Sermon for Quinquagesima

1 Corinthians 13:1-13  +  Luke 18:31-43

Sometimes the ways of the Lord are clear as crystal; the pieces of the puzzle all seem to fit together; the things going on around you make sense. But sometimes the Lord’s ways are about as clear to us as mud. And that’s okay. You’re not supposed to understand everything yet. It’s like when you read a book. Many things that the author understands perfectly well are not understood by the reader, or by the characters in the story, until the end, or close to the end. As the Lord says through the prophet Isaiah, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

What do you do when you’re in the middle of the story, and the Author’s plans seem fuzzy and dim? We learn that lesson from today’s Gospel and Epistle, from Jesus’ disciples, from the blind beggar, and from the apostle Paul. And the pattern we learn from them is simple: Have faith, hope, and love, even in the dark.

As Jesus made His way through Judea to Jerusalem for His final Passover, He began to spell things out for His twelve apostles. See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that were written through the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be fulfilled. For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and he will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon. And they will scourge him and put him to death. And on the third day he will rise again. For His part, Jesus saw everything clearly. He knew exactly who He was—the Christ, true God and true Man; He knew where He had come from—from God the Father; and He knew exactly why He had come: that the world through Him might be saved—saved from sin, death, and the power of the devil; saved from every evil and every trouble at the end of the story. He even saw clearly the path to get there, both because He was the Author of the plan, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and because it had been revealed, although somewhat obscurely, in the Old Testament Scriptures. He would go to Jerusalem at the Passover and allow Himself to be betrayed by His own friend, handed over to Pontius Pilate by His own people, falsely accused, condemned, tortured, and killed. He would do this willingly in order to make atonement for the sins of the world. And then He would rise from the dead on the third day, ascend into heaven, and work, by His Spirit, with the preachers whom He would send out into the world to bring men out of darkness into His marvelous light.

The light of the Gospel, shining on Jesus as the merciful Savior, is clear to all who believe, but it doesn’t always shed a bright light on the path directly ahead of us on our way to the salvation at the end of the story. Even when Jesus shined the light on the path that lay ahead of Him in the coming days, His disciples were like blind men still groping about in the dark. We’re told that they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them. How can that be? It can be, because, when it comes to the ways and the things of God, only the Spirit of God can truly enlighten the mind, and sometimes He has a reason for keeping even the faithful in the dark about certain things, as an author often does in the story he’s writing.

In the case of the apostles, it wouldn’t work out the way it was supposed to if they had perfect understanding of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection ahead of time. They had to be kept in the dark for a little while longer, for their own sake, for our sake, but also for Jesus’ sake, so that He could suffer more. You see, it lessens a person’s suffering to share it with friends, with those who can sympathize and understand. On the other hand, it increases a person’s suffering to go through it alone, without the understanding of family and friends. And Jesus had to suffer alone.

What did they do when they didn’t understand? Well, first they listened to Jesus and pondered what He said, even though they didn’t understand. They listened, and then, later, after Jesus’ resurrection, they were able to remember what He had said. But even before they remembered, they trusted. They had faith in Jesus, that He knew what He was talking about, even though they didn’t. And so they kept following Him, hoping and expecting that things would turn out well, for Jesus and for them, hoping for the details to be made clear when the time was right.

So listen to God’s Word and ponder it, if the path ahead seems blurry or dim, and have faith in the God who has given you His Word, and who has given you His only-begotten Son, and who, through His Son, has also given you His Holy Spirit, to enlighten your minds as much as necessary for the place where you’re at in the story. The Lord has His reasons for not making everything clear to you now. Not that He has hidden His overall plan or His saving works from you. He has revealed more than enough of it in Holy Scripture to bring you to trust in Him, and to preserve you in the faith, and to give you hope that things will turn out well. Have faith! And hope!

Next in our Gospel, we encounter a blind man. Actually, two blind men, according to Matthew, but they believed as one and called out to Jesus as one. Mark reveals the name of one of them. His name was Bartimaeus. He had no physical sight. He was reduced to begging, and the Lord hadn’t revealed to him why it had to be this way. In that way, too, he was left, for a time, in the dark.

But Bartimaeus’s physical blindness, and his blindness to the Lord’s plan, didn’t hinder him one bit from listening to the word of God in the Old Testament, and to the word about Jesus being the Christ, the promised Son of David, and, having heard, he believed. He had faith. And because he had faith, he cried out to Jesus, as soon as he heard that Jesus was passing by, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! And he refused to be silenced, when the crowds told him to keep his mouth shut. He cried out boldly, confidently, and with great hope, Son of David, have mercy on me! So Jesus stopped the procession, called the man over, and asked him what kind of mercy he was seeking. Bartimaeus said, Lord, I want to receive my sight!

