The Faith of the Blind Men
All the pain, tears, sin, and death in this world exist because of the fall of mankind. Some of the horrible things we hear about in this world break our hearts. What a cursed world this is! We groan because we live in the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of Satan. The good news is that this won’t last forever. The Old Testament promises that one will come to reverse this curse. He is the seed of the woman who will bruise the serpent’s head. He is the Son of God, the King of kings, the Satan-Conqueror, the Death-Defeater, the Sin-Destroyer, and the Healer. The Jews called him the Messiah, meaning “the Anointed One,” anointed as the Prophet, Priest, and King, surpassing all others.
For thousands of years, they waited patiently, enduring the plague of this cursed world. All the faithful in the Old Testament died with faith in him, believing he would come and reverse everything for them. Someday, he would establish his throne. Someday, the world would be as God intended and desired it to be. The question of the ages is, who is he?
Matthew’s purpose in writing is to tell us that this Jesus is the one. He is that Messiah; he has arrived. Christ is the promised King; he is the one who can right the wrongs, reverse the curse, establish the kingdom, and destroy the enemy. He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. He is the one we have all been waiting for. To convince us that Christ has the power to do that, Matthew marks his miraculous power in chapters 8 and 9 in an orderly manner: his power over all disease, nature by stilling a storm, over sin, over demons, and finally his power over death. If you read the prophecies, especially from Isaiah, it says that he will destroy all of this. Isaiah says, “And in that day, the eyes of the blind shall see, the deaf shall hear, the lame shall walk, and the dead will rise.” We see Matthew showing that Christ is fulfilling all those prophecies.
Matthew has been showing a varied display of Christ’s power. He reached the pinnacle of this display by raising Jairus’s daughter from the dead. Anyone who saw this on that day or reads and meditates on this today with an open heart should inevitably conclude that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. If this light does not convince them, it only shows how blind and hard their hearts are. How we react to this truth shows the state of our hearts. Matthew’s main purpose in these passages is for us to see Christ’s infinite power so that we can put our trust in him for everything. We must believe that he is the Son of God, who has all authority and who is going to reverse everything. He is able to save and deliver us. This passage should increase our faith.
However, for many today, as it was on that day, it does not. The problem is not with the light but with our hearts. There are hardened hearts that, despite all these displays of power, will not only not believe and turn to him, but will be so hardened that they will say, as the Pharisees did in verse 34, “He casts out demons by the ruler of demons.” This is done. We will see that this is the sin against the Holy Spirit—after seeing all this evidence, your heart doesn’t respond in faith but selfishly concludes that. That is the end of their story, which is very sad. Some, fearing this, say they believe, but their faith doesn’t produce any change in their life; it is a dead faith. As we look at this passage, we need to examine our faith. What else could God show to make us put our trust in him?
Matthew should have concluded with the raising of the dead, but he records two other miracles: the healing of two blind men and a mute man. Why? I think it is a subtle indictment of the unbelief of that generation and even today, for those who do not have true faith. “You have seen and heard all these miracles; doesn’t this bring true faith into your heart? Are you not able to see who is in your midst?” Look at these two blind men. Even the blind recognized that Jesus is the Messiah. The irony is that they had not seen any miracles or even seen Jesus’s face, yet the nation had seen so many miracles by then and still missed the point, and its leaders even accused Jesus of performing miracles by Satan’s power. But see the faith of these two blind men. What is the use of having eyes when your spiritual sight is blinded so much by the world, sin, and Satan? This will bring faith even to blind men who cannot see but can hear. If it doesn’t bring faith in you, nothing else will. He rebukes the unbelief of the nation with the faith of these two blind men. Let us see how he does it.
Formation of Faith
I can only imagine how faith would have formed in these men while a whole nation, after seeing miracles, failed to believe in him. On the count of three, I’m going to ask you to close your eyes. One, two, three! Close your eyes.
Now, keep them closed until I tell you to open them. It will be hard to do, but do your best not to open them. In fact, pretend that even if you wanted to see, you couldn’t. I’ve just put you into this morning’s story from the Bible. I’ve just turned you into two blind men who lived 2,000 years ago, sitting by the side of the road in the ancient Galilean town of Capernaum. Closing your eyes, try to see who is sitting next to and around you. This is a terrible existence without sight. It is so frustrating. Shouldn’t we thank God for the gift of sight? Now, open your eyes and say, “Thank you, God, that I am not a blind man today.” But there is a worse blindness: spiritual blindness—blindness caused by the world, sin, and Satan, a triple blindness. This is when the Son of God is walking in front of your eyes and doing all these miracles, but you are not able to see and believe in him.
