If someone were to ask you to list four or five of the most serious effects or results of sin, what would you put on your list? I'll give you a moment to think about that. What would be on your list? Surely, on my list would be this thing called 'spiritual blindness'; it is a devastating effect of sin. You see, God has created human beings with two sets of eyes, or two vision systems. There are your physical eyes so that you can see physical things, and spiritual eyes - or the eyes of the heart - so that you could perceive spiritual things.
Sin Blinds Us to Our Blindness
Sin blinds! And it so fundamentally blinds us that it blinds us to our blindness! And this passage really is about this dynamic of spiritual blindness. In fact, there are really two kinds of spiritual blindness that are exegeted in this passage. Let me just layout for you how the passage works. You have four sections; it's a rather lengthy passage that we're going to look at briefly this evening. The first section really is a setup event. It sets up the middle two sections of the passage. And the fourth event summarizes the middle two sections of the passage; that's the way it works.
And those middle two sections are about this thing called 'spiritual blindness'. We have Christ, again, being followed by a great crowd; this crowd seems, unlike other crowds, to be hungry to hear Him preach. And you get another one of these miracles of the feeding of a crowd. We know that this is not a repeat of the feeding the 5000; the numbers are different, and there are things that Christ says later that makes it very clear this is a second feeding. And that detail is very important because the thing that Mark emphasizes in this miracle is, again, the amazing compassion for what we would consider the incidental needs of this crowd, and, the unpreparedness of the disciples for this moment.
Look at verse 2, the words of Christ: I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away. (ESV) Surely we would believe that the heart of the Gospel is the salvation of souls, and we don't ever want to back away from that; that's the heart of what Jesus came to do. But you distort the Gospel if you think that your Savior looks at people and sees disembodied souls.
This is the Creator-Savior, and He cares for all of the needs of His people, hears all of the needs of those who would follow Him and would seek Him. And think about this: in the scheme of things, the hunger of these people is probably not nearly as big, definitely not nearly as big, as what Jesus came to do and what Jesus was facing, but He cared about the needs of these people. God is the Creator of your life; He knows exactly how your life operates. God knows that you live in the utterly mundane; we all do; we all live in little moments, and God is not irritated when you bring the little moments of your life to Him.
He created those little moments; He cares about those details, and you see that compassion in that passage. You should not hesitate to bring those moments to your Redeemer. This is a Redeemer of glorious compassion. I think one of the tricks of the enemy is to whisper in your ear, "This is a little thing. God doesn't really care about you and your little needs," and would shut your mouth to seek the Lord in prayer. Are there needs this evening that you would hesitate to bring to your Savior? He says, "Come, I care."
What happens next should, if you have been listening to this series in Mark, be a bit shocking. His disciples answer Him, "How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?" You ought to be saying, "What?!?! What?!?!" How many demonstrations of the power, and glory, and the willingness to provide of this Savior, are these disciples going to need to see before they actually begin to believe? How could it be possible that they would ask this question again? But they do. They seem utterly spiritually unprepared for the moment even though they have been in what I have called 'the school of discipleship'.
This Is Who I Am
And God has been using His miracle power to progressively reveal to them, "This is who I am. This is My character. This is My power. This is My work. You can rest in Me." What should the response be that day? "Lord, You are able. Please pray. We're ready to serve." Well you know what happens here. Jesus takes a small amount of bread and fish and creates, out of that, a lunch for this entire hungry crowd, again, with leftovers. I would ask you this evening: Where are you unprepared? Where do you tend to wonder about the presence, the compassion, and the power of your Redeemer?
Where do you wonder about His ability to guide you, His ability to provide for you, His willingness to meet your needs? Where do you ask of your Lord questions that you should not ask because you should already know? Maybe you're a parent and you're walking down the hallway to deal with another one of those battles, and you feel like you have nothing left. Do you pray? Or do you say all the wrong things to yourself, forgetting the Gospel that you've heard again and again and again? Or maybe you're dealing with a boss that just makes your work life hard?
Do you doubt the goodness of your Savior? Do you doubt His presence? Do you doubt His care? Do you doubt His ability to give you the grace that you need to face the thing that you're facing? Maybe you just feel alone. Have you forgotten that you are never alone, for your Savior is with you? Maybe you're facing areas of sin, and you've told yourself you're going to gain victory; you've laid out ways that you would reform yourself, and you've fallen once again. Are you tempted to give in, to quit, to wonder if God's promises are true?
You see, I think, if we were willing this evening to be humble and to be honest, we're often like the disciples. Perhaps we ask the same questions; perhaps we experience the same fears; perhaps there are moments when we're hit with the same doubt - when by grace we've been well prepared for those moments in our lives. That's the set up event. The next thing you see is an encounter with the Pharisees. Now, you know what is happening; the Pharisees are following Christ around; they're testing Him; they're evaluating Him; they're critiquing Him; they are, growingly, enemies of His work.
