Introduction

“If at first you don’t succeed… maybe avoid skydiving”

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In Golf, sometimes things just go wrong. So when people are playing informally, their fellow players sometimes allow them a do-over on a bad shot. “Let’s pretend that didn’t happen.” It’s called a Mulligan. There’s a particular miracle story found only in Mark’s gospel where it appears Jesus needs a Mulligan to heal a blind man.  When we read the story, we might stop and ask ourselves, “Did Jesus just mess up that healing?” Read in isolation, this story is quite confusing and seems to suggest things about Jesus that are uncomfortable. But we need to read this story with what follows and then, things make more sense. So the story goes:

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When they arrived at Bethsaida, some people brought a blind man to Jesus, and they begged him to touch the man and heal him. Jesus took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village. Then, spitting on the man’s eyes, he laid his hands on him and asked, “Can you see anything now?”

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The man looked around. “Yes,” he said, “I see people, but I can’t see them very clearly. They look like trees walking around.”

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Then Jesus placed his hands on the man’s eyes again, and his eyes were opened. His sight was completely restored, and he could see everything clearly. Jesus sent him away, saying, “Don’t go back into the village on your way home.” (Mark 8:22-26, NLT)

Why Does Jesus Need Two Tries?

In the first sermon in this series, I pointed out that the gospel writers included the stories that best communicated who Jesus was, what he was doing, and what the church’s mission is. This is an example of this strategy. Jesus doesn’t blow the healing, instead, he wants to illustrate an important spiritual truth that is applicable in our case too.

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What details are important in this story? First, After the man asks Jesus to heal him. Jesus takes him by the hand and leads him. This language is familiar from the Old Testament prophets where God talks about the Exodus as God taking Israel by the hand to lead them: “This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt” (Je. 31:32a, NLT).

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Mark’s language calls to mind what God did in the Exodus. As God freed Israel from slavery, so Jesus frees this man from his slavery. Interestingly, when God freed Israel, he had a multi-step process. Rather than leading them directly into the promised land, he led them to Mount Sinai for a couple of years. After that, he led them to the promised land. Their disobedience led to an additional 40-year delay, but even if everything had gone right, it was meant to be a process. Israel didn’t become God’s people in one single act, just as this man wasn’t freed from his physical malady in a single act. God’s work of leading us to freedom is an ongoing process of transformation.

Clarity & Misunderstanding

We see this even more clearly as we look at the story that immediately follows this miracle:

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Jesus and his disciples left Galilee and went up to the villages near Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along, he asked them, “Who do people say I am?”

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“Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say you are one of the other prophets.”

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Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?”

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Peter replied, “You are the Messiah.*”

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But Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him. (Mark 8:27-30, NLT)

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Mark picks up and runs with this theme of partial healing. Jesus asks the disciples what the crowds think of him. It’s obvious that they understand that Jesus is special, but it’s also obvious that they can’t put their finger on specifically how. Maybe he’s the reincarnation of John the Baptist (That’s what Herod thinks), or a prophet. The crowd sees Jesus’ glory imperfectly (like the man in our miracle story saw tree-like people). But when Jesus asks more pointedly who the disciples think he is, Peter, speaking for them all, affirms that Jesus is the Christ. What would that have meant to Peter: The Lexham Bible Dictionary says, “the term [Messiah] took on metaphorical significance as one chosen and appointed by God to be His instrument.” So the crowd sees Jesus unclearly, but the disciples see that he is a specific agent of God’s deliverance. The disciples understand Jesus’ call more specifically than the crowd. They are like the man healed for the second time while the crowd is like the man healed once. But wait…

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At this point in Mark’s narrative, there is an immediate change. Up to this point, the narrative has been trying to answer the question “Who is Jesus?”. Peter has just answered: He is the Christ. Now the narrative begins to consider a new question. “Since Jesus is the Christ, what does that even mean and what does it mean to be hid follower?” There were a lot of ideas floating around in the air about what a Messiah would be. He might be a king, a new high priest, or a prophet. The one thing all expectations of the Messiah had was that he would be victorious. But Jesus now begins the reeducation of the disciples. Now that it’s out there that he’s the Messiah, he needs to disabuse them of their unhelpful notions of what it means that he is the Messiah. So the story continues:

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Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man* must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead. As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things.*

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Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” (Ma. 8:31-33, NLT)

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We were so happy for Peter. He saw who Jesus was even if the crowds had only a fuzzy understanding. Now when Jesus starts to explain how their vision of Messiah is misguided (the Messiah is a suffering servant, not a conquering king) Peter can’t receive it. It says he began to rebuke Jesus (the same word used to talk about exorcizing a demon). Peter appears to think Jesus must be possessed by an evil spirit. This presumption on Peter’s part leads to Jesus’ counter-rebuke. Peter is parroting Satan’s talking points (Satan offers Jesus a kingdom without a cross in Matthew & Luke). Peter’s vision of the Messiah is skewed by his human vision. Seen from God’s perspective, things look different.

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So Peter and his fellow disciples see clearly what the crowd perceives only dimly, but on a deeper level, Peter and the disciples see Jesus’ call (and, as his followers, their call too) much less accurately. Jesus has more work to do in restoring their vision too.

How Does This Affect Our Story?

How do the incites we get from reading these stories help us live as faithful followers of Jesus?

