When Shirl Jennings’s girlfriend, Barbara, walked into the office of eye specialist, Dr. Trevor Woodhams, in 1991 for treatment because of her diabetes, she started a chain of events that would lead to one of the Bible’s stranger miracles.

Shirl Jennings, who was 50 at the time, had been blind since he was ten. He had been diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, which often results in total blindness because it attacks the eye’s ability to respond to light.

When Barbara explained her boyfriend’s condition, Dr. Woodhams wasn’t convinced that the diagnosis was right, since Shirl still saw light. After 40 years with this condition, Shirl should be completely blind. He encouraged Shirl to come in for an examination.

When he did, Dr. Woodhams discovered that Shirl had thick cataracts and suggested their removal would fix his problem. Their removal a few days before his marriage to Barbara resulted in the return of Shirl’s eyesight

For the first time in 40 years, Shirl could see.

But there were some complications.

In his article for The New Yorker¹, Dr. Oliver Sacks, a former professor of neurology and psychiatry at New York’s Columbia University Medical Center, explained what happened.

In her journal, Barbara described the problems that Shirl encountered:

“[Shirl] often felt more disabled than he had felt when he was blind… Steps posed a special hazard because all he could see was a confusion, a flat surface of parallel and crisscrossing lines; he could not see them (although he knew them) as solid objects going up or coming down in three-dimensional place.”

The cat proved to be a particular challenge Barbara added. Though he identified the cat’s different parts like its head, tails and paws, he could not put them together and visualize the cat as a single entity.

As Dr. Sacks explained, all the images were coming in correctly, but Shirl’s mind was not processing them properly.

In her journal, Amy even noted that trees were also problematic. Again though he saw its individual parts, trunk, leaves and branches, they were just a jumble.

It took several weeks, but Shiril was finally able to see stairs, cats and trees as people with normal sight perceive them.

But Shirl’s problem with trees reminds us of a strange miracle that Jesus performed while in Bethsaida. People brought a blind man to Christ for healing and strangely, Jesus led the man by the hand out of town. It was almost like the Lord was looking for some trees.

Then we read what happened next:

23 Taking the blind man by the hand, He brought him out of the village; and after spitting on his eyes and laying His hands on him, He asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24 And he looked up and said, “I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around.” 25 Then again He laid His hands on his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and began to see everything clearly. 26 And He sent him to his home, saying, “Do not even enter the village.” (Mark 8:23-26 NASV)

The man was healed. But just like Shirl, everything was merged together. There was no depth perception and people looked like walking trees.

Because of modern science, we know this often happens to people who are seeing for the first time.

But in the first century, there was no way for a person’s sight to be restored outside a miracle. So they had no way of knowing this would happen. In fact, most people today don’t know this sight confusion takes place when a person’s sight is restored.

This statement by the blind man was actually evidence that a miracle took place. He never would have had that problem without first being healed.

There was also something else unusual about this miracle. It was the only time Jesus asked if a person was healed. It’s as if Jesus was anticipating this problem.

Secondly, Mark uses two different Greek words for seeing in this verse. “Blepo” is used the first two times. It refers to the ability to see and was used when Christ asked the man what he ‘saw’, and he replied that he ‘saw’ men walking as trees.

But a different Greek word is used the third time, after Christ prayed for the man again and he “began to see everything clearly.”

It is the compound word ’emblepo’ and means to focus on and according to Strong’s Greek Dictionary means “metaphorically to look at with the mind. To consider.”

The word incorporates a mind element to the seeing which was exactly the issue that Jesus dealt with the second time He prayed.

So with this as our foundation, let’s turn to John 14:12, where Jesus said:

“Truly, truly I say to you, the one who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12 NASV)

Jesus promises that His followers will perform even greater miracles than Christ.

Notice how Jesus is not just talking about His disciples, because the Lord says everyone who believes in Him will do this. Greater can be interpreted as bigger in impact and more in quantity.

This will happen because after Jesus returns to the Father, the Lord will send the Holy Spirit (John 16:7),

So I encourage you to pray for the sick.

1. Note: In his article for The New Yorker, Dr. Sacks, now deceased, used pseudonyms for all involved. Credit: Oliver Sacks, To See and Not See: The New Yorker (the Way Back archive), June 12, 2006:  ↩︎