And what happened? Jesus said, Receive your sight! Your faith has saved you. Jesus granted his request freely, willingly, gladly. Not only that, but he praised Bartimaeus’ faith as that which led to his healing. Not because faith had the power to heal, but because faith brought him to Jesus, who had the power to heal. The blind man’s eyes were opened, enlightened, just as his mind had already been by the Holy Spirit. His sight was restored. And then, what? He followed Jesus, glorifying God.

It’s really the same lesson as with the apostles. If you confess Jesus as Lord and Christ, as the apostles did, as the blind beggar did, then have faith in Him, even if it’s blind faith, for the moment. And put all your hope in Him, even if it’s blind hope, for the moment. You don’t have to understand everything now. Go along with the story now, as it unfolds. Follow along with Jesus. Do the things He has given you to do, the things you know to do, because His Word has clearly revealed those things. Have faith. And hope. You won’t be disappointed in the end. There will be a cross. But there will also be a resurrection and a glorious future in the kingdom of God.

There’s one more thing God calls on you to do while you remain in the dark, in addition to having faith and hope. St. Paul wrote a whole chapter of the Bible about it, which you heard as today’s Epistle: Love.

We learn love from Jesus in today’s Gospel. The way He stopped and took time for the man in need. The way He spoke kindly to him and helped him gladly. And, of course, we hear from the Apostle Paul in today’s Epistle a beautiful description of what Christian love looks like. Love is patient. It is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not boast. It is not conceited. It does not behave indecently. It does not seek its own. It does not become angry. It does not dwell on evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

Being in the dark about the path ahead, being confused or frustrated doesn’t give you the right to behave badly toward your family, toward your neighbor, toward your fellow Christian. On the contrary, you are called to keep loving at all times, with Christ Jesus Himself as the prime example. In fact, you are called, as Christians, to be characterized by love—not love according to the world’s definition, but love as God defines it in His Word, love that is consistent with God’s commandments. Yes, you are to be known in this dark world as people of faith and people of hope. But just as much you are to be known as people of love—the kind of love Paul describes in the Epistle, which will continue into the next life after there is no longer a need for faith or hope, because all that is now dark will be made bright. As Paul says, For now we see through a mirror, darkly; but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part; but then I will know fully, even as I am also fully known. And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Have faith in Christ, whether or not you fully understand. Trust in Him who willingly and intentionally suffered and died for you. Wait in hope for the Lord to act and to reveal things in His time. And be a person characterized by love. In faith, hope, and love, keep following the Lord Christ, wherever He goes, wherever He leads, knowing that your Shepherd will never lead you astray. His path is the path of the cross. But if we suffer with Him in shame, we will also reign with Him in glory. Amen.

Source: Sermons

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Sermon for Quinquagesima

1 Corinthians 13:1-13  +  Luke 18:31-43

All of you here today, I think, are able to see. Some better than others, surely. But none here have gone completely blind yet. It’s not as though we were guaranteed by God the ability to see in this world that’s plagued by sin’s consequences, but we should give thanks to Him for that often-taken-for-granted gift, if we still have it. The opposite of sight is, of course, blindness. And we often speak of two kinds of blindness: literal and figurative. Literal blindness is a problem with your two eyes. Figurative blindness is a problem of the mind or of the heart. If you can’t understand something at all, if you can’t see the path forward in your life, or if you can’t see the solution to a problem, even when it’s staring you in the face, it’s like a kind of blindness.

We encounter both kinds of blindness in today’s Gospel, figurative and literal, and, more importantly, we see how God provides the necessary light to those who sit in darkness.

First, there’s a figurative blindness in Jesus’ disciples. For months, Jesus has been telling them plainly that He is going to die. And it’s not going to be a natural death. Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all the things that were written through the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be finished. For he will be delivered to the Gentiles, and he will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon. And they will scourge him and put him to death. And on the third day he will rise again.

There it is. A very simple, straightforward explanation, given by Jesus, of exactly what was going to happen to Him in Jerusalem. He’s been saying it just that clearly for at least six months. He is going to be handed over, by the Jews, to the Gentiles. He’ll be mocked and mistreated and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And then He’ll rise from the dead. It’s like Jesus is shining a bright light on the path ahead.

And that wasn’t the only light shining on the path ahead. As He says, all the things that were written through the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be finished. The Old Testament Scriptures were a light shining on Him and on the path ahead of Him: the path of suffering and death, resurrection and glory. Between the Old Testament prophecies and the clear words of Jesus, the disciples should have been able to see it all clearly.

But they couldn’t. They understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not understand the things that were said. Even if the prophecies were a little obscure, the words of Jesus were crystal clear. But it clashed with the disciples’ own thoughts of what the Christ had come to do. They believed Jesus was the Christ. But they were so convinced that the Christ was coming to reign over Jerusalem that they couldn’t make any sense of this prediction of rejection, suffering, and death. It was the “glory” part that they were fixated on. What’s more, “it was hidden from them,” St. Luke writes. The Holy Spirit wasn’t ready for them to understand everything yet, so He kept them in the dark—not about who Jesus was, but about how exactly He would carry out His mission of bringing salvation to His people. In that way, Jesus’ disciples suffered from a sort of figurative blindness.

