"A Healing Touch" Mark 8: 22-26

This story in Mark is not paralleled in the other three gospels.

The final segment of Jesus' journey to Jerusalem begins with this story and end with the healing of Bartimaeus.  In between are stories of the disciples (and others) not getting it.  It suggests that Jesus can heal the blind, but he cannot make the blind see!

Tom Long, professor of preaching at Candler School of Theology, notes that 'sermons preached from the Gospel of mark these days tend to be far too timid."  He suggests that we do not acknowledge the "warrior" role Jesus has in Mark as he does battle with the powers of death that "hold humanity captive" (Journal for Preachers, "Whose Work? Whose Healing?" Volume XXXVIII, Number 4, Pentecost 2015, 31).  This presents a challenge to me in my preparation, particularly since it is Mother's Day, and I was anticipating using the idea of a mother's touch as part of the sermon.  If I understand Long correctly, that would be reducing Jesus in Mark to something far less than Mark presents him.

I find it curious that Jesus had to rub the eyes twice. What is that about?  Long also argues that all the "strange bits" in the healing stories in Mark are important because they remind us that "Jesus is not just doing a good deed...but instead making apocalyptic warfare on the reign of death that holds sway over him and over us all"  (Journal for Preachers, "Whose Work? Whose Healing?" Volume XXXVIII, Number 4, Pentecost 2015, 33).

This is making me think of the sermon as more than "A Healing Touch."  In fact, the title perhaps should be "More Than a Healing Touch."

We are singing "there Is a Balm in Gilead" as the hymn after the sermon.  It's tune suggests a soft touch; but the words, "to make the wounded whole" and to "heal the sin-sick soul" speak to the power of God to transform lives in the face of sin and death.  In other words, the healing touch comes with the punch of the one who does battle with evil to save us.