:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

Each time Mark records the arrival of Jesus in a new town he notes a meeting with someone who needs to be healed or crowds who want to hear his teaching. In the case of Bethsaida, Jesus met a crowd who pleaded with him to heal a blind man.

Jesus also made it his custom, due to his popularity, to take the sick out of the village before healing them. While the works of Jesus were important, he did not want to become known primarily as a miracle worker. He welcomed crowds when he taught, but when healing he typically sought seclusion.

The blind man healed by Jesus was like so many others, but at this crucial point in the Gospel of Mark there is more going on than a miracle. As the blind man regained his sight, so too do the disciples of Jesus on their trip to Caesarea Philippi.

Jesus once again did not tell his disciples who he was. Instead, he wanted them to figure it out. Peter declared that Jesus is the Messiah, but Jesus didn’t want anyone to talk about it. No one was ready for a Messiah like him, and therefore it was crucial for everyone else to look at the works of Jesus and listen to his teaching in the future in order to declare him the Messiah. He wanted his listeners to draw their own conclusions and to meet him based on faith.

Once the disciples were cured of their Messianic blindness, Jesus immediately challenged them with a new idea they were not ready to receive. Jesus the Messiah would be rejected, killed, and raised from the dead. This proved to be too much for Peter whose exhilaration must have given way to heartbreak.

What if the “wisdom” of Peter had prevailed? What if the truth about Jesus spread before he went to the cross? Would he even be allowed to go to the cross at all? Would a violent insurrection have happened in his name? Jesus refused to follow the counsel of men as he strongly rejected Peter’s advice in order to remain faithful to God’s costly calling for his life. He was a suffering Messiah that few were ready to receive since so many had their own ideas of what a Messiah would be.

Without informing the multitude of his precise plans, Jesus offered what many would have seen as a cryptic calling to carry their crosses. For the first time in public Jesus laid out the real stakes of his mission. Disciples need to lay everything on the line in order to gain the life that Jesus offers.

This self-denial includes the wisdom of man, our theology, our expectations, and our goals in life. While Jesus healed many and cured the blind, he always gradually removed the spiritual blindness of his closest followers so they could follow where he was leading rather than where they thought he should go. They weren’t ready to declare him the Messiah because they were still figuring out the kind of Messiah that Jesus was.