1 Samuel 16:1-13; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; St Luke 18:31-43
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Jericho means “Place of Fragrance.” In a region filled with palm trees, rose gardens, and balsam, no wonder the city was a delight for the nostrils. But in the days of Elisha the prophet, immediately following Elijah’s fiery, bodily assumption into heaven, something stunk in the city of good smells.
It was the water. It was bad and the people who were drinking it were dropping dead. Pregnant mothers were drinking it and miscarrying. The water was so bad that the ground was producing no fruit. It too was dead and miscarrying. But it wasn’t just a matter of a little tainted water here and there. The problem was at the source. The spring that fed the whole city was rotten and it had become to the residents as a font of death.
But the Lord loved that city. He had one of His holy prophets draw near to Jericho to heal those deadly waters. And he went right to the source. Calling for a new jar and some salt, Elisha spoke the Word, No more death from this water (2 Kings 2:21-22), and the wounded spring was healed.
Today, Jesus draws near to Jericho as a Healer. But this time an even bigger problem awaits the Prophet. Its an anonymous blind man. St Mark calls him Bartimaeus (Mk 10:46), which just means, “son of Timaeus,” which, when translated means, “son of honor.” So we’re not really told his name. Let’s refer to him as Adam because he represents all of mankind since the fall - blinded by Satan, lost, driven to the outskirts of a garden place, sitting in darkness with his rotten heart pumping death to all corners of his body and soul.
The crowds try to hush him, but take a good look at this man. He’s you. Don’t think so? Satan has blinded you in a strange way too. It’s why you have the eye of an eagle when it comes to your spouse’s faults, but are blind as a bat when it comes to your own. You have x-ray vision when it comes to judging your neighbor’s sins and being thoroughly disgusted, but when it come to judging and being disgusted with our own, its as though you’re living with blinders on.
Of course you see that you’re not perfect. In fact, you say so repeatedly, sometimes in self-justification. But your thinking is that with a little effort your imperfections can be managed and fixed. But when will you have eyes to see below the surface to the source? That polluted hearts that pumps its poison into your whole being, touching everything thought, word, and deed. You’re wounded at your very core.
Repentance is needed. Take a good look at your heart’s condition as we enter Lent. It’s not about giving up this sin or that vice, but about dealing with the problem at its core. Repent, but do not despair. Rather, use the eyes of faith which you have been given and fix them upon the Prophet drawing near to Jericho today as a Healer. Sit with your brother as a fellow son of Adam and lift up your voice to the One who draws near with mercy and healing. For Jesus draws near to Jericho to show us something. It is that He loves to draw near to man and heal him. Jesus once said that St John the Baptizer was Elijah who is to come. He came. Now Jesus comes in the way of Elisha who once drew near to Jericho to heal the city at the core. For He is also the One who once drew near to guilty Adam in the Garden of Eden to heal him at the core.
Therefore repentance is needed, always. And an amendment of life. But don’t learn from what Adam did in the beginning. He heard footsteps and was afraid. He hid himself and announced that it was someone else’s fault.
Instead, learn from the blind man of Jericho. He was guilty too. But he didn’t hide. He heard footsteps too, but he wasn’t afraid. He had boldness of faith. A faith that would not let Jesus’ pass by because he trusted that Jesus, the Son of David, was God’s Mercy meant for him. Jesus is God’s Mercy on feet to draw near to sinners and heal them forever. Elisha may have healed the water of Jericho but Jesus came into the world to heal the gaping, wounded heart of mankind forever.
And He did it with His Word: Your faith has made you well. But it’s even stronger than that. Your faith has saved you is what He literally said. For He came not to temporarily fix eyeballs, but to rescue mankind from eternal destruction and fix him, yea, create him anew from the inside out.
But that meant that He had to draw near to another city. One named Jerusalem which was sick at the core too. The religious leaders opposed Jesus, so their sacrifices stunk in God’s nose. Jerusalem received prophets in order to kill them. Jerusalem was blind and bad to the bone. Yet, Jesus drew near to Jerusalem knowing that He must suffer and be mocked, flogged and killed in order to blot out the judgment that stood against Adam and his whole diseased family tree.
To save those blinded by Satan, Jesus chose to be blindfolded and mocked. To save lost man, He knows exactly what He’s doing and where He’s going - to the Cross to bear man’s sinful condition to death and to rise again over it on the Third Day.
