Quiquagesima Sunday

 

In the Name of Christ Jesus, the Light of the World +

Satan will attack you. That's what we've noted these past three weeks. Satan will attack you by tempting you with comparisons against your neighbor, by trying to make you hate God's graciousness instead of delighting in it. Satan will attack the Word of God, trying to make you ignore it or disdain it. And now for a doozy – Satan will try to attack you, to shatter your faith with suffering, by making you fearful of it or cold to it.

Consider our Gospel text. Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem and Holy Week – He's approaching Jericho, and that's on the way to Jerusalem, and pretty close. He's much closer to Good Friday than we are yet, and so for a third time He tells His disciples what to expect when they all get to Jerusalem. See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. See. Look. Pay attention and don't turn away. This is what the Scriptures have taught. This is where everything in the world has been leading ever since the Fall. The Messiah must come and handle sin and death to crush Satan – and how will He handle it? For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging Him, they will kill Him, and on the third day He will rise. It is going to be horrific. It is going to be every sort of humiliation and disaster and abuse of justice that you can think of. Of course it is – Jesus came to deal with sin, to rescue us from the power of the Devil. You don't rescue someone stuck in the belly of the beast unless you go there yourself, and that's what Jesus is going to do. He is going to dive deeply into all the suffering of sin and death – and it's going to literally kill Him. And not even in a noble, heroic looking way – no last stand. No, it's going to be humiliation, because sin and death humiliate us – they turn us into dirt, into “humus” as we decay. But fear not, don't look away – Jesus will rise again! The third day will come! Jesus Christ will be victorious over sin and death! It is a horrific thing, but fear not, it is for your good.

Sounds great, right? And yet – But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said. They don't get it. The disciples don't understand. It's hidden from them, they can't grasp it. The idea is too horrid to even contemplate, they can't wrap their minds around it – they refuse to. This isn't what we want, Jesus; this isn't what we want for either You or for us, it's now how we'd write the story, how we'd spin the narrative – so we just don't get it.

So they continue walking. Jesus knows they will have to learn by experience. As He drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. A quick note about beggars in the ancient world. You knew them, they were around. They had their spots where they would frequent. And that was how society cared for them – you didn't have social services – you didn't have a state run center to shuffle them off to - you had different locals stepping up each and every day to take care of the person who was very much out and about in public. For good or for ill, they were right there for everyone in town to see. And everyone knew him - Mark notes that this fellow's name was Bartimaeus. And this blind man knew what his road sounded like – he knew who normally went by and when, and he knew what strange sounded like. So he asks his neighbors, the people who normally care for him, what is going on.

They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” And he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Oh, it's Jesus? Bart has heard of Jesus, so he starts calling out for Mercy. Just like us here at church, over and over the call for mercy goes forth. It's a key theme of worship – Lord have mercy! Typical, what we all should expect, right? Everyone knows that Jesus is a healer; of course there's going to be a call for mercy – except – And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. Oh, this is chilling. Be quiet, you stupid beggar, we are trying to enjoy our Jesus time in peace. There's a parade on, there's wonder and excitement – there is no time for you and your pathetic whining. I say that, and it sounds so cold and heartless, almost comical or pantomime, like this could never happen. And yet I'd wager that every single one of us in this room has felt that empty, shallow press of shame or sorrow that comes when there's something weighing upon you and you're afraid that you'll be a burden, that your pleas for help will be written off. The world doesn't handle suffering well, doesn't like to be confronted with it – and we can react poorly to suffering, and we can be afraid that people will react poorly to our own suffering, and all too often we silence ourselves, our own pleas for help even before people blow us off. Thus is life in the sinful world.

The disciples, the crowd – they see Jesus, but they don't. Not really. They don't see the real Jesus, the Jesus who comes into this world not to be some pop culture celebrity, not to revel in praise and accolades. Who for us men and for our salvation – that's why Jesus came – for us, for you! To help real people, to help you! To rescue you from sin, from death, from decay and destruction – and He will go to the Cross to do it. Jesus will engage the suffering that we see, the suffering that is the result, the physical impact and manifestation of sin that we all experience. He will not turn away from it; rather He'll face it head on.

