Seeing Jesus Clearly
Preached at Blue Ocean Faith Columbus on Sunday, February 15, 2026
Reminder: I never stick completely to my written sermon. This isn’t a transcript, but the written sermon I was using when I preached.
Friends, listen for a word from God in the Gospel according to Mark, the eighth chapter, verses 22-30.
They came to Bethsaida. Some people brought a blind man to [Jesus] and begged him to touch him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had put saliva on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Can you see anything?” And the man looked up and said, “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” 25 Then Jesus laid his hands on his eyes again, and he looked intently, and his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 Then he sent him away to his home, saying, “Do not even go into the village.”
27 Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” 28 And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” 29 He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” 30 And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
This is the word of God for the people of God.
In the passage we just heard from the gospel according to Mark, Jesus heals a blind man. But it doesn’t happen all at once. Jesus touches him once, and the man says, “I can see people, but they look like trees, walking.” Partial sight. Blurred vision. So, Jesus touches him again, and then his sight is fully restored.
This is the only healing in all the gospels that happens in stages. Every other time Jesus heals someone, it’s immediate and complete. Why does Mark include this detail? Why does it matter that this man’s sight came gradually?
It matters because Mark is preparing us for what comes next. He’s preparing us to understand that seeing Jesus clearly, truly understanding who Jesus is, also happens gradually. It takes time. It requires Jesus touching us more than once. It requires moving from blurred vision to clarity.
Right after this healing, Jesus asks his disciples: “Who do people say that I am?” And they tell him: John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets. People see Jesus, but their vision is blurred. They’re seeing prophets walking around when they should be seeing the Messiah.
Then Jesus asks the real question: “But who do you say that I am?”
And Peter answers: “You are the Messiah.”
It’s the right answer. Peter sees clearly, or at least he sees more clearly than he did before. But here’s what’s crucial: Jesus immediately tells them not to tell anyone about him. Because even Peter’s confession, even his clarity, is incomplete. Peter doesn’t yet understand what kind of Messiah Jesus is. That will take more time. More teaching. In Peter’s case, as it is for most of us, it will be a lifelong process of seeing, failing to see, and seeing again.
We need to understand that claiming Jesus, confessing Jesus as Lord and Savior is not a transaction. It’s not a magic formula. It’s a process of coming to see clearly, and that process is initiated by Jesus. Jesus is the one who touches us. Jesus is the one who heals our sight. Jesus is the one who asks the question and makes it possible for us to answer.
On February 5th at the National Prayer Breakfast, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made some statements about faith and military service that demonstrate the kind of blurred vision Mark is warning us about and, ironically, he did it by quoting this same passage.
Secretary Hegseth said: “And like Christ, in earthly ways our brave warriors are not called to appease the world, they must confront it. We know we fight a physical battle but ultimately grounded, as the president said, in a spiritual battlefield. Not only are we warriors armed with the arsenal of freedom, we ultimately are armed with the arsenal of faith and have been from the beginning.”
He went on to say: “The warrior who is willing to lay down his life for his unit, his country, and his Creator, that warrior finds eternal life.”
Now, I want to be clear about something from the start. The United States is blessed with many faith traditions and ethical frameworks, not just Christianity. We are a pluralistic society, and that is a strength, not a weakness. When our government officials speak at public events, when they use the machinery of state power, they speak for all Americans, Muslim and Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu, atheist and agnostic, and yes, Christian too.
So, we need to separate our faith language from our political and military language. The National Prayer Breakfast may be a religious event, but it is not or at least it shouldn’t be a Christian nationalist event and when the Secretary of Defense speaks, he speaks with the authority of his office. An office that serves all Americans, not just Christians.
But even setting aside that crucial concern about religious pluralism in a democracy, I need to address the theology itself. Because what Secretary Hegseth said isn’t just politically problematic, it’s dangerous and incorrect theologically.
Let’s start with the first statement. Physical war is not a “spiritual battlefield.” Our struggle against evil, what the Bible and theologians have called spiritual warfare, is not a physical battlefield. Spiritual battlefields and physical battlefields are not the same thing and confusing them leads to disaster.
When Paul writes in Ephesians about putting on the armor of God, about wrestling not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, he’s describing something fundamentally different from military combat. He’s talking about the struggle against systems of oppression, against ideologies of domination, against the spiritual forces that dehumanize and destroy. The weapons of that warfare are truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the word of God. Not bombs. Not bullets. Not the arsenal of one of the world’s most powerful militaries.
When we collapse these categories together, when we claim that physical warfare is spiritual warfare, we baptize violence. We make holy what is at best a tragic necessity and at worst an expression of imperial and colonial power. We put the cross on the sword, and friends, Jesus already told Peter to put the sword away.
The kin-dom of God does not advance through the machinery of earthly empires. It never has. It never will.
But it’s the second statement that I need us to really grapple with this evening. Because this is where the theology becomes not just dangerous, but heretical.
Recall, Secretary Hegseth said, “The warrior who is willing to lay down his life for his unit, his country, and his Creator, that warrior finds eternal life.”
No.
