terms, we can see the point that is being made: Jesus is not a sideshow; his presence in our reality changes everything. We must not require him to accommodate himself into our reality; we must accommodate ourselves into his reality—we must look with different eyes, walk a different path, respond with a different heart and choose with a different mind.
As much as it boggles our mind that our Lord could, and would, actually bend reality to multiply some fish and bread to feed four thousand people, it is so much harder to imagine that someone with such immense power would allow himself to suffer, be rejected and ultimately to be killed by the very people he had established as his own. How can we understand the concerns that caused him to perform miracles that alleviated the pain and suffering of virtually nobodies, and the concerns that would stop him from doing the needful to avoid the tragic betrayal by his own?
Yet our churches continue to invest in property, buildings, lively music, entertaining preachers, displays of power in healing, prophecy, and other miracles, financial success, crowds—pandering to the yeast of the Pharisees—while avoiding the anonymity of the narrow road.
“Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to it.” Then he left them, got back into the boat and crossed to the other side. The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf they had with them in the boat. “Be careful,” Jesus warned them. “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod.”