1 Samuel 16:1-13; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; St Luke 18:31-43
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
When we hear St Paul say, Love is patient and kind, whom is he describing? When he says, Love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful, whom is he describing? He is describing Jesus.
Jesus bears all things for you. Jesus endures all things for you. Because He loves you. Not as a good feeling. Not because you deserved it. Not because you loved Him first. Not because you loved in return. Not even in view of the fact that you would believe in Him or love Him in return. No - the Lord Jesus bears all things and endures all things for you simply because He loves you. For it is not the way of love to do good only when there is something to be gained, only when another has earned it, only when it will be appreciated.
Look at yourself. Do you love in this way? Perhaps you are patient and kind with those very close to you. It is possible that for your mother you would bear many things or for your child you would endure many things. But if you love your relatives, what credit is that to you? If you do good to those who respect you, or support you, or befriend you, do you do more than the godless do?
But even with those whom you ought to love - your spouse, your siblings, your parents, those whom God has put close to you - you have not loved them as you ought. You envy and you boast. You insist on your own way. Perhaps even this morning on the way to Divine Service you were irritable or resentful. No, St Paul does not describe us in 1 Corinthians 13. We do not love as God defines love. For we primarily love ourselves. St Paul is describing Jesus, who loves His neighbors and those who hate Him; Jesus, who is Love Incarnate.
In Jesus, Love acted patiently and kindly even in the face of hostility. Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. For a good man, someone might dare to die. But while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While we were His enemies. While we hated Him.
Do not think it was the Jews of old who crucified Jesus. It was your malevolence that mocked Him. It was your insolence that insulted Him. it was the salvia of your lies spit upon the Lord. You scourged Him with your selfishness. Your sins put Him to death.
But none of this happened to Jesus accidentally. He doesn’t fall into a trap or make a mistake. Jesus goes to Jerusalem willingly. Out of love for those who do not love Him. He goes to death for those who have forgotten what love is. He goes to Jerusalem to bear the cross for a human race that wandered away from God’s love, fell into animosity, bitterness, and delusion. Jesus dies out of love for a human race that has no hope beyond this life.
Jesus tells all this to His disciples, but they do not understand. In three different ways, St Luke tells us they just don’t get it. But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them and they did not grasp what was said. A crucified God makes no sense. Man prefers to punish the sins of others whole excusing his own sins. That God would become man and Himself take man’s punishment, die man’s death - its foolishness and a stumbling block.
It is foolishness because we don’t really believe the necessity of it. We still believe the lie that we can, on our own, become like God. That we aren’t really that bad. That we are really, by nature, good, with a few flaws that we are working on.
The Twelve disciples who heard Jesus announce that He was going to Jerusalem to suffer and die for them were blind to their own situation. Only the blind man, whom they met along the road - the rode that became the Triumphal Highway - only he could really see. This story is true, as it all of Holy Scripture, but its is written for us that we may see ourselves in the blind man.
What is he doing? The blind man sat by the road begging. And this is the condition of man: beggars before God. We must understand that we are death-ridden, magot-infested, hell-bound, damnable sinners, so that we come to point of doing what the blind man did. When he heard that Jesus was coming, he did not silently hope. He did not whisper. He cried out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
The word that St Luke uses to describe his crying out is like a woman being raped, like a man shouting to address a crowd, or the roaring of a lion. It is the same word used to describe the cry of Jesus on the cross: My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? This was no ordinary cry that rises up from the blind man. And thats why the crowd shushes him. He isn’t being polite. But faith is not manners. Faith is recognizing that you are nothing, having nothing, can accomplish nothing, yet trusting that there, in Jesus, is your hope, your life, God’s love come in the flesh. The blind man sees what the disciples did not.
Which is why the blind man doesn’t care that the people around him don’t like it. Faith has only one thing to say - Lord, have mercy! - and it pays no heed to any voice telling him to be quiet. So he cries out all the more. This time St Luke describes it as a shriek of one who has been frightened, a shout of an epileptic, or the cry of a woman in childbirth. Faith says, “Without Jesus I am lost, so I will cry out for His mercy and will not stop crying out until I receive it.”