No, that is not the gospel. That is not how salvation works. That is not who Jesus is or what Jesus offers.
Let me be absolutely clear: dying in service to your country does not grant you eternal life. Dying for any cause, no matter how noble, does not save you. Your sacrifice, your heroism, your willingness to lay down your life, none of that, none of it, can accomplish what only Jesus can accomplish.
We are saved because Jesus sought us out first. We are saved because Jesus came to us while we were still lost, still stumbling in the dark. We are saved because Jesus touched us, Jesus healed us, Jesus asked us the question and then gave us the ability to answer it.
This is the heart of the gospel, and we cannot compromise it. We cannot allow it to be twisted into a theology that says, “Be willing to die for America, and you’ll find eternal life.” That’s not Christianity. That’s nationalism wearing Christian clothing. It’s the lie that has been told to soldiers since at least the Crusades and, no, it’s not unique to Christianity or to the 12th century. It’s the lie told to followers of radical Islam. The Russian Orthodox patriarch has said it about Russian soldiers who die in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Listen to what Mark shows us in this passage. The blind man doesn’t heal himself. He doesn’t earn his sight through his own effort or worthiness. He doesn’t perform the right actions or say the right words. Jesus comes to him. Jesus touches him. Jesus initiates the healing. And even then, it takes two touches, because Jesus is patient with our partial vision. Jesus keeps working with us until we see clearly.
Peter doesn’t figure out who Jesus is through his own wisdom. Jesus asks him the question. Jesus has been teaching him, showing him, revealing himself to Peter gradually. And when Peter finally confesses, “You are the Messiah,” that confession is a response to what Jesus has already been doing in Peter’s life. In Matthew 16:17, Jesus adds, “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.” It’s not Peter’s achievement. It’s Peter’s recognition of what Jesus has already accomplished.
This is how salvation works. God acts first. Always. Jesus seeks us out when we’re lost. Jesus teaches us when we’re confused. Jesus loves us before we even know we need love. Jesus dies for us before we could ever die for Jesus.
And yes, our actions matter. Our response matters tremendously. What we do with our lives matters to God, matters to our neighbors, and matters in the world. Following Jesus requires everything from us: our whole hearts, our whole lives, our willingness to take up our cross and walk the path Jesus walked.
But our actions are responses to what God has already done. They’re not transactions that purchase salvation. They’re not achievements that earn eternal life. They’re the fruit of a life that has been touched by Jesus, healed by Jesus, transformed by Jesus.
When we confuse this, when we suggest that dying for your country grants you eternal life, we turn the gospel inside out. We make salvation about human action instead of divine grace. We make eternal life a reward for military service instead of a gift from God. We replace Jesus with America, and we call it Christianity. Remember the quote often attributed to Sinclair Lewis: “If fascism ever comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
And friends, I need you to understand how dangerous this is. Because if dying for America grants eternal life, then killing for America becomes holy act. If military service is the path to salvation, then militarism becomes our religion. If the warrior finds eternal life through sacrifice on the battlefield, then we have made an idol out of nationalist violence, and we are bowing down before it.
This is not a new temptation. Empire has always wanted to co-opt the gospel. Every empire has wanted to wrap itself in religious language, to claim divine sanction for its power, to promise salvation through loyalty to the state.
But Jesus stood before Pilate and said, “My kin-dom is not of this world.” Jesus refused the crown that empire offered. Jesus went to a Roman cross rather than take up a Roman sword. And Jesus rose from the dead to show us that the empire of death has no power over the kin-dom of God.
So, when we confess Jesus as Messiah, when we claim Jesus as Lord, we’re not just making a theological statement. We’re making a political one too. We’re saying that our ultimate allegiance is not to any nation, not to any flag, and not to any arsenal of freedom or faith. Our ultimate allegiance is to the one who came to us when we were lost, who touched us and healed us, who asked us, “Who do you say that I am?” The same one who gives us the ability to answer truthfully.
We’re saying that salvation comes from Jesus alone. Not from military service. Not from national identity. Not from our willingness to die for any earthly cause. Only from Jesus, who died for us, who rose for us, who seeks us out, and brings us home.
Mark shows us that man who was blind, seeing gradually. First blurred, then clear. And Mark shows us Peter, confessing Jesus as Messiah, but not yet understanding what that means. Both of them needed Jesus to keep touching them, keep teaching them, keep opening their eyes.
We need that too. We need Jesus to keep healing our vision, because it’s so easy to see trees walking when we should be seeing the kin-dom of God. It’s so easy to confuse empire with gospel, nationalism with faith, military power with spiritual warfare.
So let us be a people who see clearly. Let us be a people who know that salvation comes from Jesus alone, through grace alone, received through faith alone and that even that faith is a gift, a response to Jesus who sought us out first.
Let us be a people who refuse to baptize violence, who refuse to make idols out of nations, who refuse to trade the gospel for empire’s promises.
And let us be a people who confess, with Peter: “You are the Messiah.” Not America. Not military might. Not national greatness. You, Jesus. You are the one we follow. You are the one we trust. You are the one who saves.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.