How did these men become blind? We are not told the exact details. It might have been that they were born blind, or it was due to an accident, an illness, or an infection. Historians tell us that this, unfortunately, was something that happened to people quite often in that day. They lived in an unsanitary world. The hot summer, sun glare, dirt, dust, and insects all combined to aggravate any infection that might strike their eyes. Many people were blind from birth, and very commonly, their blindness was caused by a form of gonorrhea. When the little baby passed from the uterus, those germs would lodge in the conjunctiva of the eye, and within only three days, the child would be permanently blind. This is why today, antiseptic drops are put in the eyes of a newborn baby, and for all intents and purposes, we have eliminated that problem. It was so common that out of a hundred people he met, twenty were quite blind. We have to be thankful that leprosy and blindness are controlled by God’s providence in our days.
You know how they must have looked. I’m sorry to tell this, but it’s not a very pretty sight. Ancient Near Eastern eye diseases were often very repulsive, looking not too different from the effects of leprosy in some cases. The skin around your eyes would be red and swollen, and your eyes would be pale and shrunken, or in some cases, grotesquely protruding. Your infected eye sockets would often run and be itchy and painful. It was a pretty pathetic condition. You are poor and needy. You can’t work. You can’t participate in the normal daily life of your people. There are no modern facilities like a separate chair for the handicapped, special lanes, or sloped sidewalks so that you can walk into different places with safety and ease. There are no guide dogs to protect and lead you, no Braille language or books you can read, and no television or radio so that you could at least hear the news. You have no protection from abuse or from the cruelty of passers-by or from people who steal from you or take advantage of you. You are constantly at the mercy of others. You are constantly in need. You are constantly in a world of darkness. And all that you can do is sit somewhere and ask for alms from people as they go by. It’s a sad and lonely existence.
Ah, but isn’t it nice that you at least found each other—you and the blind man beside you. Perhaps you knew each other at some other point in life, two poor blind men that shared a common state of helplessness and need. Perhaps you felt that you could make it along better with each other than you each could on your own, and so, you clung to one another in this lonely existence of yours.
Today, sitting along one of the roads near Capernaum, you are waiting for the daily traffic of alms-givers to come by. As two men without sight, they tell what time of day it is by which side of their faces the heat of the sun beats down. They can tell what direction they are both facing by the smell of the fishy wind that blows up from the busy shores of the Sea of Galilee. And they can even hear the screeching of the seabirds and the chatter of the crowds in the marketplaces.
And speaking of that chatter, it sure has been interesting lately. They have both been hearing a lot of talk in town from the passers-by about this prophet from Nazareth—this man named Jesus. You heard about the amazing sermon he preached up on the nearby mountain. People still talk about how they never heard anything like it. They say that this teacher, Jesus, doesn’t speak like the scribes do, but that he teaches as one possessing a great authority all his own. Oh, how you both wish you could have been there, too, to have heard him with your own ears!
You also hear the news going all over Galilee about the things he does! You hear about how he heals all kinds of people, people who are afflicted with various diseases and torments, people who are demon-possessed, or epileptics, or paralytics! From the talk you’ve been hearing, you’d think that there was nothing this man Jesus couldn’t do! Why, just the other day, you heard someone talking about a leprous man that Jesus healed! They say that this horrible leper came right up to Jesus and worshiped him, calling him “Lord,” and saying, “If you are willing, you can make me clean!” And then, you heard that Jesus just reached out his hand and touched the man! No one ever dares to touch a leper, but this prophet Jesus did. And they say that when he did, the leper was instantly healed of all his leprosy! The leper himself came and told his story to these blind men; they heard the story directly from the leper himself!
Then, you heard that Jesus entered into town and right away healed the servant of a centurion. The young man was paralyzed, they say, racked with pain and torment! And yet, Jesus healed the poor man from a distance just by speaking a single command! He merely spoke the words, and the paralysis left the man that very hour! What’s more, you heard that it wasn’t too long after that that Jesus healed another paralyzed man, a man who was lowered down through a roof to him. The story is that there were a lot of people who saw it and that they marveled that God would give such power to men! In fact, you even heard that Jesus went to a fisherman’s house and healed the fisherman’s mother-in-law of a terrible fever. She got right up, they say, and made everyone dinner! And then, before the day was over, you heard that crowds and crowds of people gathered at the fisherman’s house, bringing all kinds of sick and demon-possessed people, and Jesus healed every one of them!
