NOTES for Mar 8:11-22
The demand for a sign from Jesus was entirely understandable: many were ready to see the Messiah in Him, and most already considered Him a prophet, if not all. However, in order to recognize the Messiah as Messiah, He was expected to provide certain definite signs as proof of His messiahship. These signs were connected with traditional messianic expectations, partly popular and partly theological. Messianic theology was especially developed in the Pharisaic environment, which is no surprise, since they considered themselves messianists, the very remnant of which the ancient prophets had spoken. They could not afford to be mistaken about the Messiah; hence their attention to messianic theology and their attempts to develop unambiguous criteria for identifying messiahship.
But Jesus, though He was the Messiah, was not going to conform to anyone's criteria. He simply revealed the Kingdom to the world in its fullness, in love and power. And God's power usually acts quite convincingly, though only for those who want to see. It would seem enough to open one's eyes and look. What other signs are needed? What other criteria must the One meet who can not only heal any disease but also return the dead to life?
The problem, however, is that fallen humanity is astonishingly talented in everything related to creating illusions and illusory reality, inside which a person can dwell so completely that at times nothing outside has any effect on him at all. Behind concepts built on his own illusions and mirages, fallen man can hide for a very long time from every reality, even from the reality of the Kingdom entering the world, which a "theologian" intoxicated by his own "reality" may simply fail to notice. Here signs and proofs of every kind are truly useless. They will go unnoticed just like everything else that does not fit the concept and the "reality" on which that concept was built.
Still, the disciples in their own way are not much better than those demanding a sign. They too do not understand the Teacher. For them, leaven is connected with physical bread, and they are sure that Jesus is forbidding them to share bread with the Pharisees and Sadducees. But in reality He is speaking of something quite different, not of food prohibitions and not of rituals. The Kingdom He has brought into the world turns out to be too full and too free even for those who followed Him. This is understandable: in our world, the fall has affected everyone and each person, except Him. The time will come, and the slow, difficult overcoming of the consequences of that catastrophe, because of which the Kingdom was closed to humanity, will begin. But at that moment this time was still ahead.