A running theme that Mark highlights in his Gospel is the inability of people to see. Even Jesus’s closest followers struggle.

“Who is this?” the disciples asked Jesus in chapter 4. “Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

Jesus speaks extensively in parables to avoid getting into too much trouble and also to fulfil a prophesy in Isaiah 6 that those with hardened hearts may be “ever hearing, but never understanding”.

But from chapter 8, the story changes gear, with Jesus becoming more overt about his identity and his plans.

Two memorable miracles, in which Jesus helps physically blind people see, act as bookends for his message.

In Mark 8 (CSB), we read:

They came to Bethsaida. They brought a blind man to him and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and brought him out of the village. Spitting on his eyes and laying his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?”

He looked up and said, “I see people—they look like trees walking.”

Again Jesus placed his hands on the man’s eyes. The man looked intently and his sight was restored and he saw everything clearly.

This might seem a rather odd story to tell. Why did the miracle only partly work first time round?

Jesus is presumably making a point in the way he conducts this miracle. Immediately afterwards, in the text, Peter works out that Jesus is actually the Messiah, even though he still struggles to take onboard what Jesus tells him about his earthly mission.

Jesus then repeatedly talks about his death, although the disciples “did not understand” what Jesus meant with this prediction.

Then, this section of Mark’s Gospel is concluded, in Mark 10 (CSB), with the following:

They came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a large crowd, Bartimaeus (the son of Timaeus), a blind beggar, was sitting by the road. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many warned him to keep quiet, but he was crying out all the more, “Have mercy on me, Son of David!”

Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called the blind man and said to him, “Have courage! Get up; he’s calling for you.” He threw off his coat, jumped up, and came to Jesus.

Then Jesus answered him, “What do you want me to do for you?”

“Rabboni [My Lord],” the blind man said to him, “I want to see.”

Jesus said to him, “Go, your faith has saved you.” Immediately he could see and began to follow Jesus on the road.

Here, we have a physically blind man who is not blind about who Jesus is. He understands his Old Testament, and calls Jesus “Son of David” in a reference to Jesus being the Messiah.