Then we encounter a man who was suffering, not from figurative blindness, but from literal blindness. His eyes didn’t work. He couldn’t see. And that left him with another problem. He couldn’t work. He was poor. He was a beggar.

But when that beggar heard the commotion of Jesus and the crowds passing by, he demonstrated that, though his physical eyes didn’t work, he was actually able to see better than most. Hearing the multitude passing by, he asked what it meant. And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And those who were at the front warned him to be quiet, but he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me! This blind beggar, a son of Israel, knew who Jesus of Nazareth was. Not just that He was a Rabbi who had been traveling around the land of Israel for the past three years. But that Jesus was “the Son of David,” the promised Christ. And not only that, but that, as the promised Christ, Jesus had come for people like him, to have mercy on those who needed mercy.

The crowds displayed a bit of their own figurative blindness here. They warned the blind man to be quiet, to leave Jesus alone, to respect their triumphal parade toward Jerusalem. They had lost sight of who Jesus was and why He had come. He was the good and kind Master, always generous with His time, always concerned for anyone in need, always ready to help. If they had started to see Him any differently than that, then they were blind—blinded by their own aspirations of glory and victory through their association with this King of the Jews. Oh, they saw Him as their King. But they obviously had no idea—even less understanding than Jesus’ disciples—of what the King of the Jews was actually going to Jerusalem to do. “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” was written on the sign posted on the cross where Jesus died. And when the Jews saw it, most of them saw their “king” as a failure.

But Jesus wasn’t listening to the crowds telling the blind man to be quiet. He was listening to the blind man who was calling out to Him for mercy. And He stopped, and He asked the blind man, What do you want me to do for you? It’s not as obvious a question as you might think. This blind man had sat there at the entrance to Jericho every day for who knows how long, asking people for mercy, and by mercy, he normally meant, money. Charity. Alms for the poor. But not today. He doesn’t want money from Jesus. He wants what only the Son of David can provide: healing from his blindness. “Lord, that I may receive my sight!” And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight! Your faith has saved you.” And as soon as the man was healed of his blindness, he followed Jesus, glorifying God. And all the people saw it and gave praise to God.

There are two kinds of blindness in this Gospel, one figurative and the other literal. But the solution to both was the same. Trust in Jesus. Keep trusting in Jesus, no matter how much you can see or not see. Recognize Him for who He is: the Son of God who came into this world to save sinners, and to do it by willingly allowing Himself to be delivered to the Gentiles, to be mocked and mistreated and spit upon, scourged and put to death, all so that you might see that God is good, that He loves you and has done everything necessary—everything imaginable—for you to be rescued from sin, from death, and from the devil.

So trust in Jesus and seek mercy from Jesus. Keep seeking it; don’t give up seeking it until you receive it. And you will! Follow Jesus. Keep following Jesus, even if the path leads to the cross. And it will! But it will also lead to the resurrection from the dead and eternal life. Eventually, when the time is right, if you’ve kept trusting in Him, seeking mercy from Him, and following Him, He will take care of whatever blindness you’re suffering from. You aren’t meant to see everything just yet. But blindness won’t be your downfall, if you keep hearing and believing the Word of God.

As for following Jesus, you can’t follow Him to Jerusalem literally. But you can figuratively as you hear His Word during the coming Lenten season, and especially during Holy Week when we will follow Jesus through all His suffering and “watch” Him die for our sins.

You can also follow Him by living like Him, following in His footsteps. And the Apostle Paul gave you a wonderful roadmap for that in today’s Epistle. The “love chapter” of the Bible. Love is patient. It is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not boast. It is not conceited. It does not behave indecently. It does not seek its own. It does not become angry. It does not dwell on evil. It does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

What Paul describes there is, in a word, Jesus. If you would follow Him, then let it also describe you. Make every effort to walk in love, as Jesus walked in love, even though you don’t understand everything the Scriptures say, even though you don’t understand all that happens in the world, even though you don’t clearly see the path ahead. Because, as Paul also says in the Epistle, all of us have a degree of “blindness,” the inability to see things clearly this side of heaven. Now we see through a mirror, indistinctly; but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part; but then I will know fully, even as I am also fully known. And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Faith, hope, and love remain as the virtues God would have us pursue in this life, until all things become clear in the next life. So pursue them as you follow Christ. Follow Him blindly, if necessary, because, although you can’t see, He can see perfectly. So let Him take you by the hand and lead you. Let Him take you by the ear and lead you by His Word, which is, as St. Peter wrote, like a lamp shining in a dark place. Amen.

Source: Sermons