Elisha had his new jar. But God has supplied an even better New Jar for you - the perfect human nature of Jesus the Christ, true God and true Man, the Treasure of heaven in a Jar of clay (2 Cor 4:7). Elisha had his salt. But God has even better Salt for you. Jesus, the Salt of the Earth, who was tossed without mercy into the waters of God’s judgment, that you might be mercifully pulled out of the waters of Holy Baptism pure and holy.
And you do as the once blind man, you have recovered your sight by the Word of Christ, given eyes of faith to see and you follow after Him. You are sons of honor, offering a salty sacrifice of thanks, praise, and obedience to the Lord your God who is gracious and merciful to you. Hence St Paul and the way of love. Seasoned with salt, that is, being baptized into Christ Jesus’ death and resurrection, you are living sacrifices (Rom 12:1; 1 Pt 2:5), bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things in the love of God in Christ Jesus. You follow in the way of patience and kindness, neither envying nor boasting, neither in arrogance nor rudeness, rejoicing with the truth.
Rejoice, dear hearts, be glad and sing, a cheerful trust maintain, for God, the source, of everything your portion shall remain (LSB 737:1).
The One who died for you is the One who rose form the dead for you that you might hear footsteps too. So hear them and be glad. God has supplied the feet of your pastor to draw near to you and absolve you by the Word. Hear the footsteps of your pastor drawing near to you at the altar and be glad. Hear his footsteps and behold how God has loaded up his hands with Mercy and Love - the Body and Blood of Jesus - which heals you eternally.
For you heard what Samuel heard: God does not see as man sees. All you see when you peek in the mirror is a stinking sinner. But no more. You are baptized into Christ and are the fragrance of Christ to God, acceptable and pleasing to Him (Phil 4:18). You may look in the mirror and think you stink as a father, as a mother, as a spouse or sibling or friend. But no more. You are baptized. And your good works are to Him like a whiff of sweetness. You look in the mirror and all you see is a guilty failure on many fronts. But God refuses to see you that way, because you are baptized. His face shines upon you. You are His. He made you. You are His people. The apple of His eye. The light of the world. The salt of the earth. The sheep of His pasture. ‘
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Jericho means “Place of Fragrance.” In a region filled with palm trees, rose gardens, and balsam, no wonder the city was a delight for the nostrils. But in the days of Elisha the prophet, immediately following Elijah’s fiery, bodily assumption into heaven, something stunk in the city of good smells.
It was the water. It was bad and the people who were drinking it were dropping dead. Pregnant mothers were drinking it and miscarrying. The water was so bad that the ground was producing no fruit. It too was dead and miscarrying. But it wasn’t just a matter of a little tainted water here and there. The problem was at the source. The spring that fed the whole city was rotten and it had become to the residents as a font of death.
But the Lord loved that city. He had one of His holy prophets draw near to Jericho to heal those deadly waters. And he went right to the source. Calling for a new jar and some salt, Elisha spoke the Word, No more death from this water (2 Kings 2:21-22), and the wounded spring was healed.
Today, Jesus draws near to Jericho as a Healer. But this time an even bigger problem awaits the Prophet. Its an anonymous blind man. St Mark calls him Bartimaeus (Mk 10:46), which just means, “son of Timaeus,” which, when translated means, “son of honor.” So we’re not really told his name. Let’s refer to him as Adam because he represents all of mankind since the fall - blinded by Satan, lost, driven to the outskirts of a garden place, sitting in darkness with his rotten heart pumping death to all corners of his body and soul.
The crowds try to hush him, but take a good look at this man. He’s you. Don’t think so? Satan has blinded you in a strange way too. It’s why you have the eye of an eagle when it comes to your spouse’s faults, but are blind as a bat when it comes to your own. You have x-ray vision when it comes to judging your neighbor’s sins and being thoroughly disgusted, but when it come to judging and being disgusted with our own, its as though you’re living with blinders on.
Of course you see that you’re not perfect. In fact, you say so repeatedly, sometimes in self-justification. But your thinking is that with a little effort your imperfections can be managed and fixed. But when will you have eyes to see below the surface to the source? That polluted hearts that pumps its poison into your whole being, touching everything thought, word, and deed. You’re wounded at your very core.
Repentance is needed. Take a good look at your heart’s condition as we enter Lent. It’s not about giving up this sin or that vice, but about dealing with the problem at its core. Repent, but do not despair. Rather, use the eyes of faith which you have been given and fix them upon the Prophet drawing near to Jericho today as a Healer. Sit with your brother as a fellow son of Adam and lift up your voice to the One who draws near with mercy and healing. For Jesus draws near to Jericho to show us something. It is that He loves to draw near to man and heal him. Jesus once said that St John the Baptizer was Elijah who is to come. He came. Now Jesus comes in the way of Elisha who once drew near to Jericho to heal the city at the core. For He is also the One who once drew near to guilty Adam in the Garden of Eden to heal him at the core.
Therefore repentance is needed, always. And an amendment of life. But don’t learn from what Adam did in the beginning. He heard footsteps and was afraid. He hid himself and announced that it was someone else’s fault.
Instead, learn from the blind man of Jericho. He was guilty too. But he didn’t hide. He heard footsteps too, but he wasn’t afraid. He had boldness of faith. A faith that would not let Jesus’ pass by because he trusted that Jesus, the Son of David, was God’s Mercy meant for him. Jesus is God’s Mercy on feet to draw near to sinners and heal them forever. Elisha may have healed the water of Jericho but Jesus came into the world to heal the gaping, wounded heart of mankind forever.
And He did it with His Word: Your faith has made you well. But it’s even stronger than that. Your faith has saved you is what He literally said. For He came not to temporarily fix eyeballs, but to rescue mankind from eternal destruction and fix him, yea, create him anew from the inside out.
But that meant that He had to draw near to another city. One named Jerusalem which was sick at the core too. The religious leaders opposed Jesus, so their sacrifices stunk in God’s nose. Jerusalem received prophets in order to kill them. Jerusalem was blind and bad to the bone. Yet, Jesus drew near to Jerusalem knowing that He must suffer and be mocked, flogged and killed in order to blot out the judgment that stood against Adam and his whole diseased family tree.
To save those blinded by Satan, Jesus chose to be blindfolded and mocked. To save lost man, He knows exactly what He’s doing and where He’s going - to the Cross to bear man’s sinful condition to death and to rise again over it on the Third Day.
Elisha had his new jar. But God has supplied an even better New Jar for you - the perfect human nature of Jesus the Christ, true God and true Man, the Treasure of heaven in a Jar of clay (2 Cor 4:7). Elisha had his salt. But God has even better Salt for you. Jesus, the Salt of the Earth, who was tossed without mercy into the waters of God’s judgment, that you might be mercifully pulled out of the waters of Holy Baptism pure and holy.
And you do as the once blind man, you have recovered your sight by the Word of Christ, given eyes of faith to see and you follow after Him. You are sons of honor, offering a salty sacrifice of thanks, praise, and obedience to the Lord your God who is gracious and merciful to you. Hence St Paul and the way of love. Seasoned with salt, that is, being baptized into Christ Jesus’ death and resurrection, you are living sacrifices (Rom 12:1; 1 Pt 2:5), bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things in the love of God in Christ Jesus. You follow in the way of patience and kindness, neither envying nor boasting, neither in arrogance nor rudeness, rejoicing with the truth.
Rejoice, dear hearts, be glad and sing, a cheerful trust maintain, for God, the source, of everything your portion shall remain (LSB 737:1).
The One who died for you is the One who rose form the dead for you that you might hear footsteps too. So hear them and be glad. God has supplied the feet of your pastor to draw near to you and absolve you by the Word. Hear the footsteps of your pastor drawing near to you at the altar and be glad. Hear his footsteps and behold how God has loaded up his hands with Mercy and Love - the Body and Blood of Jesus - which heals you eternally.
For you heard what Samuel heard: God does not see as man sees. All you see when you peek in the mirror is a stinking sinner. But no more. You are baptized into Christ and are the fragrance of Christ to God, acceptable and pleasing to Him (Phil 4:18). You may look in the mirror and think you stink as a father, as a mother, as a spouse or sibling or friend. But no more. You are baptized. And your good works are to Him like a whiff of sweetness. You look in the mirror and all you see is a guilty failure on many fronts. But God refuses to see you that way, because you are baptized. His face shines upon you. You are His. He made you. You are His people. The apple of His eye. The light of the world. The salt of the earth. The sheep of His pasture. ‘
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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