Mark 8:17-18 “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?”
How would you like to have Jesus ask you that set of questions?
The disciples were on the boat, discussing not having bread, even though they had just participated in the miraculous feeding of 4,000 people. Jesus had transformed seven loaves of bread and a few fish into a feast, but now they were concerned about the lack of bread. Don’t you understand? Can’t you see? How could you forget? he asked.
Jesus warned them a different kind of bread was rising in their hearts. The bread of the Pharisees…the “leaven” of unbelief. If left unchecked, that leaven would expand until it overcame their faith.
Right after this, the disciples landed their boat at Bethsaida and encountered a blind man begging to be healed. Jesus spit on his eyes and laid hands on him. But when asked if he could see, the man responded, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking” (Mark 8:24). So Jesus touched him again, and completely restored his sight.
Jackie Hill Perry writes in Upon Waking, that the incident with the blind man was “a parable in action.” Like the blind man, the disciples still didn’t see clearly. Jesus had touched them, like he touched the blind man, but their vision of Jesus proved to be as incomplete as someone viewing men like walking trees.
Sometimes we just don’t see what we can’t see. When I first came to Jesus, I felt content to just touch his garment. I didn’t realize what a life of walking with a miracle-working, selfless-loving, hope-giving Savior looked like.
Of course, our view of Jesus will never be complete until we see him face to face, but he expects us to refuse the Pharisee’s leaven. To not let unbelief go unchecked, and to keep our faith alive by remembering all he has said and done. Because the deeper our faith, the clearer our vision.
And the less likely we’ll confuse a person for a walking pine tree!