Mark 8:22-9:1.  Anyone who knows me well knows I am not much of a writer.  Sure I write a lot for my class and for this blog but I am not very good technically.  In school I always focused on math and science.  From listening to my wife Home School our children though I picked up that a good essay needs to have 5 paragraphs; and introduction, three in the body, and a conclusion (at least I think that is what I have heard).  The book of Mark seems t be like a good essay; it has five sections; an introduction, three main sections, and a conclusion.  We have just finished the first of the three main sections.  We have observed that Mark really moves, he uses the term immediately quite a bit.  Remember that Mark was written to the church in Rome during a time of rising persecution.  The first section was full of miracles as Jesus brought his message to the crowds.  This next section will focus more on the close followers of Jesus, the disciples.  Jesus is going to show them where he is going and where they to will go as they follow him.  The final main section will focus on the crucifixion of Jesus.  I hate over simplifying but we might label the three sections:  The Power of Jesus, the Path of Jesus, and the Purpose of Jesus.  This third section might also be called the Passion of Jesus (passion being a common term for the events around his crucifixion) or the Price Paid by Jesus.  Remember though that this book was written to help the believers in Rome around the time of Nero deal with their own struggles.

The second main section, the Path of Jesus, begins with the healing of a blind man and also ends with the healing of a blind man (John 8:22-26, 10:46-52).  It begins with Jesus in the north near Galilee and ends with him in the south near Jerusalem.  Tht is the physical path Jesus needed to follow to get to Jerusalem where he would accomplish his purpose; fulfill his passion to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29).  But there is much more in this section than Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, there is also a spiritual journey for his close followers, the twelve disciples or apostles (sent ones).  Like the two men who form the brackets around this section they had problems seeing.  It was not their physical sight that was the problem but their spiritual sight, or understanding, that needed to be worked on.

In Mark 8:22-26 we have the first physical healing of a blind man in this section.  They are near the sea of Galilee and a man is brought to them who is blind.  Jesus was asked to touch the man so he would receive sight.  Jesus took the man out of the village and spit on the man’s eyes and then put his hand on the man.  The man began to see but his sight was blurry.  Jesus put his hands on the man again and his sight was restored fully.  That is a vey interesting story.  Why didn’t the man see clearly right away?  Why did Jesus spit on the man’s eyes?  If you remember the healing from two readings ago you might remember that Jesus used a common practice of spitting on his hands before he touched the deaf mans ears.  This practice would have communicated to the deaf man that Jesus was going to heal him.  His healing was full and immediate.   Remember though that that was in the first main section, the Power of Jesus.  Hear again Jesus is using common practice to help people see, and not just the blind man.  While that man was blind physically Jesus followers were kind of blind spiritually.  The crowd wanted Jesus to do miracles, take away all of their physical problems; cure their hearing and their hunger.  But Jesus wanted to cure them permanently from the root of their problems; he wanted to deal with sin.  That was his passion but it required the right path.  So Jesus acted the part of a healer, he followed the custom.  But the man’s sight wasn’t fully restored.  Jesus then took hold of the man a second time and without the customary spitting and what ever else the man was healed.  No ritual just Jesus.

The next part of today’s reading follows through on the spiritual journey of the disciples.  As they traveled along Jesus asked his followers who they and others thought he was.  “Why the crowd thinks you are a great prophet.” They told him.  “What do you think?”  He asked.  Peter answered for the group, “You are the promised coming one (the Messiah or Christ).”  Doesn’t seem like much spiritual blindness here, they seem to have a very clear picture of who Jesus is, but wait there’s more.  The next thing Jesus does it tell them that he is on his way to be tortured, rejected and killed.  Then he will come back to life after three days.  Peter’s reaction this time is to take Jesus aside and tell him to stop all the crazy talk.  The problem is it wasn’t crazy talk it was all stuff predicted in the Old Testament (see for example Isaiah 53).  So there was spiritual blindness on the part of the disciples, they did not have a clear picture of what it meant fro a person to be the Messiah or Christ.  Jesus saw that the rest of the guys were watching so he scolded Peter; Peter was being like the Devil and like the crowd looking for a leader who would fulfill their plans rather than God’s.

Our reading ends today with Jesus gathering all those around him, the close followers and the crowd, and explaining clearly that it costs to follow God.  We see the cross as a symbol of Jesus but to the Roman minds it was a symbol of one thing a painful horrible death, and here we see Jesus telling them all that if they are going to follow him it will involve picking up a cross.  It would have been a very strong image, one that would have caused many people to walk away.  But the consequence of clinging to this life is also horrible.  If we live for this life only we run the risk of losing our soul in eternity.  It’s not that we wont exist in eternity it’s that our existence will be away from God, an existence that is described in other places as the outer darkness where there will be weeping an gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12; 13:42,50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30).  In Mark 8:38 Jesus informs the crowd that anyone who is “ashamed” of him will find Jesus responding to them in the same way when he takes over the world.  The word here translated ashamed is kind of interesting, it is a compound word in the Greek, epaiscunomai.  It is formed from “epi-“ which means “on, in, unto, to, upon, at”.  It shows position.  The second part of the word “aiscuno” means “to be ashamed”, it’s root means to disfigure or deface.  It seems that Mark could have just used this second part but he modified the idea of being ashamed with the idea of being in a certain position.  It seems like the idea here is one of promoting a wrong picture of Jesus.  We need to not see Jesus as someone who will come and fulfill our idea of how things ought to be we need to see him as one who is fulfilling god’s best plan for all of us; Jesus came to seek and to save sinners (Luke 19:10).  Jesus message to the crowd ends on a sort of upbeat note in Mark 9:1.  Although we see that Jesus followers will all die some day (at least the ones listening to him right then and there) some of them would actually see proof of the promised coming eternal kingdom before they died.  Jesus’ promise of an eternity with God was not an unproved promise of living for eternity on some wonderful planet ruled by me or in some paradise with all the physical pleasures I think I might want but a promise of eternity with God with proof that it would happen, at least for some of those listening at the time.

I think we all have a blurry picture of Jesus.  We al have our own idea of what we want out of God.  But we need to accept his plan, it’s much better than we could ever imagine.  After all, all that we can imagine is based on a remnant, an echo, of the great life God created for us back in the beginning.  Despite the decay which sin has brought into our existence we still see the great and good life and desire to have it.  God didn’t make all that is good and wonderful just to dangle it in front of us like some bait only to hook us and throw us into the bottom of the boat to wriggle and die.  God wants us to have that good life and share it with us for eternity.  We need to never reject of deface that with our own incomplete plans and desires.  I think it would have been very helpful to those believers in Rome to see the disciples fumbling around with the path Jesus was on.  I think it would have been encouraging to realize that following Jesus would involve a cost, maybe even physical death, but that there was a kingdom at the end of the path.  I think it would have been helpful to be reminded that Jesus knew the pain and suffering that was along his journey and that he followed the path anyway.  And I think it would have been encouraging to be reminded that the path of pain ended with Jesus conquering death for himself and for us.

Jesus thank you for not running off the path.  Thank you for following through on God’s path for you even though it involved intense suffering.  Thank you for giving us proof that you are the fixer of problems and especially the fixer of the ultimate problem, sin.  Help me not deface your plan.  Let me honor you by going where ever you want me to go.  Give me the courage and strength to accept the path you have for me.  Make that path clear.  Help me lead others along it to that bright kingdom with you in eternity.