NOTES for Mar 8:22-26

This is already the second episode described by Mark in which the Lord heals by means of saliva. Perhaps this is another prophetic action in which Jesus symbolically depicts what is really taking place on the invisible plane of existence. The point is not even that these symbols reflect what is happening better than anything else, but that they themselves are a reflection of the heavenly reality brought by the Son of God, who became the Son of Man. Thus the very words “Father” and “Son” are taken from the human vocabulary of family relationships—but who knows whether these family relationships were not created to reflect the heavenly unity of the Father and the Son? Human saliva has always been regarded as a bearer of a person's qualities. The saliva of an unclean person is unclean (Lev 15:8), and the saliva of a sick person is contagious. In the same way, the saliva of the One who sees bestows sight, and the saliva of the One who hears and speaks bestows hearing and speech (Mark 7:33).