Day 18 | March 22 | Mark 8:22-33

“Wow! There are leaves on the trees!” As a sixth-grade boy walking out of the optometrist office with a brand new pair of glasses, I vividly remember having this thought as I walked outside with an upgraded vision. I didn’t simply see a glob of green on the trees. I saw distinct leaves.

Mark tells the story of Jesus healing a blind man by spitting on the man’s eyes. If my optometrist said he would suggest he would help me by spitting in my eyes, I might have graciously declined. However, in the case of Jesus, some believe he used spit because Jewish rabbis considered saliva to have healing properties that could heal blindness.

In Luke, we read that two of John the Baptist’s disciples asked Jesus if he was the Messiah. In response, we see Jesus tell them to let John the Baptist know that the “blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.”

While blindness is a physical category, it also describes our spiritual condition. It seems to be no accident that Jesus moves from healing a blind man to asking his disciples, “Who do you say I am?” Like an optometrist asking if we can read the bottom line of an eye chart, Jesus is asking the disciples to read his identity. He wants to know how they see him, spiritually speaking.
 
Our sin leaves us in a place of shame, a distorted sense of identity and worth. It leaves us seeing ourselves as unlovable. Like Adam and Eve, it puts us in states of fear, believing God is incapable of loving us. Jesus Christ came to seek out the blind, the lame, the leper, the deaf, and the poor. All of them share one thing in common. They were shamed and considered to be of no value to society.

Who is Jesus to you? May you discover the Jesus of Scripture who comes inside your shame with outlandish love and affection as the Suffering Servant.