I See Men as Trees, Walking

"He took the blind man by the hand . . . and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, 'Do you see anything?' He said, 'I see men, but they look like trees, walking.' Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again and he saw everything clearly." Mark's account of a blind man needing two healing touches from Jesus graphically depicts the stubborn blindness of his disciples. Peter epitomized this blindness when he was tempted by the popular view that Jesus was the Rome-conquering savior of Israel, rather than the suffering Servant of God. Also, the disciples didn't understand that Jesus miraculously fed the famished crowds with a few loaves and fish to meet immediate need and provide leftover fragments of food for future need. Salvation was pictured for all time. Essentially, Mark's Gospel gathered "leftovers," historical fragments of Jesus' life to convey God's salvation across history to those Kierkegaard called "the follower at second hand." Like Peter, disciples and even the crowds are tempted to false "salvations" where self is lost. But ironically, persons only become a self by taking up their own cross, enabled by Jesus' second touch.