In Mark, just before today’s gospel lesson, Jesus and his disciples were in Bethsaida. A blind man was brought to Jesus by others who cared for him. The evangelist says that they, “begged [Jesus] to touch him.”[1] But Jesus did not do so immediately. He took the man’s hand and led him outside the village—just the blind man and Jesus. Then, “When [Jesus] had spit on his eyes and laid his hands upon him, [Jesus] asked him, ‘Do you see anything?’ . . . ‘I see men; but they look like trees, walking’ . . . Then . . . [Jesus] he laid his hands upon [the man’s] eyes . . . he looked intently . . . and he saw everything clearly.”[2]
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