And so, you both begin to talk and reflect together on the things you’ve been hearing about this Jesus. But you start thinking to yourself, “Who is this man? If the things I’m hearing about him are true, then he must not only be a great prophet and teacher! He must also be the greatest healer that ever lived!” And then you think that perhaps he’s more than just a prophet and a miracle worker. Maybe much more than just a mere man. One of you says to the other, “You know what I heard? I heard that he was out in a boat with a few of his followers, caught in that strange storm that struck the lake the other day. Do you remember how it came suddenly, how we could hear the wind howl, and how we had to grab our wraps to keep them from blowing away because of the strong breeze? And then, remember how it all just suddenly stopped and how there was a great calm afterward? It was weird! Well, I was told by someone that it stopped because this Jesus stood up in the boat and commanded the wind and the waves to become calm, and they obeyed him! He may be a great prophet and a great healer, but who ever heard of a mere man who could command the weather?” What! Not only diseases but even control nature. “Who is this? Who is this?”
Then, the other of you says, “Yeah! I heard about that too! And I heard something else that’ll really raise the hair on the back of your neck. You know about the two demon-possessed men on the other side of the lake? The scariest two guys you’ll ever run into! They met Jesus and his group on the shore, but not to threaten him like they typically do to others. This time, they came to him in fear, falling on their knees and trembling before him. I heard that the demons begged him not to cast them out. I heard that they cried out to him, ‘What have we to do with you, Jesus, you Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?’ And then, do you know what happened? He cast the demons out and into a herd of pigs! The pigs didn’t do too well, I hear, but those two guys are perfectly fine now.”
Now, you can just imagine that when a couple of blind men sitting along the road in ancient Capernaum, you’ve got some time to think. And you don’t have much in the way of distractions, if you know what I mean, so you can think pretty deeply. They don’t have the opportunity to waste their time on TV, scrolling on their mobile phones, or watching YouTube. So many worldly distractions! They keep thinking about these events deeply in their minds. God works in their hearts and creates faith. So, you start to roll things around in your mind. “Who is he? The demons called him ‘Son of God,’ eh? You know, who could he be? We hear those prophecies in the synagogue, where we sit and beg. One is going to come to reverse all these curses in this world: the Messiah. Remember the promise from the prophet Isaiah? It says, ‘Say to those who are fearful-hearted, “Be strong, do not fear! Behold, your God will come… He will come and save you.”‘ ‘Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing.'” That’s a promise about the Messiah, the long-awaited Son of King David. “Do you think it really could be that the Messiah has at last come? That he really walks the streets of our own town?” Through these deep thoughts on God’s word, God works in their hearts and creates faith. And though they cannot see, they can see through their spiritual eyes that this is the Messiah and the Son of God. “It must be! My heart tells me it’s true. No one has ever done and will ever do the things he has done. Only the Messiah can!” So, we see the faith of these men. They believe that this is the Messiah.
Do you see how people who can see and hear and watch everything were blind, but these two blind beggars could see? They did so by honestly and deeply thinking about what Christ did with an open heart. Matthew makes that point by adding this healing. John also does that in John 9:39:
“And Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.'”
Following Jesus
Verse 27 says, “As Jesus went on from there.” From where? Simply from the house of Jairus, the neighborhood of Jairus, on the same day. It’s evening by now. There are large crowds again following Jesus. There are crowds and crowds of people walking along the street, almost running, actually. The blind men may be sitting and begging on the way. They’re talking wildly and excitedly. “Is it a parade? Is there something wrong? What in the world is going on?” One of you reaches out and pleads with someone to stop and explain. And someone stops, almost breathless with joy, and tells you! “It’s Jesus! The Prophet from Nazareth is passing by just a few streets over! And I saw what he did! It was a miracle! He was on his way to the home of the ruler of the synagogue, going to heal the man’s sick daughter. Then, he stopped along the way and healed a sick woman of her bleeding disease. She had been sick for twelve years, and yet, she merely touched the hem of his garment and was healed! Completely healed! And then, he went to the ruler’s house and raised his daughter! She wasn’t just sick, she was dead! And yet, he raised her to life! He’s passing by right now on his way to the house of the fisherman! Everyone is heading there! I’m going too!” This further increases their faith. “Wait!” you both cry out. “Take us with you!” But it’s too late. The man who was telling you this has hurried away and is gone.