And the Pharisees come and begin to argue with Christ, seeking from Him a sign from heaven to test Him. "Show us something; show us some kind of sign that will convince us." And what happens next is a very human moment. It says that Jesus, when He hears this request, He sighs deeply. Now you know the dynamics of human relationship; you don't need me to tell you this, but I will. If you ask a request of somebody and their next response is a deep long sigh, this is not a good sign. There's probably not something positive that is going to happen next.
There's a way that the sigh of Christ is a rebuke of these Pharisees. Now I want to give you the background here. You don't get these details in Mark, and I haven't referred to the other Gospels as much because I like the character of Mark; I think it's important for us to keep that character. But in the feeding of the 5000, John actually names that miracle as a sign. In fact, John takes it even further as the crowd pursues Christ, wanting to make Him their King, because they have had their bellies filled, Jesus says, "You have eaten the bread, but you haven't seen the sign."
And then He says, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." Here's what Jesus is saying: "I'm the sign! I'm the sign from the Father. I am the sign you're seeking. There's no greater sign of the glorious presence and compassion and grace of God. There's no greater sign of His willingness to redeem than Me! I'm the ultimate sign; and if I'm not enough of a sign for you, nothing will satisfy you." Wow! That's why Jesus sighs deeply. God has harnessed the forces of nature; He's controlled the events of human history so at a certain time, His Son would come and take on flesh and live a perfect life, heading toward that sacrifice that is sufficient.
What More Sign Do You Need?
"What more sign do you need than me? I will not get in your box and perform! What an audacious request! Why does this generation ask for a sign? The ultimate sign has come; it's Me! I reveal the Father. I am the sign. I'm the ultimate bread from heaven that is the thing that will satisfy you. What other sign do you need but me?" I want to contrast the blindness of the Pharisees with the blindness of the disciples. The Pharisees were what I would call "willfully blind." They were enemies of Christ.
They had decided not to be open, not to listen, not to have approachable hearts; they had decided to stand against Him, to do anything they could to expose Him, and they would ultimately seek His life. They are willfully blind. These men are active participants in their own blindness. What a terrible place to be. The disciples are also blind. You see this in the next section of the passage. They get in the boat; they've forgotten to bring bread with them; they only had one loaf with them in the boat.
Hungry guys who probably hadn't eaten because they were just serving; you can imagine, in that boat, all eyes are on that one loaf. You know how you can divide something that's edible from a distance with your eyes into portions, considering if there's enough? And Jesus starts out with a caution; having had this conversation with the Pharisees, He says, "Watch out. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod." He's using the bread as a word picture. You know if you've baked bread, a little bit of yeast leavens the whole loaf.
And He says, "Be very careful, be very aware, be very cautious about, concerned about, the infectious influence of the religiosity of the Pharisees." "Because remember, these are religious leaders. These are not atheists. Be very concerned about that externalism that's not a religion of the heart. Be very concerned about worship that is more penance than repentance. Be very concerned that your world of faith isn't this public, religious, habitual living your faith in front of other people in a sort of showy way that has nothing to do with the claim of God on your heart."
Listen, Jesus is making the warning He's already made: God will be satisfied with nothing but our hearts. He wants your deepest thoughts. He wants your deepest desires. He wants your deepest motivations. True godliness is always godliness of the heart. And this will surprise some of you - that means that you can't really estimate your maturity by just Sunday morning attendance, and the amount you put in the plate, and the episodic ministry that you do. Those are wonderful things; those are part of what it means to follow God, but God wants your desires.
He wants all those private resources of your life. He wants to be the reason that you do, say, think, act, in all the ways that you do. That you could say, "This is the reason for everything in my life; it's God!" And He is saying, "Watch out disciples, you have, in the Pharisees and in Herod who sort of liked, was attracted to the Ministry of John the Baptist, but ended up murdering him. You don't want to have anything to do with that kind of faith." And then as the disciples are discussing the bread (most commentators think that they're basically in a blame game - "Why didn't you bring bread?
Discussing Bread
Did you realize there were leftovers? It was your job and..." - you know), Jesus jumps in and says, "Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Have you not perceived or understood? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes, you do not see; and having ears, you do not hear, and you do not remember when I broke the five loaves for the five-thousand. How many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?" And they answer, "Twelve." "And the seven for the four-thousand, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you take up?"
