There is a word in Mark 8:17 that changes everything about how
Jesus speaks to his disciples.

Not yet.

“Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?”

That word yet is where all the mercy lives. It means Jesus hasn’t
left the boat. It means the story isn’t over. It means the second
touch is still coming.

Mark 8:1–26 covers three distinct scenes — a feeding, a confrontation,
and a healing. But underneath all of them runs one question. A question
Jesus asks twice. A question that is less accusation and more invitation.

Do you not yet understand?

**A Forgetful People**

Two chapters earlier these same disciples watched Jesus multiply five
loaves and two fish for five thousand people. They collected the
leftovers — twelve baskets full. They held the evidence of his power
in their own hands.

And now here they stand again. Same wilderness. Same hungry crowd.
Same impossible situation.

And their response is stunning.

“How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?”
(Mark 8:4)

How? They really just asked how?

Forgetting a name is one thing. Forgetting twelve baskets of bread
is another.

But this isn’t just the disciples’ story. This is Israel’s story.
This is our story.

God’s people have always been a forgetful people. Israel stood on
the far bank of the Red Sea with the Egyptian army swallowed by the
waters behind them — and within three days they were grumbling that
there was nothing to drink. They ate manna in the wilderness for
forty years and still they forgot.

You have had your own twelve baskets. A season when God’s provision
was unmistakable. A time when you prayed and the answer was clear.
A moment when the only explanation was the hand of God.

And six weeks later — maybe six days later — you’re lying awake at
three in the morning, heart pounding, as if none of it ever happened.

This is how it happens for most of us. Not in one dramatic moment.
But in a hundred quiet ones.

And yet — notice what Jesus does with forgetful disciples.

He doesn’t shame them. He doesn’t withdraw from them. He feeds them
again. Seven loaves. A few small fish. Four thousand people satisfied.
Seven large baskets of leftovers.

Because Jesus isn’t sufficient once and done. He’s always sufficient.
His compassion didn’t expire when his disciples forgot what he’d
already done. His patience didn’t collapse under the weight of their
unbelief.

He simply did it again.

**The Danger of Slow Drift**

Back in the boat, Jesus warns his disciples about the leaven of the
Pharisees. And the disciples — still thinking about lunch — completely
miss it.

Jesus presses in. Do you not yet perceive or understand? Having eyes,
do you not see? Having ears, do you not hear? Do you not remember?

The Pharisees on shore had demanded a sign from heaven despite
watching Jesus heal the deaf, cast out demons, and feed thousands.
Their problem was never a shortage of evidence. It was a heart that
had quietly, slowly hardened.

And Jesus is warning his disciples — the people who love him — that
the same thing can happen to them.

Not through dramatic rejection. But through forgetting. Through
distraction. Through missing the spiritual for the material.

This is how hearts harden in believers. Not usually through some
sudden apostasy. But through slow drift. A neglected Bible. A prayer
life that quietly shrinks. A creeping coldness toward worship. Like
leaven — you don’t notice it working until the whole loaf has changed.

But then Jesus does something remarkable. He forces them to remember.

When I fed the five thousand, how many baskets? Twelve.
When I fed the four thousand, how many? Seven.
Do you not yet understand?

He’s sufficient for all of it. He always has been.

**Men Like Trees Walking**

The passage closes with a healing unlike anything else in Mark’s
gospel. A blind man brought to Jesus — and healed in two stages.

First touch. The man sees people, but they look like trees walking.
Second touch. He sees everything clearly.

Mark didn’t have to tell us that. He could have simply said the man
was healed. But he says clearly. Because clearly is the point.

The disciples are this man. They’ve been with Jesus. They’ve seen
things nobody else has seen. They believe — but they don’t yet see
clearly. Men like trees walking.

And the second touch is coming for them too.

If you belong to Christ, you are somewhere on that journey. Maybe
you’re early — just beginning to see something. Maybe you’ve walked
with him for decades and there are still things that look like trees
walking to you.

That’s not a sign that something has gone wrong. That’s what it
looks like to be in the middle of the miracle.

Jesus doesn’t put you down after the first touch. He doesn’t move
on when the image hasn’t fully resolved. He’s patient. He’s
sovereign. He’s the author and perfecter of faith. He began it
and he’ll finish it.

**The One Answer**

Do you not yet understand?

There is only one answer for the forgetful disciple in the wilderness.
Only one answer for the drifting heart in the boat. Only one answer
for the man who can only see trees walking.

Jesus Christ. Crucified. Risen. Reigning. Sufficient.

Sufficient when you remember and when you forget. Sufficient when
you see clearly and when you see trees walking. Sufficient in every
wilderness, every boat, every dark and not-yet-understanding moment
of your life.

That is the God of this passage. Patient enough to feed forgetful
disciples again. Faithful enough to stay in the boat with drifting
ones. Tender enough to touch a blind man twice.

The cross secured everything he just promised you. The empty tomb
declared it done.

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*Listen to the full sermon: [Do You Not Yet Understand? — Mark 8:1–26](/sermons/do-you-not-yet-understand/)*