Sermon: Quinquagesima - 2019

3 March 2019

Text: Luke 18:31-43 (1 Sam 16:1-13, 1 Cor 13:1-13)

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

“What do you want Me to do for you?” asks Jesus, speaking to a man who cried out for mercy.  “Lord, let me recover my sight,” responds the man.  That is his request.  That is his prayer.  And that should be our constant prayer.

For there is blindness in the narrow sense, and blindness in a broader sense.  The blind man who sat in the road to Jericho and begged, was blind in the narrow sense of the word.  He was literally unable to see.  He bore a great burden of life in this fallen world: an affliction that makes it impossible to do the simplest of things.  Blindness robs a person of seeing the faces of loved ones, of locating necessary items in the home, of walking from place to place without groping around in constant darkness.  Blindness, especially in those days, impeded a person from making a living, reducing many to begging for money as a means to stay alive.  

But there was one thing that this blind beggar could “see”: the fact that Jesus had the power to save him.  He sees that Jesus is the Messiah, the “Son of David,” the one promised by Scripture.  Although his eyes could no longer read the words on the scroll (if he ever could read at all), his mind could still see the Word of God embedded in his heart.  He could see in vivid detail the prophecies of the Old Testament and their fulfillment in Jesus Christ – even though he could not see Jesus with his eyes.  Instead, he saw our blessed Lord by means of His “eyes of faith.”  

And it was this “seeing,” that is, “walking by faith and not by sight,” as St. Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians, that brought this blind man healing in his appropriation of the promise and ministry of Jesus.  For our Lord tells him: “Your faith has made you well.”  His faith saved him from mankind’s bitter triad of enemies: sin, death, and the devil.  As the author of the Book of Hebrews explains it: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Not seen.  It is believing without seeing.  And this believing has power: power to give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and even life to the dead – because this faith looks to Jesus, our incarnate and almighty God, who has come to repair what is broken, and heal that which falls short of God’s original perfection.

That, dear friends, is what forgiveness is all about.  It is a restoration of a shattered communion with God, a connection to His almighty power.  Similar to a repaired wire, a restored faith completes the circuit so that the Lord’s healing power may flow to where it is needed.  This is why we are implored to offer our prayers with faith – even in the face of great mockery and opposition – even as the blind beggar did.

Did you catch it in the text, dear friends?  The blind beggar, with faith in the healing power and love of Christ Jesus, cries out in prayer: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  But what of the “mercy” of the crowds?  They scold him. They tell him to shut up.  “But he cried out all the more.”  And his defiant prayer bears fruit, because Jesus is the fruit of his prayer.  Jesus will not be deterred by mockers and naysayers.  And nor should we, dear friends.  When we are told to shut up, we should “cry out all the more.”  When our friends and employers and colleagues and teachers and opponents and those who hate us and our Lord try to stifle our faith and its expression, we need to be undeterred and continue our own prayer of: “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

That is why we confess a Christian “faith.”  This is not to say that it is untrue.  Far from it!  It is the Christian truth, but we know this truth, and we confess this truth, by faith.  It is a seeing that does not come from the eyes, but from Jesus: the light of the world, which no darkness – not even the darkness of blindness or even of the grave – can overcome.  It is a knowledge that is not worked out by the brain, but is given from the head of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of David, who has mercy on us poor, miserable sinners.  

We believe, we teach, and we confess this faith.  And the object of our faith is Jesus, always Jesus.  He and he alone illuminates our souls and our world.  Any other claim to illumination is of Satan, the one formerly named “Lucifer,” the bearer of light, who is now only the bearer of darkness and death.  

The blind beggar knew this, and He knew it by faith alone!  And when the Lord healed him, he “followed Him, glorifying God.”  This, dear friends, is what Christian people do.  We follow Jesus.  We go to where He is.  We have communion with Him.  We listen to Him.  We learn from Him.  We are healed by Him.  We are enlightened by Him.  We have faith in Him.  We confess Him.  And in following Jesus, what can we do but glorify God?  

We glorify Him in our prayers, praises, and thanksgivings.  We glorify Him in the divine service.  We glorify Him in the morning, at noon, and at night.  We glorify Him before meals.  We glorify Him during the course of the day as we reflect upon how He has cured us of our blindness and raised us from the dead, through the forgiveness of sins, calling us through baptism, and pouring out regeneration on us in body and soul.  

And when others see the work of God in bringing light to our darkness, they too give praise to God.  They too are impelled to follow Jesus.

For the Christian faith is about seeing: seeing things that blow the mind and expand our worldview to the realm of the miraculous.  This is how it was that a shepherd boy, the youngest and least impressive of the sons of Jesse, was chosen by God to be the great King David of Israel.  And this is how David’s Son, born in the fullness of time of the virgin Mary, is God in the flesh, the King of the universe.  We see this by faith.  We see this by the illumination of the Holy Spirit.  We see this because Jesus takes away our blindness.

For notice how Jesus told the twelve (at the beginning of our reading) exactly what was coming: His passion, death and resurrection.  And yet, “they understood none of these things.  This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.”  In other words, Jesus told them plainly, but they just couldn’t see that happening.  And so they were blinded by their own reason, expectations, and desires.  The disciples stand in contrast to the blind man who truly does “see” Jesus.  For he sees by faith, and by faith, he sees – all by the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, the light of the world!

For we still live in a world that is dark.  And for now, as St. Paul says in our epistle reading, his first letter to the Corinthians, “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away…. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

We are fully known, dear friends, fully known by Jesus.  He knows our strengths, our weaknesses, our wisdom, and our folly.  He knows us as we are, and He loves us to the point of suffering and dying for us, for our salvation, for our rescue by His blood.  This is the love that St. Paul speaks of: Love that is patient, kind, not envious or boastful, not insistent on getting its own way, not irritable or resentful, and not rejoicing in sin.  Rather love rejoices in truth.

Jesus is the truth.  We truly see Jesus when we see Him as the way, the truth, and the life, the Son of God, the Son of David, the light of the world, the one who hears our prayer and cures our blindness.

May His light rest upon us and illuminate the darkness of our world.  May we cry out all the more when people attempt to silence us.  May our prayer ever and always be: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.