Personal Jesus (Mark #26)

Back in 1989, a British pop group released what became their most popular song ever. It was called “Personal Jesus.”

I personally find the song excruciatingly boring. The melody is essentially two notes going back and forth, and it drones on and on. If you love this song, I need to pray for your soul, because I’m fairly convinced it’s played on repeat somewhere unpleasant.

Apparently a great many people disagree with me. It charted in the top twenty in six countries. A major music magazine later named it one of the greatest songs of all time. And it became the best-selling vinyl single its record label had ever released — outselling some of the biggest acts of that era.

What the Song Is Actually About

I wasn’t tuned in to the American church in 1989, so I don’t know what pastors were saying about it. But I can imagine plenty of pulpit-pounding sermons against it — because despite the title, the song is not about Jesus Christ.

The songwriter had read Priscilla Presley’s memoir, in which she described Elvis as her personal Jesus. And that inspired the song. The writer later explained that it’s about being a “Jesus” for somebody else — someone who gives you hope and care. About how one person becomes another’s mentor and everything, and how often that happens in romantic relationships. About how everybody’s heart becomes a kind of god in some way.

And I suspect the reason the song became so popular wasn’t its melody. I think it struck an internal chord many of us have been playing for a long time.

Everyone Is Looking for a Personal Jesus

Everybody wants something that will rescue them out of their pain.

So people do exactly what that memoir described — they turn a romantic partner into their personal Jesus, hoping he or she will rescue them from loneliness, from boredom, from the stigma of being single.

(And by the way, if you’re single — there is no stigma here. You matter to God, so you matter to us. We don’t think you’re better if you’re married or lesser if you’re not.)

Other people try to make money their messiah, hoping it will rescue them from poverty or from invisibility and carry them into the promised land of comfort.

Others turn to substances, or drinking, or food — hoping to be rescued from the pain of their past or the pain of the present.

We all do it. We all look for a personal Jesus who will rescue us from our sin, our neediness, and ourselves.

Bad News and Good News

The bad news: it doesn’t work. You cannot turn music or movies or food or another human being into your personal Jesus. There is only one Jesus.

Which leads directly to the good news: that one Jesus is deeply personal.

Today I hope you see how much he loves you. Not merely in the general sense that God loves the world — but personally. He knows your pain. He knows your past. He knows your future. He knows everything about you, and he loves you uniquely.

Two Linked Stories

Today is slightly different from our normal pattern. We’ll finish chapter 7 and then jump ahead to a story in chapter 8, because the two are clearly linked.

Both are healings. In both, Jesus takes the man aside privately. Both appear only in Mark — which is notable, since most scholars believe Mark was written first and that Matthew and Luke drew heavily from it. And, most oddly, both involve spit.

In Mark 7:31–37, Jesus returns to the Sea of Galilee through the region of the Decapolis. People bring him a man who is deaf with a speech impediment, begging Jesus to lay hands on him.

Taking him aside from the crowd privately, Jesus puts his fingers in the man’s ears, and after spitting, touches his tongue. He looks up to heaven, sighs, and says, “Be opened.” The man’s ears are opened, his tongue released, and he speaks plainly.

Then in Mark 8:22–26, at Bethsaida, people bring a blind man and beg Jesus to touch him. Jesus takes him by the hand and leads him out of the village. He spits on his eyes, lays hands on him, and asks, “Do you see anything?”

And the man looks up and says: I see people, but they look like trees walking.

Then Jesus lays hands on his eyes again, and his sight is fully restored.

Why He Went Private

I suspect many of the people who brought these men genuinely cared about them — parents, neighbors, close friends who wanted to see them freed.

But reading it, I also suspect some brought them for the spectacle. They’d heard about the miracles, and here was a chance to actually watch one.

Which is exactly why Jesus takes each man aside — and in the second case, entirely out of the village.

Because Jesus wasn’t healing for show. He healed these men because he loved them. His good works were never designed to draw attention to himself. His good works were for them.

If we’re going to live like Jesus lived, we have to check our hearts. When we serve at the food bank, are we doing it so we look good — or to genuinely help someone? When we go on a mission trip, is it so our church looks impressive, or because kids will be changed?

The Weird Part

Let me acknowledge plainly: putting fingers in a man’s ears and touching his tongue with saliva is strange. And frankly, gross.

But consider who Jesus is dealing with.

He pulls this man aside — maybe a few disciples come along, but that’s it. And the man cannot hear. Even if the disciples were telling him how fortunate he was, he’d have no idea unless he could read lips.

I learned this week that they had forms of sign communication in that era. So when Jesus touches the man’s ears and then his tongue, he is signing to him: I’m going to heal you. I’m going to restore your hearing and let you speak.

But why the spit?

In our society the only person permitted to touch you with saliva is a mother. A mom can look at her kid and say, “You have spaghetti all over your face and you are not greeting Grandma like that” — and start wiping. Anyone else attempts that and you back away rapidly.

It turns out mothers aren’t the only ones historically credited with special saliva. In Jesus’s day there was a widespread belief that saliva carried healing properties.

So when Jesus spits on his fingers, that too is a signal: I am about to heal you. Which is exactly what would prompt this man to willingly stick out his tongue.

He Didn’t Need Any of It

Think it through. Last week we watched Jesus free a little girl from demon possession — and she wasn’t even present. That’s power.

And it isn’t the first time. We watched him asleep in a boat during a storm, stand up, say “be still,” and the wind and waves stopped. We watched him take a boy’s lunch and feed five thousand. We watched a woman with twelve years of bleeding touch the edge of his robe and be healed instantly — before he even looked at her.

So Jesus does not need to spit. He doesn’t need to touch this man’s ears or tongue. He could have glanced across the crowd and it would have been done.

Instead he pulls the man aside, takes time to communicate in a way he can understand, and heals him.

Why? Because Jesus wanted to get personal.

He Loves You Personally

American Christians especially tend to read the Bible asking what it says about us. And these stories aren’t about us — they’re about Jesus. Which is why most weeks in Mark we’re studying his power and identity as King, because if we’re going to love like Jesus loved, we have to look at Jesus.

But here I can’t avoid noticing that the way he treats these two men is the way he treats us.

Some of us think Jesus loves us in a general way. For God so loved the world — I’m in the world — so, technically, God loves me.

No. Jesus loves you. He knows your past. He knows your sins. He knows your fears. And he loves you.

Which means through the gospel he takes you aside and says, I can speak into this — not generically, but specifically.

The gospel is for everyone, but it is not one-size-fits-all.

Two Marriages, Same Problem

Imagine two couples come to me struggling. In both, the wife doesn’t feel loved. In both, the husband insists he loves her.

The first husband says it constantly — before work, when he gets home, at bedtime, in texts throughout the day. And she’s sitting in my office saying she doesn’t feel it.

The second husband serves constantly. She’s slammed at work, so he does most of the laundry, cleaning, and cooking. And she’s saying she doesn’t feel loved either.

Both men are frustrated. I tell her all the time. I serve her constantly. How can she not know?

Approach it generally and you slap Ephesians 5 on it — husbands, love your wives. And both say, but I do.

Go deeper: Ephesians 5:25 says Christ loved the church by dying for her, so husbands are to die to themselves. And the first says, I do that with the texts. The second says, I do that with the housework.

Then the Gospel Pulls Them Aside

The first husband looks honestly at his situation. He says the words, but he spends all his energy at work, out with friends, and zoned out in front of the television. He isn’t present.

So dying to himself, for him, means cancelling something. Skipping the game. Being in the house. Helping with a meal. Doing some laundry. And when he then says “I love you,” she believes it — because now she sees it.

The second husband is already serving. For him, dying to himself might mean setting the laundry basket down, sitting on the couch, and listening — about the stress at work, the extended family, what’s happening in her heart. And when she then sees him emptying the dishwasher, she knows: he does that because he loves me.

Same gospel. Two entirely different applications.

It Speaks Into Yours

So the gospel pulls you aside with all your sin, all your problems, all your struggles, and says: I speak into this.

Maybe you had a painful relationship with your father, and it has shaped how you approach faith. The gospel says: your heavenly Father loves you completely.

Maybe you’re fighting an addiction or a recurring temptation. The gospel says: when Christ died, the Holy Spirit came to live in you — so the same power that raised Jesus from the dead now dwells in you. You do not have to give in. It won’t be easy. But just as he was raised, you can overcome.

The gospel isn’t a broad bandage. Jesus gets in and does surgery. Because he loves you personally.

