Quinquagesima
Lk
18:31-43
2/27/22
When I was
thirteen years old, I realized that when I was at the baseball field sitting in
the dugout, the numbers on the scoreboard located just behind the outfield
fence were blurry. I also realized, more
importantly, that when hitting I wasn’t seeing the ball as well as in the past.
It was that
summer I learned that I needed glasses for seeing distances. I have worn
glasses or contacts all of my life since then.
Over the years the prescription for those has had to become stronger as
my vision has gotten worse. I like to
joke that when I get up in the morning, without my glasses I am blind.
Then, about
two years ago I noticed that when I was working on my model railroad, I was
starting to have trouble seeing the very small pieces with which I was
working. This had never been a problem
in the past – I could see anything no matter how small it was. But about a year
ago I had to go the drug store and buy some reading glasses that I use while
modeling. Now my model railroading
experience includes the frequent question: “Were on the train layout did I
leave my glasses?”
We take
vision for granted … until there are problems.
And while issues of being near sighted or far sighted can be dealt with
relatively easily, more serious issues that threaten sight are scary. We all know how important sight is, and how
difficult life is if we lose it.
In our
Gospel lesson we meet a man who had no sight.
He was blind. We don’t know
anything about how or when this had occurred. However, we find him in the
location, doing the activity that we would expect of a blind man in the first
century world. He was sitting alongside
the road begging for money.
He heard
that a crowd was going by and asked what was going on. When he was told, that Jesus of Nazareth was
passing by, he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The blind man called out to Jesus and
addressed him with a term that identified him as the Messiah. He had one urgent plea “Have mercy on me!”,
which is a cry for help.
However, those who were in the front
of the group rebuked them man. They
considered him an annoyance and told him to be silent. Yet the man would not be
silenced, instead, he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
We don’t know how the man knew about Jesus. But he had heard the Gospel. He had heard that Jesus was the Son of
David. He knew that Jesus worked
miracles of healing as he brought God’s reign. And he believed. He had faith in
Jesus, and in faith he cried out to the Lord.
Jesus stopped, had the men brought to
him, and asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let
me recover my sight.” Jesus replied, “Recover
your sight; your faith has made you well.” We learn that immediately the
man recovered his sight. He responded to
this this by following Jesus as he glorified God. The man’s faith in Jesus did not end because
he had gotten what he wanted. Instead,
he now followed the Lord and praised God.
The faith of the blind man stands in
contrast to what precedes in our text.
Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and we learn that he took the twelve
apostles aside and said to them: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem,
and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will
be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and
will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after
flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”
This is now the third time that Jesus
had told the apostles about his upcoming passion. This one is the most explicit as he described
his humiliation, suffering, and death.
However, we are told, “But they understood none of these
things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was
said.” The apostles didn’t understand. They had not understood before. And now we
are told that it was hidden from them.
Only in the events that were about to take place could they come to an
understanding about who Jesus was and what he meant for them.
When the blind man asked what was
happening, he was told “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” The reference to
Nazareth recalls the beginning of Jesus’ ministry when he went to his hometown
on the Sabbath. There he read these words from Isaiah chapter sixty one: “The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim
good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those
who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” Then
Jesus announced, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your
hearing.”
In healing the blind man, and in his
other miracles, Jesus was the presence of God’s reign. He was the Messiah – the
Son of of David – who was anointed not with olive oil, but with the Holy Spirit
at his baptism. He had come to bring
liberty to the captives, and to set at liberty those who are oppressed.
And that means you. You were captives to Satan, sin, and
death. Conceived and born as children of
Adam, you were spiritually dead – Satan was your lord. As the apostle Paul told
the Ephesians, “you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you
once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of
the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of
disobedience.”
In our text Jesus describes how he
will suffer and die. He says that they are going to Jerusalem so that “everything
that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.” This reference is important because it
emphasizes that Jesus goes to Jerusalem to fulfill God’s saving will. He goes to fulfill what God had revealed in
the Old Testament. At the Last Supper
Jesus said, “For
I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: ‘And he was
numbered with the transgressors.’ For what is written about me has its
fulfillment.”
Our Lord quoted the words of Isaiah
chapter fifty three. There Isaiah
described the suffering Servant and said of him, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned--every one--to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the
iniquity of us all.” We saw during Epiphany that when Jesus was anointed with
the Spirit at his baptism, he took on the role of the suffering Servant – the
One who would bear our sins and receive God’s judgment in our place.
Jesus Christ went to Jerusalem and suffered and died
exactly as he had said. He died on the
cross to win forgiveness for you. But in
Luke’s Gospel the phrase “everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets
will be accomplished” also points forward to what happened after Jesus died.
Jesus died on Good Friday. But on Easter, he rose from the dead. On the evening of Easter he appeared to his
disciples in the locked room and said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with
you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets
and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to
understand the Scriptures, and said to them, “Thus it is
written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from
the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be
proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from
Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.”
In fulfillment of the Father’s saving
will, our Lord Jesus suffered and died to win forgiveness for us. Yet, also in fulfillment of his will, on the
third day God raised Jesus from the dead.
Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection we have forgiveness before God,
and we know that death has been defeated.
It cannot separate us from God.
And Jesus will transform out bodies to be like his resurrected body on
the Last Day.
This is what God has done. This is the
good news – the Gospel- that God has revealed to us. It is through this Gospel that the Holy
Spirit has called us to faith. Because
we know this we now live by faith in our Lord.
And here, the blind man provides us with a model to follow. When he
heard that Jesus was coming by he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have
mercy on me!” When others tried to silence him he called out all the more, “Son
of David, have mercy on me!” The man trusted and believed in Jesus. He called out to him for help.
This is what our life looks like as
well. It is because we are people who
continue to struggle with sin. Though through the work of the Spirit we are in
Christ a new creation, the old Adam still drags us back into a failure to put
God first and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We don’t ignore this sin or try to make
excuses for it. Instead, we repent and
confess our sins. We cry out “Jesus have
mercy on me!”, as in faith we return to our baptism through which we shared in
Jesus’ saving death and have had our sins forgiven.
The same thing is true as we encounter
the challenges, difficulties, and sufferings of this life. We cry out, “Jesus have mercy on me!” In faith and trust we turn to the Lord who
died for us and rose from the dead. We
ask for his help, confident that the One who has revealed his love for us in
his cross and resurrection, continues to love and care for us now.
And in turn, the love and help God has
given us leads us to love and serve others.
We learn about the blind man, “And
immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God.” The man became a follower of Jesus and
glorified God. We have cried out, “Jesus have mercy on
me!” and have received forgiveness and life through our baptism into Jesus’
death and resurrection. We are now followers
of Jesus who glorify God by sharing his love with others in the vocations where
God has placed us.
The blind man in our text turned to
Jesus in persistent faith as he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have
mercy on me!” The Lord healed him as he
experienced the reign of God that was present in Jesus Christ. The apostles in our text hear about how the
saving reign of God will reach its consummation – in the suffering, death, and
resurrection of Jesus everything that is written about him by the prophets is
accomplished.
They do not understand. In fact, at this point it is hidden from
them. But it would not be hidden forever.
Jesus has accomplished all that he said.
At Easter and for forty days afterwards the disciples encountered the
risen Lord, as he gave them insight into how he fulfilled the Scriptures and
taught them about the kingdom of God. They have been his witnesses to us, so
now we also rejoice in the forgiveness, life, and salvation which we have
received in our crucified and risen Lord.
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