Bartimaeus knows suffering. He sees his suffering every time he opens his eyes and sees nothing. This is wrong. This suffering is not how God created us to be. And in his suffering he does the only thing left to him – he cries out to Jesus. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus hears, and Jesus responds. And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to Him. Alright, you most callous of crowds – I'm not going to walk over there, and you're not going to ignore or tune out Bart's cries. You bring him to Me. You see his suffering and you dive on in and you get involved and you bring him to Me. And when Blind Bartimaeus gets there, Jesus says, “What do you want Me to do for you? What do want? What's your goal? And Bartimaeus' answer is one of the best in Scripture – it's so elegant, it's so poignant – and the English just doesn't capture it. The blind man says, “kurie, hina anablepso.” Lord, that I would see again. Most translations don't get this, they just talk about seeing – the ESV is actually good with “recover my sight” - there's that aspect of seeing again that is important... but every translation loses the sad poetic beauty of what he says, the whimisicalness, the forelornness of it. It's that same thing you hear from anyone who's ever lost anything, it's the knowing and remembering when things were better, when things were right. It's the wistfulness of remembering what was lost. It's not a demand, it's a lament – a lament of suffering and loss that we all have heard our elderly loved ones express countless times and that we all learn to express as we age. And there can be the callous “Oh, that's just Aunt Mabel moaning again” - of course we build up calluses when we have to handle and deal with something over and over again. Especially when we can't fix it.

But Jesus can. Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.” See again, your faith in Me has saved you. That's why Jesus has come. To make things right again. To make this blind man see again – but more than that. To make the heart that has stopped beat again. To make the dead rise again. To make the sinner pure again. And Jesus does this by going to Jerusalem and diving on into all this suffering from sin and death Himself, by dying – and on the third day He will “anasastesetai” - He will rise – literally, He will stand again. Again. Things put back to the way they were before the fall, where mankind will again be what we were made to be – where you and I will finally be the men and women God created us to be. That is what Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem to do.

And Satan would have you ignore this. And Satan will use the horror of suffering against you, to hide Jesus from you. Satan will make the sufferings of other so terrible seeming that you look away from them, that you ignore them, that you block them out of your mind. Satan will make your own suffering seem isolating, and crushing, and oppressing. Both these attacks would make us forget the vital truth. Jesus doesn't ignore suffering, He doesn't shy away from it. Jesus makes a bee-line to suffering. Jesus shares in your suffering. Jesus came to suffer to bring an end to all suffering.

As Christians, we know the impact of sin – we know the impact of our own sin, we know that we are called to fight and struggle against our sin, that we will weekly, indeed daily, confess that we fail in our fight against sin and plead to God for forgiveness. We are also called to fight and struggle against the impact of sin – the suffering that spins forth in a fallen world, as well as the hate, the anger, the rage – and we are called to fight against this knowing that our efforts will never be enough, even as our efforts to reign in our own sin will never be enough. So be it. We don't turn a blind eye to sin, we don't turn a blind eye to suffering – that's Satan's will for you. No, we see, we struggle, we confess, we cry out to Jesus Lord, have mercy. We call out to Jesus for mercy again, hoping that others will hear too, that they will call out to Jesus in faith as well. And Jesus hears, and Jesus saves. Not as we expect – not when we demand. But He saves, and as He died and rose again, so shall you – you will rise again and you will see sin and suffering fully defeated in your life because of Christ Jesus.

Lent is coming. Starts this Wednesday. 7 pm service. In our midweek services this year, we will be pondering repentance – great stories of repentance from the Old Testament, where we see examples of people realizing the depth of their sin. We will see stories of failure and hardship and struggle – things we all routinely face. But on the weekends of Lent, we will see something grand. Whereas Satan can and will mess with us, whereas we can fall into sin and trouble – Satan is no match for Jesus. This Lent we will see Jesus take on Satan, take on his temptations and attacks, and we will see Jesus go through Satan's power like a hot knife through butter as He makes His way to Calvary – See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. Oh, Satan presses hard sometimes, my friends – but the Devil can't hold a candle to Jesus, and the Savior of all mankind is ready to start the battle for you, and He is going to win. In the Name of Christ Jesus, the Light of the World +