Sanctification Is a Process

One takeaway from these stories is the realization that God sometimes works in a process rather than all at once. Our culture has conditioned us to look for the instant fix. The popularity of testimonies that focus on the miraculous change in some people’s lives might lead us to conclude that our discipleship journey is defective because it didn’t seem like an instantaneous transformation. While Jesus does transform some people this way, the example of this blind man, and the disciples, shows us how the transformation happens over time.

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Remember, Peter has a unique incite into Jesus’ identity (high point) but then tries to rebuke Jesus for all this suffering and dying talk (low point). He denied Jesus 3 times on Maundy Thursday (low point) and then boldly preached the gospel on Pentecost (high point). He gets caught up in Jewish hypocrisy in Galatia (see Ga.2:11-14) But he also stands firm as a faithful martyr (high point). The ups and downs are a part of the journey. While we hope that we spend most of our time on the high points, the lessons we learn at the low ones can train us to be more like Jesus. So if you’re discouraged by the setbacks, give yourself some grace. If we humble ourselves, God can use them for his saving purposes.

‌Setting Our Eyes on God’s Priorities

In the in-between state of his healing, the blind man could see, but not very clearly. It seems likely to me that this man could see at some previous point in his life (or he would not have known what trees look like). He understood that he didn’t see everything as clearly as he ought to. But in our case, we don’t always have such a clear baseline. We’ve spent our years marinating in human culture with its values and concerns. We assume certain human ideas are self-evident truths: Look out for your own interests because no one else will; power is worth getting and maintaining; We need to seek happiness & comfort.

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The danger is that when we see Jesus, and the way of discipleship unclearly we devote ourselves, like Peter, to human priorities. Jesus becomes a divine way of achieving human ends as he turbo-charges our earthly agendas. You can pray that he’ll help you get the promotion at work. You can pray that Jesus will keep your body from ill health. You can pray that God will help you get that attractive life partner. You might pray that your preferred political party wins the elections.

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What Jesus is telling us is that he can only be seen to be successful and victorious when we define success on the Father’s terms not on ours. Yes, God wants you to be happy and blessed, but he prioritizes eternal blessings over temporary ones. The greatest blessing is that we can become like Jesus—free from the corrupting power of sin and selfishness. Often ease and comfort work against God’s priorities, so God asks us to endure short-term pain, trusting that he will turn it into an eternal reward. As James assures us,

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Dear brothers and sisters,* when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. (Ja. 1:2-4, NLT)

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For the same reason, Paul admonishes us to set our hearts on this heavenly treasure, setting our eyes on God’s priorities not on our own, earthly priorities:

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For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. (2 Co. 4:17-18, NLT)

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If Peter had fixed his eyes on God’s eternal purposes, Jesus’ call to cross-shaped discipleship would have made sense. So too with us. If we trust that God’s way is better, and devote ourselves to his agenda, then we will have hope and peace even as we walk on the way of the cross.

Proclaiming The Truth with Humility

A third takeaway from these stories must be the realization that even when God has begun the work of transformation in our lives, we must have the humility to realize that we don’t see everything clearly. Christians often display a certainty about their theological beliefs, their reading of scripture, and their understanding of Jesus that leaves them closed off to a deeper, more challenging revelation. This proud certainty is what makes the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ time unable to admit that Jesus is the Messiah. They think they know who God is so when someone comes challenging those assumptions, they’re not open to Jesus’ message. In 1st Corinthians Paul reminds us that we don’t know everything quite yet:

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Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely (1 Co. 13:12, NLT)

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Knowing our knowledge is incomplete should make us slow to pick fights with people when we have theological or cultural differences.

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Reformed Theology holds to five doctrines we often call TULIP:

• Total depravity,
• Unconditional election,
• Limited Atonement,
• Irresistible grace and
• Perseverance of the Saints.

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I disagree with at least four of them, holding instead to a set of doctrines called Arminianism. Calvinism focuses on God’s sovereignty in salvation, while Arminius sees salvation as a cooperation between God’s power and human will.

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I think my views are right (or they wouldn’t be my views), but I also have to remember an uncomfortable truth: I could be wrong. Or Maybe both doctrines are wrong. If I’m right on these particular doctrines, there are surely places I’m wrong. If I want God to overlook my theological errors made in good faith, then surely I need to hold those I disagree with as brothers and sisters despite the disagreement. Knowing I don’t know everything, puts the disagreements we have in matters of faith in a different context and allows us to be more gracious with whom we disagree.

Conclusion

‌The Miraculous Mulligan wasn’t a mix-up in Jesus’ miraculous powers but a way of demonstrating to people that God’s work in our lives often happens progressively. While we should always seek obedience and holiness, we also have to recognize that if things don’t progress in the way we expect, it’s not a sign of God’s faithfulness. Instead, we can see it as an opportunity to see how God faithfully works in the lives of people who are not yet perfect. God is not unfaithful when I am an imperfect person, surrounded by other imperfect people. As I choose to follow the leading of the spirit day-by-day and hour-by-hour, I start to see God’s kingdom and my place in it more clearly. God has taken us by the hand to lead us into the Promised Land. It’s in the process of walking with him, even when we can’t see straight—maybe especially when we can’t see straight—that teaches us to love and trust his faithfulness.