One of the more interesting incidents took place in Bethsaida. 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 24 bethsaida archthe 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 effected. …The necessity of repeated touches cannot imply for Mark 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).”