MARK 8 (PART 2)
Read Mark 8: 14-26
We saw in the feeding of the four thousand that the Pharisees did not appreciate who Jesus is despite the evidence before them in his miracles. We could say the same of the disciples. Having just had a war of words with the Pharisees, Jesus warned the disciples about the hypocritical attitude of the Pharisees using the image of bread. They had just seen Jesus break the bread and fed, firstly the five thousand, then the four thousand, and in both cases there was plenty left over; what a pair of miracles! Jesus then warned the disciples of the ‘yeast of the Pharisees’. Yeast makes bread rise, it changes the nature of bread, and only a little is needed. In the Bible yeast is often used as an image of evil that spreads from a small beginning (1 Corinthians 5:6), so the Pharisees were seen as a danger to the gospel. The disciples took the image of bread that Jesus used a little bit too literally, they thought it was a criticism of them forgetting to bring bread with them. They missed the point (again!). The Pharisees demanded more signs as incontrovertible proof to convince them that Jesus was the son of God; and probably no proof would be good enough for them. The disciples were rooted in the everyday and failed to see the significance of what Jesus did. The Pharisees demanded too much. The disciples saw too little.
Jesus is not about showing off with signs and wonders; Jesus is about love, and that is something we need to make clear in the church. Our role as Jesus’ followers is to reflect Jesus’ love in our day to day lives by serving others. Jesus made this very clear in his teaching to us: ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ (Mark 12:30) and ‘love your enemy’ (Matthew 5:43). And we do this because he served us as the servant king by dying on the cross so that the burden of our sins may be lifted from us and that we might have eternal life. That is the gospel message that we need to make known to the world at large. It is all about love, not miracles; the miracles are signs pointing towards the love of Jesus.
The next section from v22 to v26 is another healing miracle by Jesus. There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly different or special about this healing miracle given that we have already seen a few of these. But I think it is the placement of this little story that is important here. It is another example of Jesus’ power for the disciples to consider. The healing of the blind man takes place over two stages. At first he doesn’t see very clearly, the people look like trees to him. Then, he did see with absolute clarity. There is a parallel with the disciples here. Up to now they have not seen clearly who Jesus is, but they will do soon, and in particular, Peter, like the blind man, suddenly could see, and he saw who Jesus is with perfect clarity.
It is a reminder to us that people can come to faith in stages over time. They may not know who Jesus really is at first, but when they have seen the signs it becomes clear to them. It is also a reminder that God does things in his own time; he is sovereign, he is Lord.