There are multiple healing events that were presented in the Bible where Jesus and His fellow disciples heal the ills—but these 2 healing stories from Mark 8:22-26 and 10:46-52 that we will be examining has it’s significant remarks considering the fact that the concept of “blindness” is involved in both cases.

Mark 8:22-26 described the events that Jesus healed a blind man in Bethsaida; Mark 10:46-52 described the event that Jesus healed a blind beggar in Bartimaeus. These two events are very similar to one another, however, these two event descriptions has different meanings.

The concept of blindness is always one of the many key concepts that helps us to reach a better understanding about the work of faith. Jesus said: “For judgement I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”(John 9:39) The concept of blindness in the Bible has a remarkable importance—the ones that are physically blind does not have ability to sin and the ones who are spiritually blind has everything to do with sinning. The ones who thought that they are seeing are actually blind and the one who knew that they can’t see are able to see. One is able to see through the work of faith.

Notice how Mark 8:22-26 described that during the healing process, Jesus physically laid his hands on the blind man’s eyes and also asked him a question before restoring the sight of the blindman in the village of Bethsaida, but when the beggar from Bartimaeus asked Jesus to heal his blindness, Jesus simply told him “Go your way, your faith has made you well.” and the beggar’s sight was restored. We tend to pay attention to the results over the process—both events end with the same result, that is, both blindman has their eyesight restored. However, the process of how Jesus heal is different. This difference is what completed the meanings of both events—so far as that it is this very difference that explained how faith in Christianity works.

First of all, it is necessary to recognize how Mark portrayed Jesus before describing the healing event that happened in Bethsaida: the picture Mark painted from verse 1:1 to 8:21 is mainly focused on describing Jesus as the believer—that is, he is the leader of the disciples and the one that all believers follow. This understanding of Jesus as human being with faith reflects within the healing process of the blindman from Bethsaida. So let’s set aside the comparison of two events but focus on only looking into the first event that’s described through Mark 8:22-26. The blindman who was brought to Jesus by other people—after Jesus laid His hands on him and asked him the question, the blindman was able to see. However, this passage did not show the blindman’s attitude towards Jesus Christ nor has it showed his attitude towards Christianity. All the blindman did was to simply receive the healing and answered Jesus’ question. So certainly people with or without faith who are reading this passage would portray Jesus as a “miracle worker” and might only praise him for having such abilities. It would not be surprising if the villagers who witness this event and then claim that Jesus is “more than a human”, that Jesus is “better” than the rest of the population. But faith in God should be understood in a more complete manner. Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, is, “more than just a human”, but the understanding of the faith from God as well as Jesus Christ’s identity doesn’t stop here—In able to have a full understanding of Jesus Christ as God and man, the understanding of both humanity and divinity of Jesus is needed. The center of our focus should not only be on Jesus’ ability but also the strength from faith.

“If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”(Mark 9:35) Consider this quote and how the villagers might react to Jesus’ healing—many might stop at only thinking that Jesus Christ as the “first” of the rest and has more ability than the rest. But what they must understand is that Jesus is also the “last” and the servant of all and the healing ability that Jesus acquired is not from him but it is delivered to him by faith.

What Mark did from verse 8:27-10:45 is to take one step closer to examine who Jesus Christ really is—by far we already acknowledge the human part of Jesus, which is, a man who believes and is able to teach and heal. But the core of faith and the true identity of Jesus Christ has not been explained thoroughly yet. To understand Jesus Christ’s complex identity, acknowledging the system of Trinity is necessary. Verse 1:1-8:21 explained Jesus as a divine man, but what about the Holy Father which supports/is Jesus Christ’s divine identity? “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”(9:37) What happen here is exactly the answer to the question about the relationship between God and Jesus Christ—He who sent the divine man is God and He is the divine man Jesus Christ.

Mark introduced the concepts of “Son of God” from Trinity in verse 1:1 to 8:21 and wrapped it with the first event of Jesus healing the blindman, then Mark went onto introducing another key identity from Trinity throughout verse 8:27-10:45, that is, the name and the content of  “Holy Father”. Just like the first healing event, the second one serves as a bookend for Mark’s explanation of the Trinity’s concept of Holy Father.

The second event also fulfilled the need of explaining how faith is supposed to be understood. In Mark 10:46-52, Jesus is no longer the one that “does” the healing: Christ did not laid his hands on the blind beggar nor did He touched his eyes at all after hearing the blind beggar’s request for healing—in fact, the beggar was such a strong believer, even after people rebuke him from his shout of belief, he shouted even louder—this beggar is truly a man of faith. Just like what Christ said: “your faith has made you well”—it is not what Jesus physically done that healed the blind men from both event, it is the faith that Jesus carried which restored their eyesights. This passage fulfilled the need of putting faith as the center of the focus within a healing process—instead of addressing Jesus Christ and his disciples as “miracle workers” or even “men with healing abilities”, people should really see them as men with faith. “All things are possible for one who believes.”(Mark 9:23) This description of the second event gave a wonderful support to the first event as well as the material that follows—it worked as a closure of explaining Jesus as Christ and showed the work of faith and how important it is to have faith—it is not what ability that Jesus Christ have, but what He is able to do with the work of faith.