GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 8:23
Direct and Indirect Miracles
Many friends and I pray daily to the Father to heal Alice’s lung cancer. Her oncologist has prescribed a regimen of drugs to attack the nefarious, malignant cells, and we are thankful for the drugs, viewing them as a gift from God through the hands of very skilled and learned scientists. In 1971, when President Richard Nixon and Congress declared war on cancer, there were only sixteen cancer drugs. Today, there are over 640 cancer-fighting drugs, many targeting specific types of cancer cells.
I was reminded of Alice’s medical treatment when I worked on a translation of Mark’s account of Jesus healing a blind man. “And taking the hand of the blind man, he led him out of the village and spitting on his eyes, and placing his hands upon him, he asked him, ‘Do you see anything?’” (Mark 8:23) Writers have used reams of paper trying to explain this unusual account of Jesus spitting into the eyes of a blind man, so I’ll add one more page.
Among the Jews, spitting in public was disgraceful. Spitting on someone was a sign of utter rejection. Neither Matthew nor Luke, who was writing for Jewish audiences, mentions Jesus’ use of spittle in their account of this event. However, Mark was writing his Gospel in Rome as a training manual for Latin converts to Christianity. Among some Greek writers, spitting was a way to ward off evil spirits or appease the gods. The Latin writers Pliny the Elder and Tacitus both recorded events of people being healed through the use of spittle. Edward Bickersteth (1825-1906), Bishop of Exeter, wrote: “[T]his act had a mystical meaning; it was the instrument by which his Deity operated.”
However one interprets this story, the blind man’s healing took place through a medium: spit. More than thirty of Jesus’ miracles were immediate, direct, and instantaneous, but not all. Six or seven of his recorded miracles were indirect, through the use of a medium. In one instance, Jesus used mud as a medium of healing. (John 9:1-7) So, Father, Alice will continue to use what You have provided, and we pray faithfully for Your healing.
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