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Preached by Pastor Jeff Hamling Sunday, September 19, 2021 Walking Trees Introduction: The Miracle Worker (1962): In the movie, which is based on true events, Helen Keller is both blind and deaf because of a fever she had as an infant. She can’t communicate. Nor can people communicate with her. Her family hires Anne Sullivan as her teacher to try to teach her how to communicate—to learn letters and words through sign language in the palm of her hand. Helen resists all attempts at being taught.  Sullivan teaches her letters, but for Helen they have not meaning; it’s just a hand signal game. But once when they were retrieving water from a fountain outside the house, Anne sticks Hellen’s hand under the spout while she simultaneously gives the sign for water on her hand. Helen Keller describes the incident in her autobiography, The Story of My Life: As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten–a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me. This strange new sight came to Helen Keller though the living word that awakened her soul in combination with the physical touch of her teacher’s hand in her hand. This must be something like how the blind man in this story from Mark felt. After his encounter with Jesus—when Jesus touched his hand—his whole world quivered with life. But it’s also a picture of how God’s grace comes to each of us. In light of that, it’s worth walking through this story verse-by-verse: v.22 22 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him.  This verse marks a major shift in the book of Mark. Jesus now begins his journey from Bethsaida (a small fishing village on the north shore of Galilee) down south to the city of Jerusalem where he will die on the cross. What’s interesting is that this journey—which takes place from chapter 8-10—begins and ends with Jesus healing a blind man. Just as Jesus now departs for the cross, he heals a blind man. A right before he arrives in Jerusalem, he heals a blind man. Why is this the case? One reason is that this entire section is characterized by Jesus telling his disciples what he’s come to do. On three different occasions Jesus explicitly tells them, “I’m going to be handed over, mocked, spit on, and killed. Three days later I will rise.” But the disciples are blinded by their expectations. They are the ones who need new eyes because they can’t see or understand how God will reveal his grace and glory in their lives. Are we so different from the disciples? We have our own blind spots. It’s easy to lie to ourselves about who we really are; excuse our faults, minimize our sins. Paul Tripp writes: “My self-perception is as accurate as a carnival mirror.” It’s also easy to be pessimistic and miss the ways God’s is revealing his glory and grace in our lives. This is one of the reasons we emphasize Growth Groups at Trinity Church. We need other people in our lives who know us, listen to us, pray for us. People who are willing to point