Mark 8:24

THE GRADUAL MIRACLE

‘I see men as trees, walking.’

Mark 8:24

This particular miracle is the parable of our times.

I. It is so in reference to the things of God.—We pray indeed for grace to live as we ought, in the careful avoidance of known sin, and the diligent discharge of known duty; but do we seriously expect an answer to this prayer? Do we believe that an influence, a guidance, a control, a suggestion, a presence—call it what you will—is vouchsafed, is maintained, is continued day by day and through each day, as the direct reply of God to this petition? What can we say more, in regard to all these things, than that at best we ‘see men as trees, walking’? that we have a dim, dull, floating impression of there being something in them, rather than a clear, bold, strong apprehension of what and whom and why we have believed?

II. It is so in reference to the things of men, to our views of life, and to the relations in which we stand to those fellow-beings with whom the Providence of God brings us into contact. The blind man must come to Jesus, and come in faith; and which of all of us has done so? It needs a desire to be saved, and it needs a willingness to be saved in Christ’s way, and it needs a consciousness of deep defilement, and it needs a conviction that His blood cleanseth from all guilt, and that His Holy Spirit can set us free from all sin, to bring a man under the healing touch even once. Power out of weakness, peace out of warfare, light out of darkness, sight out of dim, groping, creeping blindness—this it is to be the subject of the first healing. God grant us all grace to come for it to Him Who is still on His throne of grace to grant repentance and to grant forgiveness.

—Dean Vaughan.

Illustration

‘The man’s answer is in accord with later scientific discovery. What we call the act of vision is really a twofold process; there is in it the report of the nerves to the brain, and also an inference, drawn by the mind, which previous experience has educated to understand what that report implies. In want of such experience an infant thinks the moon as near him as the lamp, and promptly reaches out for it. And when science does its Master’s work by opening the eyes of men who have been born blind, they do not know at first what appearances belong to globes and what to flat and square objects. It is certain that every image conveyed to the brain reaches it upside down, and is corrected there. When Jesus, then, restored a blind man to the perfect enjoyment of effective intelligent vision He wrought a double miracle; one which instructed the intelligence of the blind man as well as opened his eyes. This was utterly unknown to that age.’