Chuck Larsen

The University of Nebraska at Omaha oversees one of the more interesting archeological sites in Israel. It’s the site at Bethsaida. Rami Arav is the professor in charge of the site. One of the most recent discoveries at Bethsaida was in 2022. On the weekend of 20 May 2022, the camp of Josephus’ force was discovered at the convergence of Kela Valley and the Jordan River by a team from the Bethsaida Excavations Project of the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). But many more interesting things happened in Bethsaida, according to the Bible. It’s recorded for us in Mark 8:22-25. It says, “And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, ‘Do you see anything?’ And he looked up and said, ‘I see people, but they look like trees, walking.’ Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.”

This incident arouses many questions. First, why did Jesus lead the blind man out of the city? Bethsaida was a hot spot of unbelief. Jesus pronounced woes on this city because of that. It was a culture of confusion and controversy as well as ungodly practices, much like the world we live in today. We, like this blind man, must trust Jesus to lead us out of that confusion to the quiet place away from all the distractions of life. We’ll never connect as we should amidst that turmoil. Seeing is the idiom for understanding in the New Testament. You won’t be able to grasp the truth until you leave the confusion behind, much like Israel trusting the God-led Moses to lead them out of Egypt into the wilderness, where they learned how to depend on God for everything from their daily provision of manna to the eventual courage to take the Promised Land.

The next question might be, why the two stages of healing? Edwards, in his Pillar New Testament Commentary on Mark, says, “The healing of the blind man of Bethsaida is the only miracle in the Gospels that proceeds in stages rather than being instantly affected. …The necessity of repeated touches cannot imply Mark’s insufficiency on Jesus’ part, however, since elsewhere Jesus performs more difficult miracles (from a human perspective) without fail… The two-stage cure in the present miracle thus suggests a process of revelation—as much for the disciples, we suspect, as for the blind man at Bethsaida.” Alexander Maclaren speaks of Christ “accommodating the pace of His power to the slowness of the man’s faith.” Earle comments, “Certainly the great Physician could have healed this man instantly, as He did in other cases. It seems reasonable to hold that the limitation was on the side of the human, not the divine.” Yes, we, like the apostles, “see but do not see.” We “hear but do not hear.” Rod Cooper adds a thought at this point. He says, “This two-stage miracle also shows us that Jesus will not give up on us. He who has begun a good work in us will bring it to completion (Phil. 1:6).”

Like Jesus’ disciples, we often look for life amongst dead works. We worry about things that God has already taken care of. We are afraid of things that we should not be afraid of, and we often weep and mourn when it’s totally unnecessary. Further, we often doubt when we should believe, just like his disciples did. When Mary Magdalene told Jesus’ disciples that she had seen the Risen Lord, Mark 16:11 says, “They would not believe it.”  They did not believe Mary. Then Jesus appeared to the two on the road to Emmaus, and these two went and told them also, but verse 13 says, “and they did not believe them.”  They wouldn’t believe the witnesses. They must have thought they were hallucinating or lying. By the way, many non-believers today argue the same way. The disciples experienced a mass hallucination, or they plotted to tell a lie! They just can’t believe it. This is the case for many people in the world today.

But like the doubting disciples, they did believe in something! They believed in themselves. In one of my favorite movies, “Joe Versus the Volcano,” Tom Hanks asks Meg Ryan, “Do you believe in God.” Her reply fascinated Joe (played by Tom). She said, “I believe in myself.” Joe responds, “I get bored when I think about myself.” Later, he witnesses a huge, gorgeous moon rising over the ocean’s horizon. Just before he passes out from dehydration, He falls to his knees and says, “I have forgotten how big… God, thank you for my life.” In the world we live most people don’t believe. A web search reports, “According to the latest international survey data, as reported by Ariela Keysar and Juhem Navarro-Rivera in the recently published Oxford Handbook of Atheism, there are approximately 450-500 million non-believers in God worldwide.” They just can’t believe it.

