“THE CRUCIFIED ONE HEALS ALL BLINDNESS”
Saint Luke 18: 31-43
Quinquagesima: 14 February Anno Domini 2021
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
Why don’t we talk more and focus more on improvement? Why are there not sermons on developing your potential and actualizing your hidden talents? Why are we all not more excited, “pumped up,” and “on fire” for the Lord? What’s our plan; what’s our Leadership paradigm? Where are we going? All of these sound like the sibilant hissing of the serpent to Eve— “you can be…”
“We’re number 1, we’re number 1” is the chant of demons. You the Body of Christ know (believe, teach, and confess) that you are “the twelve.” Our Lord’s number of Disciples—12—is the recapitulation, the regathering together and rebirth of Israel, the 12 Sons, and then tribes, of Jacob. You do not speak or yearn for the devil’s language but you live in Christ’s Holy Word. We don’t just say here at this parish “we preach Christ crucified” because it’s our motto, but because God the Holy Ghost gave Saint Paul to write it to the Corinthians, then and now, as our life and reality
So, before we can focus on the blind Bartimaeus, the “certain blind man [who] sat by the way side begging,” we are catechized, instructed by the Word of God to go with Christ and “the twelve” … “up to Jerusalem.”
You cry. You become discouraged, angry, and depressed. Or, you simply try to “check out” and busy your minds and lives with distractions. But no matter what we do, Jericho looms large not just on the horizon but in our faces and lives. The Jericho of the Old Testament—unbelief, pagan resistance, or at least “old Adam” foot-dragging to Commandment obedience. But more so the Jericho of blindness. Not spiritual blindness for you were given new eyes and the Holy + Font of regeneration when birthed anew into the Eyes of Christ—the Sight of the Savior. You are now the “apple of His eye!” But rather, actual physical blindness. To be blind is to be less than what God wanted for all of us. Eve blinded us all, or rather again ADAM blinded us all. The wages of sin is death. But for most, long before death comes blindness, or deafness, loss of mobility, heart, stomach, and emotional diseases…the list, well, the list is endless. Our bodies and our world decay. Ash Wednesday speaks to this “dust to dust” reality. Adam’s eyesight grew dim, as did Isaac’s and most of the Saints. Anger is a reaction. Desperation and despair can be an end result—or the last stage before apostasy and rejection of God.
So yes, help the blind, give alms to the diseased and suffering here in your own communities most especially. Help those less fortunate. But also know that the “12” did not help Bartimaeus. God did. The Holy Spirit kept that blind man from giving up all hope. He had some hope: “hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant…they told him that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by.” Ah! They told him about Jesus. Others beforehand had also told him about the Rabbi from Galilee, else it would have meant nothing to him. So, that’s what you do. You tell others about Jesus. But that saves no one, physically blind or spiritually blind. Jesus saves—it’s His Name. The “name” is the reality.
Jesus restored that blind man’s sight, healed him. It was a miracle that we today, 2,000 years later are grateful for. It gives us hope. And though we may not ever be physically healed, we will simply become more enfeebled the older we grow, we nonetheless look with the eyes of faith we’ve been given by Jesus’ Grace, and we cry out with assurance and Spirit-created hope: “Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.” And He does. He commands that you be brought to the Word—wherever He had placed it for you to receive.
And why?
Your faith? Your obedience? Your works of crying out, praying, studying, or even giving cash to help the blind, deaf, maimed, and starving? No…
Jesus went up to Jerusalem. All things that were written of Him, in the Old Testament, by the Prophets, would be accomplished. Jesus would be betrayed by Judas, delivered to the Jews, and handed over to the Gentiles. The Son of God would be mocked, spitefully treated, and spit on. Christ would be scourged, crowned and pinned to the tree. This healer, this Shepherd, this Physician, this Keeper, Giver, and perfect Master, Friend, Brother, Teacher, and Lord, would suffer and die for the bind man, for all blind men, for you.
And He has risen from the dead on the third day, lives and reigns to all eternity—is HERE right now for you.
“And all the people, when they see it, give praise unto God.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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