“CHRIST: ALL THINGS”
Saint Luke 18: 31-43
Quinquagesima: 11 February Anno Domini 2018
Father Jay Watson SSP
The great “Thou” is your strong Rock. “Thou,” the older and revered form for addressing The Lord. The term “rock” is not only metaphorical. Christ is the mystical, supernatural, yet ontological rock of ages. Jesus is your mighty Fortress in His Body, Blood, and Word.
The solidity and standfastness of Christ is only appreciated when you realize you’re sinking in the quicksand of your own works; of your own sins.
Having the Commandments preached to you might do that—show you that you’re lost at sea drowning in self. That’s when you need not just land—dry land—but a secure rock, a redoubt of righteous rectitude. Being blind might also alert you to the brokenness and deluge—a flood of faithlessness, aloneness, and despair. Blind Bartimaeus was looking for help. He was seeking physical aid from one he had come to believe could actually give it. Identifying The Nazarene as the “Son of David” was at the least a Messianic understanding. But when the beggar goes on to petition His Strong Rock to “have mercy on me” it is best to believe that Bartimaeus saw This “Anointed One” as more than King David, Moses, or Abraham. This healer was God Himself…Emmanuel… “for” His people—His lost and “blind” sheep.
Christ for you—His active work and His passive work for you is not just because you break all Ten of the Commandments daily. His work is also because the wages of sin is death…the pre-wages of death is disease, sickness, sadness, “change and decay in all around you see.” All sight—true vision—the seeing of God as He is—the Beatific Vision—will be given to all Saints at the Resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Bartimaeus was blessed to received an earnest, a temporary pledge, on that final reward. Not everyone does. But everyone still has the “strong Rock and House of Defense” which is Christ Crucified. You have Him in His earthly rock which is The Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church—which is ONE because Christ is One.
The first part of this morning’s Gospel is the solution to the second part. Jesus healed the blind man, He forgave him all his sins and Jesus heals you by absolving you of all your trespasses as well. But He does it by what He informs the “12” of: “…we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the Prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished.” Jesus doesn’t mean “some” things, but “all things!” Jesus doesn’t just mean Isaiah and Jeremiah, He means all the Prophets…even the prophetic voices of the Patriarchs, Kings, and Moses. After having dutifully, as a good Son Who loves His Father with obedience, kept the Commandments, Jesus now loving you perfectly commits to the final service—which is Sacrificial and Bloody. “[I] will be delivered unto the Gentiles [for you], and shall be mocked, and spitefully treated, and spit on [for you], and they shall scourge [Me] and put [Me] to death [for you—in your place]’ and the third day [I] shall rise again.”
The healer of all blindness, and brokenness, and death, allowed Himself to be made blind by Caiaphas, Pilate and the Romans…blind with blows, swollen eyes, sweat, blood, and then death. The Good Physician was spit on from cruel unbelieving lips so that He might have His sacred side split open by a spear and water you with the Blood and Water from His Sacred Heart. By His stripes you are saved. That is, He is your “strong Rock” and “house of defense.” Come and drink from The Rock.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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