“But I’ve Been Praying for So Long”

Some of you are thinking: I’ve been praying for emotional healing. Physical healing. Mental healing. Spiritual healing. For years. And it hasn’t come.

That’s why there’s a second story.

Jesus takes the blind man by the hand, leads him out of the village, spits on his eyes, lays hands on him, and asks what he sees.

And the man says: I see people, but they look like trees walking.

Pause there. Sit in the space between the end of verse 24 and the beginning of verse 25.

That Awkward Gap

This man has lived in darkness. He hears the miracle worker is in town. People bring him. Jesus takes his hand and walks him out of the village.

Imagine that walk. This is it. I’m going to see.

And then blurriness.

I’ve worn glasses since fourth grade, and my eyesight has steadily worsened. If I take them off right now, you’re all a blur. Because I’ve been looking at you I know roughly who’s where — but if a close friend walked in and sat in the back, I couldn’t identify him. He’d be a tree walking.

As a kid I loved to swim, and you don’t swim in glasses. So I’d tuck them in my shoe by the fence and learn to recognize people by the color of their swimsuit — and by roughly where the color was, I could work out whether it was a boy or a girl. That’s about how well I could see.

So I know what that moment felt like. And I wonder whether that man thought: this is it?

There could have been real doubt in that gap. Disappointment. Unmet expectations.

You Are Living in That Gap

If you follow Jesus, right now you are living between the end of verse 24 and the start of verse 25.

You’ve seen the cross of Christ clearly enough. You know God loves you and that Jesus died for the forgiveness of your sins. That much is in focus.

And the rest of life is still blurry.

You don’t understand why the job hasn’t come. Why there’s no spouse, or no child. Why the finances stay the way they are. Why your health continues like this. Why that relationship remains broken.

Because you thought: I see God clearly. He’s powerful. Scripture shows he can do anything. So why is it like this?

Was This a Failure?

This man had heard the reports. He knew Jesus stopped a storm and fed thousands. Perhaps he’d heard about the woman healed by touching a robe, or the girl freed from a demon at a distance.

So he knows the power is real. And now — can Jesus not manage blindness? Surely stopping a storm is harder than restoring eyesight.

So did Jesus fail? Does he not fully care? Is he withholding, making me pay for something?

Here’s what you need to notice: this is the only two-stage healing Jesus ever performs. Everything else happens instantly.

Which means it is entirely intentional. Something deeper is happening.

He’s Asking a Question

I think Jesus is asking: do you trust me?

Because in that gap the man could have thought, Are you serious? This is what I get?

Or he could have thought: I can see something now. Yes, people look like trees — but I can see. Maybe I’ll stop bumping into furniture. This is genuinely better. And if he could do this much, maybe he can finish it.

The man trusts him. And Jesus puts his hands back on his eyes — and he sees clearly.

So the question for you is: in the middle of your blurriness, will you trust Christ?

A Dim Mirror

In 1 Corinthians 13 — the chapter people call the love chapter — Paul writes near the end that for now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now we know in part, but then we shall know fully, even as we have been fully known.

The city of Corinth was known for its mirrors. But theirs weren’t like ours. We step in front of a bathroom mirror and see with total clarity.

Theirs were polished bronze — smooth enough to give you a reflection, which is genuinely impressive, but never sharp enough for detail. You could tell you were having a bad hair day. You could not see the food stuck in your teeth.

And Paul is saying: right now, in this life, that’s what you’ve got. Enough to see by. Not enough to see clearly. People walking, looking like trees.

But catch the rest: now we see dimly — then we will see face to face.

Hold On

That’s what you have to hold onto. Will you hold onto Christ and trust him?

Because I promise you: if you do, you will see clearly. It might be next week. It might be in a few years. It might be decades. Or, as Paul suggests, it may be when this life is finished and you step into the next.

But here’s what happens when you hold on through the fuzziness — when things finally come into focus, whether in this life or the next, do you know what you will see most clearly of all?

A personal Jesus.

So hold on. Trust him. Because he loves you uniquely and personally, and his gospel speaks into whatever situation you find yourself in.

And if you’ll hold on — if you’ll let this gospel keep saturating you until it becomes part of who you are — things will get clearer. I promise. And you will experience the greatest joy you have ever known.

But it will come through faith.