For many of us there came a time when we had to acknowledge that we could no longer see the way that we used to see. We were going blind. Perhaps the chalkboard began to get blurry, or we struggled to see the words on the page, or maybe we took the eye test at the DMV and didn’t pass, or we went to a routine eye examine and were informed there was a problem. For whatever reason we needed corrective lenses so that we could see again. But when we put them on, we were reminded of colors we forgot existed. We saw signs in the store again. We could read the score on the screen as we watched our favorite sports. Life was good again. In our text this morning, we meet another man who was blind. But his blindness serves for us as a picture of our spiritual blindness and gives us the path to spiritual sight. Mark 10:46-52 – And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. ⁴⁷ And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” ⁴⁸ And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” ⁴⁹ And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” ⁵⁰ And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. ⁵¹ And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.” ⁵² And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way. Sometimes in life we feel as though all is lost. We see all that is happening around us: in our relationships, in our finances, in our jobs, in our health, in our country, and we feel as though there is no hope. But this reveals that we have taken our eyes off of God. In the last text, James and John missed the message of Christ. So Jesus reveals to them again the new ethic in the Kingdom of God. They were blind to His working, so he sought to help them see. So often in life, we are blind to what God is doing. But he is at work, we just need to see. Mark uses another miracle in Christ’s ministry to reveal this important text to us. We will examine this text by looking at the four characters in the text and be reminded that we must call on God in faith if we want to find peace and joy in life.

Recently we celebrated two monumentous anniversaries. At the end of December, we celebrated Harold and Geneva’s 70^th wedding anniversary. And just a couple of weeks ago, we congratulated as best we could during this time, Chuck and Barb’s 64^th wedding anniversary. That means that for the majority of most of the lives of the members of this congregation, these two couples have been married. These are monumentous anniversaries, in large part, due to the high divorce rates we have seen over the past few decades. Last year, the divorce rate stood at 40%. 4 of every 10 marriages ended in divorce. The average length of first marriages is currently 8 years. 60% of second marriages ended in divorce, and 73% of third marriages ended in divorce. We have a marriage problem in our society. What is this problem owing to? There are several factors, but the chief of all factors is the cheapening of marriage. The idea that marriage is simply a social construct that is created by the government. It is simply a piece of paper. If you want to trace the moral decay in the country, a major milestone you must mark is that, in 1977, 8 states adopted no fault divorce. By 1983, 48 states had adopted the practice. This led to split families and latch key children. I know that some are now very uncomfortable. So why are we talking about this today? This is not in order to condemn or pour guilt on those who have been divorced. One advantage of systematically working through a book of the Bible together is that it provides very readily for us the next topic. Whatever is next in the book is what we cover next. This also provides the opportunity to discuss hard topics without someone thinking they are being singled out. Why are we discussing this today? For two reasons: (1) It is the topic of the next section in Mark. (2) It is a very important topic that is vital for all to understand today. We live in a society that thinks nothing of marriage and divorce. When you fall in love with someone, you might get married to them. And when you fall out of love with them, then you simply end it and divorce them. But as people of the Book, we must always ask the question: Does God allow this? Does God allow divorce? In God’s providence, He provides for us the answer in this text, as the Pharisees ask that very question. Mark 10:1-12 – And he left there and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan, and crowds gathered to him again. And again, as was his custom, he taught them. ² And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” ³ He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” ⁴ They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” ⁵ And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. ⁶ But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ⁷ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife,^{[a] 8} and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. ⁹ What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” ¹⁰ And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. ¹¹ And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, ¹² and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” As we work through this text, we will cover the issue by asking and answering 4 questions: What does the Bible say? What is God’s plan? Does God really mean this? And where do we go from here? Through these questions we will see that God's plan from creation was life-long, flourishing marriage. As a result, we will call each other to commit to and be content with where God has you. This text will take us a couple of weeks to get through as this is a dense and important topic.