If they could see it, touch it, taste it, smell it, or rationalize it, they might believe in it. All men are believers. Everyone believes in something. When people refuse to believe the witness and testimony of eyewitnesses to the resurrection, they just embrace another object upon which to place their confidence or devotion. Paul says man is inclined to reject the intuitive existence of God and turn to worship sticks and stones and beasts, etc. Unbelief in our age has become a little more sophisticated. But it’s all the same. We either believe in God or we believe in ourselves, but the truth is, we all believe in something. The comic Steve Martin once said, “It’s so hard to believe in anything anymore . . . I guess I wouldn’t believe in anything if it weren’t for my lucky Astrology Mood Watch.” No one believes in nothing. Everyone has faith. The only differences are in the object of our faith and its intensity. Luke tells us in Acts 16:31, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.”

The Angel said to the women who came to the graveyard to anoint Jesus’ body, “Why do you search for the living among the dead.” I’m afraid that we too often look for the living among the dead. They were worried about who would roll the stone away so they would have access to Jesus’ body.  The stone was already moved. We worry about things that God has already taken care of. When the angel appeared to them, the first words out of his mouth were, “Don’t be afraid.” Why? Because they were afraid. We are also afraid of things we need not be afraid of. Situations in life can cause us great grief, and we will often find ourselves wallowing in it. It appears that Jesus’ disciples were wallowing in their grief. When Mary Magdalene saw Jesus after His resurrection, she hurried to find His disciples. Mark 16:13 says, “She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept.”  

I guess they hadn’t paid close attention to Jesus’ words to them. Jesus had spoken to His disciples regarding His resurrection on several occasions, but they were not listening. Well, I think they heard him, but they did not hear him. He even made it fairly specific that He would take them to be with him. He said, “I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, you may be also.” But we still find them mourning and weeping! What’s up with that? If I’m an example of one of Jesus’ disciples today, I like to think of myself as one; I follow in their footsteps often! We hear Jesus’ promises, yet we still mourn. We celebrate the resurrection every year, and yet we weep over the loss of our loved ones. We hear, but we do not “hear.”

Grief is a legitimate emotion, and we should not deny it or reject it, but our faith in Jesus’ promises should make it short-lived. We should never wallow in grief and let our sorrows overwhelm us. When we do, we illustrate a lack of faith and confidence in the one who has made everlasting promises to us. When the great Christian scientist Sir Michael Faraday was dying, some journalists questioned him about his speculations about life after death. He purportedly replied: “Speculations! I know nothing about speculations. I’m resting on certainties. I know that my Redeemer liveth, and because He lives, I shall live also.” According to the Gospel of John, One of the questions that the Angel asks Mary Magdalene at the garden tomb is, “Why are you weeping?” (John 20:14-15). The one promising eternal life had been buried. He died, and that put an end to all of Jesus’ promises. Even though the tomb was empty, she assumed that someone had stolen the body! She just couldn’t grasp what had happened. When a voice came from behind her, Mary assumed that the person speaking to her was just another man. She actually thought he was the gardener. Even when she looked at him, she didn’t recognize him. A lot of the time, we hear without hearing. In Mary’s case, she saw without seeing. It wasn’t until Jesus called her by name that she recognized him. The Epistles are full of the truth of our individual “calling.” Gary Demarest explains this. He writes, “The idea of God’s calling inevitably leads to a discussion of election and all of the perplexities associated with predestination. While these are questions that rightly concern Christian theology, I prefer to focus on a different aspect of God’s calling us. The call, says Paul, is “not according to our works.” This means that it is for everyone. But it is not a call in general over a universal loudspeaker. It is a call to each of us by name. I find it awesome to ponder the fact that God calls me by name! The great God of the universe, the Creator and Cosmic Ground of all being, calls me Gary. That He calls each of us by name is the mark of His care for us. The gospel is grounded in the reality of a personal relationship with the living God. It is personal because God calls us by name.”^[1] Until we hear him call us by name, we will hear without hearing and see without seeing.

^[1] Demarest, Gary W., and Lloyd J. Ogilvie. 1984. 1, 2 Thessalonians / 1, 2 Timothy / Titus. Vol. 32. The Preacher’s Commentary Series. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.

We often look in all the wrong places for what we need most in life. We try to find meaning and purpose instead of accepting the meaning and purpose God created for us. David Jeremiah puts it this way, “Many people today are searching for meaning in life, but in all the wrong places. Trying to find eternal meaning in a temporal world is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. God made us for eternity, and only His eternal presence in our lives can satisfy our thirst for meaning.”^[1] Like the two Marys on their way to Jesus’ tomb, we search for the “living among the dead.”

