The Spiritually blind.
And it came to pass, that
as he was come nigh unto
In today’s Gospel reading
from Chapter 18 of St. Luke we find Jesus setting out on the final stage of His
last journey into
In three days time we enter
the solemn period we call Lent. There
are forty four days between Ash
Wednesday and Good Friday, including the Sundays, and it is perhaps worth
dividing the time equally between those four stages of Christ’s final days on
earth and contemplating each stage in depth.
To do this adequately we
will need vision as good as that of the blind man who sat by the way side
begging. That man sees what many since
have failed to see, he sees the only one who can restore his sight. He sees his God. And he sees it in precisely the place those
who do not see it are blind, in his heart.
There was a great multitude around Jesus that day and the Gospels give
us the impression that the multitude was in a state of some excitement. They sensed that something about this short
journey from
They could all see Jesus
with their eyes, unlike the blind man, but also unlike him, many of them could
not see the real Jesus in their hearts. In
a few short days, many of them would be turning a blind eye as this same Jesus
hung upon a cross, some would be mocking him, some would be shoving his memory
into the dark recesses of their minds.
Alone among them, the blind
man cried, Have mercy on me. It
was the right cry to the right person.
It remains today the right cry to the right person. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon
me. It is the cry with which all of us
should open Lent.
Lent, we all know, is a
season of penitence. It is a season when
we should bring not just individual sins, but our sinful nature to the
forefront of our minds. Then we are to
repent, and say to God a heartfelt, “Sorry”, for our sins. However, saying it is not enough. That does not signify repentance – words are
too easy to come by in almost any circumstance.
They are all too often, like the excitement of the multitude, transient
and arise from a short lived burst of emotion.
True repentance involves the
most determined efforts never to repeat the same sin again. Anything less is window dressing and the only
person we are fooling is ourselves. God
is never fooled.
Let me look briefly now at
those four stages of what lies ahead for Jesus, and to them I will add a fifth
stage.
Firstly He will be
betrayed. Betrayal is always a gut
wrenching experience, but what makes this one particularly so is that the
betrayer is one of Christ’s chosen twelve.
There is much which can be said about that, but the important question
for us to contemplate is how have I betrayed Jesus Christ? Have I ever denied Him like Peter did? Have I ever given a half hearted response to
a question about my faith when I really should have delivered a passionately
affirmative response. Have I missed an
opportunity to bring someone to Jesus?
Yesterday I was at a
conference on persecution and in the panel discussion someone asked about
evangelizing Muslims. That is an interesting question in
Jesus, thou Son of David,
have mercy on me.
In the second stage, Jesus
was mocked and spitefully entreated and spit upon. We can’t do that – He isn’t here, is He. Well yes, actually He is. He is our living Lord, who says to us, I
was an hungered and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty and ye gave me drink: I was
a stranger and ye took me in: naked and ye clothed me: I was sick and ye
visited me: I was in prison and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer Him, saying,
Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee
drink? When saw we a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick or in prison and
came unto thee? And the King shall
answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it
unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Jesus then goes on to deal with
the unrighteous who did none of these things and he calls them cursed and tells
them to depart into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his
angels. What is it when we
ignore the sick, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, or the prisoner? What is
it but mocking and spitefully entreating and spitting on our Lord, who teaches
us to do exactly the opposite.
Jesus, thou Son of David,
have mercy on me.
In the third stage He is
scourged. Well, we certainly can’t do
that because even if He is our living Lord, His physical body is not here for
us to scourge. No it is not, but we need
to remember that when His body was scourged, every flesh rending lash was for
us. This was part of the atonement for
our sins and every time we sin we should hear the whipping of that lash through
the air and that horrible wet tearing sound of lash meeting flesh. Can we imagine for one moment that our sins
go unnoticed. Can we believe that they
do not grieve the one who was scourged and then hung upon the Cross for them?
Jesus, thou Son of David,
have mercy on me.
In the fourth stage, He is
put to death. Surely, we can’t do that
again. After all, this was the once and
for all, perfect sacrifice. Yes it was
and it requires from us that repentance I spoke about earlier. That sacrifice was made because we are
incapable of helping our selves out of the fallen condition our race is
in. This was the only way that God could
reopen the door of heaven and invite all of us in.
But while heaven was opened,
hell was not closed, sealed up, or taken away.
Because unfortunately, so many mortals do put Jesus to death in their
hearts. They hear the Gospel message and
reject Him. They live as if the
Incarnation never happened. They shut
their eyes to the Lord every time He passes and they close their ears to Him
every time he calls. Hell remains a
frighteningly real destination for those who put Jesus to death in their
hearts.
Jesus, thou Son of David,
have mercy on me.
So what of the fifth
stage. Jesus tells us, And the third
day He shall rise again.
He did rise. He conquered death. He is alive and with us today. What better reasons could we have for truly,
passionately, fervently repenting of our sins.
It isn’t easy – no one should ever think that. But we have the promise of His help and we
need to avail ourselves of that help.
Those sins are what make us spiritually blind and only Jesus can take
them away. Then, like the blind man we
will see our Saviour clearly and follow Him to
We can start today, with the
blind man’s cry, Jesus, thou Son of
David, have mercy on me.
Quinquagesima,
2008
Peter
Jardine+