“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”Luke 4: 18-19
This scripture tells us that Jesus came to bring recovery of sight. That means there was a time that we were able to see, but then couldn’t see. Jesus wants to heal those who don’t see. Spiritually, this means that we may have come to salvation years ago, used to see very well, and perceive the things of God, but over time things changed. Offenses, bitterness, and un-forgiveness cloud our vision and taint our perception. We no longer could see clearly, we only see through the prism of our pain; we interpreted everything through the eyes of rejection. When people speak to us about a different reality, we push them away accusing them of being insensitive or blind!!
“Then He came to Bethsaida; and they brought a blind man to Him, and begged Him to touch him. So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when He had spit on his eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything.
24 And he looked up and said, “I see men like trees, walking.”
Then He put His hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly. 26 Then He sent him away to his house, saying, “Neither go into the town, nor tell anyone in the town.” Mark 8:22-26
According to Webster spit means to eject saliva as an expression of aversion or contempt
In these scriptures Jesus is healing a blind man physically. We can also have Spiritual blindness which impacts how we see God and others in our lives. First, we live for ourselves and don’t really think or care about how our life impacts others. Then we come to salvation and we can see better to some degree. We are excited about our vision because compared to the past, we see a whole lot more. We love God and we have a new appreciation for people. Sooner or later, the very people we thought we loved start to annoy us. We see another side to them that we don’t like or don’t really appreciate. This begins to make us wonder if loving our neighbor as ourselves is that easy. Those scriptures about back-biting and gossiping that seemed so foreign to us now begin convicting us because we now have the very issues that we never thought we would have with others.
Years go by, and we live at a plateau thinking we are doing pretty well until someone brings up the name of the person we have tried to avoid for a long time. Every part of us wants to scream and defend ourselves and tell everyone how we see this person, but now we realize that there isn’t really a lot of love on our part for that person. The offenses, the hurts, the un-forgiveness, have created a tree out of this person or group of people. They look like trees without the image of God on them. This is the reason you can so easily talk badly about them, or at the minimum think evil of them. The image of God has been stripped off of this person. If he/she is a brother or sister in Christ, the image of Christ has been stripped too. A tree is an object. It doesn’t have a soul, so we don’t give our affection to it. We lose compassion for people, and we lose sight of the Lord’s love for them.
Sometimes we see people as trees because they are obstacles to achieve our goals or happiness. In ministering to others, people lose their uniqueness to us. We may have a cookie cutter answer to their issues because we don’t want to take time understanding their pain, fears, or issues. We have an objective and clinical answer to this object called a tree. This is when the Lord has to heal us the second time!!
What is interesting in verse 23 is that Jesus uses spit to heal this man!! Do you know how that word was used in other places in the New Testament? It was used when they were mocking Jesus and ridiculing him that they spit on Him. You see, spit does not seem to be a loving action. It actually appears humiliating; but when Jesus used it, the blind man wasn’t offended because He knew that Jesus was touching him for good not for evil. When things happen in our lives that don’t make sense or look humiliating, we need to wait and see how God wants to use it to help us see Him and others better instead of jumping to conclusions.
Do we always know that we are blind? According to Revelation 3:17-19, we are not always aware that we are blind. It is the work of the Holy Spirit; sometimes those who really love us tell us that we are blind. The Lord wants us to have recovery of sight. He wants us to know Him intricately; to know people more deeply and allow their humanity and uniqueness to touch us. This will allow us to minister to them better.
We are called to receive the recovery of sight. If there is a person, or even the Lord, who looks like a tree to you, would you ask the Lord to heal your vision? It will take humility before we can see. You can read Acts 9 about Saul and his amazing conversion!! He became a humble man because the Lord had to blind him before He could restore his true vision. When he saw believers as trees, he was out to get them and persecute them because they looked like a threat to him, but now that He saw Jesus the TRUTH, his vision was completely restored. He became a humble man and a servant of all and was willing to lay it all down for His sake.
Lord, please heal our vision. If we have become blind, give us the recovery of sight. If we see you or people as a tree, please forgive us Lord and heal our vision. If we have blind spots to certain areas where we have resisted you and others, please give us another chance to see those areas. Father thank you that you are the healer of our sight!! We want the 20/20 vision. We want to see right and perceive right. Amen!!