We also worry a lot about things that have already been taken care of like they did. Who’s going to roll away this huge stone? Well, it’s already been taken care of. In addition, we often fear things that we should not be afraid of like they did. When the Angel appeared to them, the first thing he said was, “Don’t be afraid.” This is the standard opening phrase spoken by most angels upon their first appearance to humans. We are naturally afraid when we encounter things we don’t understand. I suppose Ezekiel was one of the prophets that had most to fear. He was taken as a slave to Babylon. His message, however, was to his own people who had gone with him. But they were abusive and belligerent and tried to silence him. But in Ezekiel 2:6, God spoke to Ezekiel and said, as Peterson translates it, “But don’t be afraid of them, son of man, and don’t be afraid of anything they say. Don’t be afraid when living among them is like stepping on thorns or finding scorpions in your bed. Don’t be afraid of their mean words or their hard looks.”^[2]

When Jesus walked on the water on the Sea of Galilee, he approached the boat where his disciples were. They were frightened.  They thought they were seeing a ghost. I imagine that was a pretty frightening image: an unidentified person walking across the waves as though a stone path had been laid for him. As He approached his frightened disciples, he shouted above the wind and the waves, the same thing he always shouts to us in the midst of the storms of life. He says, “Be of good cheer! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” No matter how violent the storm in your life might be, no matter what it is you’re struggling with, Jesus says the same thing to all of us. Three of the shortest sentences in the bible: Be of Good cheer. It is I. Don’t be afraid. The resurrection removes, for you and I, through our faith in the resurrected one, the fear of death. It just evaporates before the empty tomb. He assured us that there are many mansions in His kingdom, and he promised to take us to be with him forever. We can all say, along with the apostle Paul, “O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting? …But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Corinthians 15:55-57

^[1] Jeremiah, David. 2004. Searching for Heaven on Earth: How to Find What Really Matters in Life (Study Guide). San Diego, CA: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

^[2] Peterson, Eugene H. 2005. The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress.

We often look for Jesus in all the wrong places. The modern “Historical Jesus” movement seeks to find him as a regular figure of history but not the messianic figure of the Old Testament. The women who came to anoint Jesus’ body were asked, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?”  As the Gospel of Mark tells the story, we get to eavesdrop on the conversation the women had as they made their way through the graveyard to the tomb in which Jesus’ body was placed. Mark 16:3 tells us, “They were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us and from the entrance of the tomb?” It was assumed that Jesus was dead. Of course, they were eyewitnesses to his crucifixion. At least we know that his mother, Mary, was. They expected to encounter a major problem in the accomplishment of their goal of anointing Jesus’ body for his death. They went to the graveyard expecting to find Jesus in his grave. They expected his body to need to be anointed. They worried about how they would get into his tomb.

We often worry about things we shouldn’t. I don’t know about you, but when I don’t have anything to worry about, I worry about that! Worrying can become a bad habit. George Mueller suggested that faith and worry are antithetical. If you’re in the midst of one, you are out of the other. Worry accomplishes nothing. It’s like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere. Like the two Marys, we often worry about things that we shouldn’t worry about. Mark 16:4 says, “When they looked up, they saw that the stone was already rolled away.” I love the last little comment, “It was very large.” Yep, faith in Jesus’ resurrection can solve a lot of life’s problems. Does death worry you? Jesus rolled that stone away. Paul argues that since Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, we, too, as he promised, will go to be with him when we die. He said, “Absent from the body means present with the Lord.”

The reality of Jesus’ resurrection solves the ultimate issue in life, death. But that truth works its way into our daily lives in this world as well. I have some very “large” problems! Don’t you? I have many “large” issues to deal with, don’t you? I have  “large” relationship issues, don’t you? They are like alligators rising up to devour me! Who’s going to roll those stones away? Guess what! It’s already been taken care of. Jesus said, “…don’t worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” In the context of that verse in Matthew chapter 6, we read, instead of worry, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,” and all the things we worry about are already taken care of. As far back as the days of King David, we read about how faith in God solves our worry problem. The Psalmist tells us, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.” Psalm 46:1-3