And they answered Him, "Seven." And He said, "Do you not understand?" Here's what Jesus is saying: "Haven't you learned the lesson? You are now in personal relationship with the Ultimate Provider! Have I not demonstrated, in a variety of ways, My compassion?" Remember that spiritual equation I gave you: Divine Power + Divine Compassion = Everything You Need (DP + DC = EYN). Write it down again. Now notice the contrast here. While the Pharisees are willfully blind, the disciples are blindly willful.
These are followers of Christ. It's amazing what they've done, that they've left their livelihood and their families to follow this One with little knowledge of what that would actually mean. Would that we have that kind of courage of faith! But spiritual sightedness is a process and not an event. Because the Pharisees are willfully blind, Jesus sighs and walks away. And that action of sighing and that action of walking away is itself a judgment. You do not want to have the Messiah turn His back on you and walk away.
But with the disciples, Jesus demonstrates an incredible patience, an amazing perseverance. He will work, and He will work, and He will work till these men clearly see and understand; that is His grace! And you can argue that if sin blinds, as long as there is sin still inside of us, there are pockets of spiritual blindness in all of us. And what is the hope? That our Lord is the light of the nations; that He came to give sight to blind eyes; and He is patient and kind and gracious to those who follow Him.
And He will continue to teach; He will continue to encourage; He will continue to give grace until we clearly see. Praise Him! Willfully blind, blindly willful. And then you have this summary event; it's not an accident that in Mark's Gospel, this healing of a blind man butts right up against these two vignettes we've just looked at. And it's as if Jesus is self-conscious that, as He does this miracle, this miracle itself is a metaphor of the way that He works. Not only just with physical blindness, but with spiritual blindness as well.
Look at verse 23: And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes (Again, that invasive thing.) and laid his hands on him, he asked him, "Do you see anything?" And he looked up and said, "I see people, but they look like trees, walking." Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. And he sent him to his home, saying, "Do not even enter the village." It's a bit of a humorous end to this passage.
You know, Jesus again and again told people not to say anything, and they would go home, and they would tell everybody what just happened. This man he says, "Don't even go into the village." Now what you see here is not only again the love and compassion of the Creator for His broken creation, but a metaphor of the work of God in all of our sight problems. If you have seen the truths of the Gospel, but there are many things in the Gospel that still confuse you, know that grace has visited you. Did you hear what I said?
The Fact That You See Is Grace
Know that grace has visited you, because the fact that you see at all is grace. Maybe you remember that moment when you're reading, and you realize, "I am a sinner!" That's sightedness; that's grace. I remember it for me. I was at Harmony Heart Camp. I think I talked about this once before. My parents, for reasons I don't really understand (well I do...because I know what I was like as a little boy) decided to empty the house one summer and sent all 4 of us away. My younger brother, Mark and I, were six and eight, and we spent the summer at Harmony Heart Camp above Scranton, Pennsylvania.
And I had a dear sweet camp counselor who decided to teach through Romans with a group of twelve eight-year-old boys. His name was Paul; I want to say this - I long to see this man in glory. I won't do anything but run up and throw my arms around him and say, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." He, very patiently, with squirming little boys at the end of the day, walked through that heart-exposing first three chapters of Romans. I was stone blind. I had no sense of my sin whatsoever. And I remember the night where he worked us through Romans 3, and it was that moment of vision.
Praise God! Praise God! Praise God! Now there were many things, as a little boy, that confused me in the Gospel. I saw men like trees walking. But, I could not go to sleep that night. I was on the third high bunk, and embarrassingly for eight-year-old boy, I began to cry; I was under such conviction. What grace is that? And I just thought it would be sacrilegious for me to lay in bed and ask for forgiveness, so I climbed down, and I knelt in the middle of the floor of that cabin. Counselor Paul was snoring; all the other boys were asleep; but I cried out for God's mercy; an explosion of sightedness!
But I didn't see clearly yet. I needed grace upon grace, upon grace, upon grace. Its amazing to me that in patience, God brought that little boy who only knew that he was a sinner, knew nothing about the work of God, to this man who stands before you this evening; only grace could do that! And so, listen, if you are here tonight, and you think, "There's so much I don't understand about the work of God, but I love Him, and I know Him," know that grace has visited you, and that grace will sight you more!
Because His mission is to remove us from the prison of our own darkness so that we would see. That is the grace of your Savior! If you're here, and you are blind, maybe you're here and you're even mocking this sermon, I would plead with you - cry out for eyes, cry for help, because there is no hope of sight if you turn your back on the Messiah of light. Let's pray: Lord, thank you for how the Gospel lives in such practicality and power in the Gospel of Mark. Thank you for the grace that caused these words to be written, the grace that gives us sight through these words.
We confess that we are still blind, but we've come to know You, and we've come to trust You, and we believe that there will be a day when we will see clearly. We would pray, "We see; help us to see more." In Jesus's name, Amen.