And so, you both jump up and stagger behind the crowd. How did they manage to follow the movements of the Lord? We do not know. It must have been very difficult, for they were blind, but they no doubt asked others the way the Master had taken, and they kept their ears open to every sound. It was so difficult for blind men to follow in that crowd. They’re in the crowd, shoving their way along, trying to stay with the group in their blindness, pushing and pressing along with everybody else as they leave the neighborhood of Jairus. And they’re crying out, “Son of David, have mercy on us!” Now they’re bold. They’re not shy and retiring, slinking in a corner.
The word for “crying” here basically means to yell, scream, or shriek. It is an earnest, energetic, and pathetic imploring, pleading, and beseeching. It is used in Mark 5 to describe the maniac of Gadara, who was demon-possessed and was screaming and shrieking and yelling. It is used in Revelation 12:2 to describe a woman who is screaming in the pains of childbirth. They just babbled and cried and made sound for him to turn to them. Not only were they shrieking and screaming and crying, but they were, interspersed with that, actually saying some intelligent things, such as, “Son of David, have mercy on us!”
It wasn’t a calculated, cold statement. They didn’t care what others would think. They were screaming and shouting at the top of their voices. They were crying out in agony and desperation and deep need, shrieking, pleading, and begging. It shows their desperation. It is always people who know their deepest need and believe in Christ who come to Christ like this. It is always the brokenhearted. It is always the bereft, the hurting, the unfit, the outcasts, the discouraged, the sorrowing, the lonely, and the sinful who follow Jesus. You never find the self-sufficient people.
In addition to their crying and shrieking, and mingled with it, they were saying this. Look at verse 27 again; it is a very important statement. They were saying, “Son of David. Son of David.” They were shouting out, “Jesus! Help us! Heal us! We know who you are! You are the Son of David! The Messiah! We know it! Stop for us! Wait for us! Have mercy on us!” Now, why did they say that? Why did they call Jesus of Nazareth “Son of David?” Did they know his lineage from Joseph, who was of the line of David? Did they know his lineage from Mary, who also, according to Luke 3, was of the lineage of David?
The Title: Son of David
When the two blind men cried out, “Son of David,” they were using a term that was the common Jewish designation for the Messiah. This title carried the weight of prophecies about a coming king from the line of King David who would rule forever. The fact that these blind men used this specific title shows that they “saw” Jesus’s true identity more clearly than the crowds who were physically able to see. Their faith was not based on sight but on a deep understanding of who Jesus was and what the scriptures foretold.
The Plea: “Have Mercy on Us”
Their cry for mercy, rather than just for healing, reveals a crucial aspect of their faith. A proud or self-righteous person would demand a cure as a right. But these men, in their helpless state, acknowledged their spiritual need and unworthiness. They understood that any help they received would be an act of undeserved favor, or mercy. This is the correct attitude for coming to God. The proud and self-sufficient will not ask for mercy because they do not believe they need it. Only those who recognize their own sin and desperate condition will truly plead for it.
The Test: Persistent Faith
Jesus did not immediately stop to heal them. Instead, He continued walking, and the blind men followed Him all the way into a house, persistently crying out for mercy. This action was a test of their faith. Jesus wanted to see if their desire was genuine and if their faith was truly unwavering. This persistence is a hallmark of true faith. It doesn’t give up when things are difficult or when the answer is not immediate.
The Question: “Do You Believe I Am Able to Do This?”
Finally, inside the house, Jesus stopped and asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” This was not just a question but an invitation for them to confess their faith. He wanted to hear their verbal affirmation. By asking them to believe in His power to perform this specific miracle, Jesus was also encouraging them to acknowledge His divine power and His personal authority as “Lord.” It wasn’t enough for them to believe in His general power; they had to believe that He could meet their particular need.
The Result: According to Their Faith
Jesus then touched their eyes and said, “According to your faith, be it unto you.” Immediately, their eyes were opened. This simple, effortless act demonstrates the power of Jesus and the importance of faith. Their healing was a direct result of their faith. Jesus also strictly commanded them not to tell anyone, but out of their immense joy and gratitude, they went and spread His fame throughout the region.
The entire account serves as a powerful lesson: true faith acknowledges Jesus as the Messiah, recognizes one’s own desperate need for mercy, and persists in seeking Him. When we approach Jesus with this kind of faith, we can be confident that He is “able to do this” for us, whatever our need may be.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 