“QUINQUAGESIMA”
Saint Luke 18. 31-43
Quinquagesima Sunday: 18 February Anno Domini 2007
Fr Watson
There would be no blindness in the world were it not for sin. It isn�t that Bartimaeus sinned �specifically� and deserved to be blind; it wasn�t that his parents had sinned �specifically� and deserved a child with a physical birth defect; it isn�t that if you do selfish things here today against your brothers and sisters you deserve to be struck down with sickness; it�s that everybody deserves pain, death and hellish damnation because of SIN�the overall condition of SIN; the state the world is in since Adam and Eve fell. All of your daily trespasses, the big evils and the petty little snits, are the result of what you have deep in your fallen nature: a blind �old Adam.� Blindness is darkness. Blindness is void, absence, nothingness; the way things were before God said �let there be light.� No, blindness is even worse than that, it is to miss out on seeing (fully experiencing) what God has now created, and what He now upholds; the beauty of His artwork, majesty, and sublime giving. In a way, blindness is a hint of what hell must be like; the knowledge that everyone else is �seeing� things the way they really are, while the one lost in a cave without light is alone and cutoff. Poor Bartimaeus. Poor you.
When you see a blind person, or a dead baby; when you hear about famine and disaster; when people you know suffer horribly; when you feel blinded by anger, hurt, lust or revenge; when you feel darkness rolling over your mood, spirit and life; know well and believe that it is not God�s fault, He has not abandoned you. Blindness of eyes, blindness of hearts, blindness of well-being and blindness of faith are all your fault, your sin and your Adamic-nature.
The two things that the Lord did in this mornings recounting according to Saint Luke were tied together, both back then, and now this morning as well. Jesus heals a sinner; Jesus makes it abundantly clear that He must be crucified. Jesus� way is life from death; The Lamb offered up for the flock.
Why do so many people, surprisingly people who maintain that they are true believing Christians, object so strenuously to the Crucifix? Why do these individuals prefer an empty cross rather than the very thing that Saint Paul says is �all that he desires to know?� Was the Apostle deficient in not wanting to worship a �resurrected Christ?� Was Paul not aware that the tomb was empty on Easter morning? No. The reason you don�t like the Crucifix is the same reason some people don�t like Law & Gospel sermons but would rather hear about what they can do in implementing a so-called �Christian lifestyle� of servant-hood and suburban self satisfaction. My friends, the Crucifix IS the Christian lifestyle because it is your life. You are in Christ and He is in you. You won�t have to spend an eternity in darkness as punishment for not obeying the Law because Jesus obeyed the Commandments for you. He veiled His full Godhood in three long decades of humility; darkness to His full shining splendor. You will not have to endure the devil�s hellish mocks, insults and spits because your Savior was blasphemed and made sport of in your stead. He was whipped and beaten so that you might be wiped clean and given a new set of clothes. He was left hanging alone in His own blood that you might be received in a welcoming embrace at the Table that never runs empty. He died to Satan, sin, death and darkness so that you might be bathed in light + and eat and drink light. Jesus is the Light of the world, and by faith, your light and life.
When Saint Peter, at another time, denied the fact that the Lord had to go to Jerusalem to be tortured and executed, the Savior correctly rebuked Peter�s �theology of growth, glory and self-will.� No, it�s not the Prince of the Apostles who had it right, nor was it usually the other eleven. In this morning�s text it was a blind man; a sinner; a man who has tasted the coppery bitterness of rejection, loneliness, and brokenness that only the Law can produce by the Holy Ghost. It was so dark for Bartimaeus that Jesus shined so purely and brightly. You know that feeling. You have experienced the convicting sting of sin and its horrible consequences. You have been knocked time and time again into an unconsciousness of darkness. But by Faith in the Word; faith in the Light of the Crucified Redeemer; you cry out with all the other Blind Bartimaeus� gathered here today around the Son-light: �Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!�
Jesus, i.e. Savior, is God in the Flesh. Jesus is the Son of David, true man, the promised Messiah, and also David�s Lord, God in the Flesh. Jesus did have mercy on you two-thousand years ago when He was killed outside Jerusalem. He had mercy upon you Bartimaeus� when He gave you back your sight at the Holy Font of Baptism. He will now again, as always, have mercy on you at table: Jesus, God in the Flesh.
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost.