Meditations

”Then they came to Bethsaida. They brought a blind man to Him… and Jesus took the man out of the village. Spitting on the man’s eyes and laying His hands upon him, Jesus asked him what he could see. The man said, ‘I see people – they look like trees walking.’ Again Jesus placed His hands on the man’s eyes, and this time the man was completely healed and could see everything clearly. Then Jesus charged him to go straight home, ‘Do not even return to the village.’ ” (Mark 8:22-26)

Mark and his maps. “Bethsaida was nearby, but considerably larger than Capernaum. It was one of the cities of ‘woe,’ that Jesus denounced for failing to repent (Matt 11:20ff), and was eventually destroyed by an earthquake in A.D.115 and never rebuilt. That may explain why Jesus not only brought this man outside the city, but sternly instructed him to avoid going back into it. Could that also be the reason that the man’s blindness didn’t disappear completely upon Jesus’ first try? Or was Jesus purposefully teaching us something? Oh, Jesus was definitely teaching us – this was much more than a unique miracle for one man, this was a parable and a prophecy of the way that Peter’s eyes, as well as most of our own eyes, would be gradually and inevitably opened.” (Dr. William Lane)

Ruth Bell Graham once described her own faith as “Not so much a sudden flash of clarity as it was, and continues to be, like a light on a dimmer switch, gradually growing clearer and brighter every day.” “The use of spit is a mystery, but we know that Jesus used His spit for healing occasionally, such as with the blind man and the making of mud for his eyes to be washed in the pool of Siloam. (John 9:6) As far as we know, this was the only time that Jesus had to lay His hands on someone twice to complete the cure. Jesus apparently intended to get our attention, because we may have become accustomed to examples of the disciples’ failure to see and hear. Until this moment they have seen Jesus as shapeless and out of focus. That is all about to radically change when we are taken ‘behind the scenes’ and shown our Savior preparing His disciples for His death.” (Warren Wiersbe) For believers, surely it is part of the joy of studying His word that He reveals His truth to us more and more every day. (John 16:18-24)

See Proverbs 4 18-19 David