Today’s passage is Mark 8:14-26. After leaving the unbelieving Pharisees and going back across the lake, Jesus warns the disciples against the influence of the Pharisees but they think he is talking about bread because they had only one loaf. Jesus berates their spiritual blindness, making reference to his feeding the five thousand and the four thousand. In Bethsaida, people bring a blind man to Jesus, who takes him out of town, heals him and tells him not to go back to town.
Are you stuck in a material world always asking for bread?
Where must you leave for your healing?
Jesus leaves the Pharisees, then he leaves Bethsaida with the blind man to heal him.
The disciples, however, aren’t able to leave their clouded minds to see the truth of Jesus. I have a similar problem, often seeing but not perceiving.
I’m like the disciples with hard hearts and only one loaf, I’m just not ready for the journey with Christ.
Two is the dominant number in today’s passage.
Jesus tells the disciples of both times he fed a crowd and he has to touch the blind man twice before he is restored.
Everything has to be repeated.
Baptism is like that too.
We are baptized as infants but then must do it again, either literally or through a ceremony of confirmation, as adults.
We don’t seem to get things on the first try.
The blind man doesn’t see clearly after Jesus touches him the first time.
He sees men like trees, as material creatures but when Jesus touches him again he is “restored” and sees men as the images of God.
It’s not only his eyes that have to be healed but his heart, his perception.
The leaven of the Pharisees is strong in him, as it is in the disciples and me.
To stay healthy, the former blind man has to leave his former environment.
I do too.
I get stuck in the material world. It’s so easy and so seductive.
First, I’m surrounded by a society that glorifies wealth, health, perfect teeth, youth, superhero fitness, and social status.
Second, in my educational world, hi tech is seen as the miracle cure for all manner of failings in students.
If my school and my students all have the latest gadgets and latest programs, then we are surfing the right wave and will be applauded by all, especially my accrediting agency.
My struggle as a Christian and an educator is to counter both of these and to see God and help others see him by getting us out of Pharisee Town.
I get out of town every morning with QT and twice a week at worship services.
These journeys help clear my head of excessive worldly influence.
Seeing my sins is the antidote to seeing the gleam of society as gold instead of its true nature of lead.
Application: Recite the 23rd Psalm at noon.
Lord, open my heart to you so I can see truly. Free me from the leaven of the Pharisees.