This is how St Paul describes the prayer of all Christians when they pray the Our Father with great earnestness and seriousness: For you did not rice the spirit of bondage to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” In our prayers, we ought to cry out with the confidence of the blind man.
And this is the simplest Christian prayer, the oldest cry of the faithful, a prayer you can pray before going in for surgery, when you wake up in the morning, or when lying on your death bed. The short, simple words capture the very crux of the Christian faith. And its based on the cry of the blind man in the Gospel text: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. The blind man, you see, wasn’t blind to the truth. This Jesus passing by was no ordinary man. He is the Son of David, the Anointed One of the Lord, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord has descended. He is the heir to the throne.
But notice this, the blind man regards Jesus as greater than a mere earthly king. He asks Him to do something that only God can do: restore his sight. And Jesus does. He restores his sight. And He adds one more thing: Your faith has made you well. Literally, your faith has saved you. What’s important here isn’t that his faith made him physically see again. It didn’t. Jesus, in whom faith trusts, saved Him. And his now opened eyes will soon close in the sleep of death. But by faith they shall open again on the Last Day and behold the same Lord Jesus, the Son of David, who stands before him now. This is the faith that we desire: saving faith that sees Jesus.
This Gospel comes today to show us what the season of Lent, starting this Wednesday, is all about. We too need recovery of sight. We need to see again how deeply sin is infested in us, how corrupt we are, how much power we have allowed the devil to have over us. We need to see that we are beggars before a merciful King. The Alleluias are about to disappear, but the Kyrie never does.
And how much joy there is in those words of Jesus, We are going up to Jerusalem. We. Jesus alone is going to bear our sins to the cross, but we get to go with Him. And Jesus rising from the grave at Easter - we get that too. We are going up to Jerusalem. On the road to the Cross, Jesus is with us, or rather, we are with Him. All of your suffering, all of your hurts, all of your blindness, all of your sadness, all of your sins, all of your death - He bears it all in love. For He loves you to the end with a true and sacrificial love.
We receive our wages according to His merciful desire to give, we receive the Word according to His reckless love, and we cry to Him as beggars who have nothing, but expect to gain all good things from His nail-pierced hand. In this Supper He joins us to Him, strengthening your faith, and also emboldening you to have fervent love for one another. Forget about the past; your former blindness and your shouts of anger. Cry out now, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! He hears your prayer. We follow Him, glorifying God. He loves you. And His love never ends.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
When we hear St Paul say, Love is patient and kind, whom is he describing? When he says, Love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful, whom is he describing? He is describing Jesus.
Jesus bears all things for you. Jesus endures all things for you. Because He loves you. Not as a good feeling. Not because you deserved it. Not because you loved Him first. Not because you loved in return. Not even in view of the fact that you would believe in Him or love Him in return. No - the Lord Jesus bears all things and endures all things for you simply because He loves you. For it is not the way of love to do good only when there is something to be gained, only when another has earned it, only when it will be appreciated.
Look at yourself. Do you love in this way? Perhaps you are patient and kind with those very close to you. It is possible that for your mother you would bear many things or for your child you would endure many things. But if you love your relatives, what credit is that to you? If you do good to those who respect you, or support you, or befriend you, do you do more than the godless do?
But even with those whom you ought to love - your spouse, your siblings, your parents, those whom God has put close to you - you have not loved them as you ought. You envy and you boast. You insist on your own way. Perhaps even this morning on the way to Divine Service you were irritable or resentful. No, St Paul does not describe us in 1 Corinthians 13. We do not love as God defines love. For we primarily love ourselves. St Paul is describing Jesus, who loves His neighbors and those who hate Him; Jesus, who is Love Incarnate.
In Jesus, Love acted patiently and kindly even in the face of hostility. Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For He will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. For a good man, someone might dare to die. But while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While we were His enemies. While we hated Him.
Do not think it was the Jews of old who crucified Jesus. It was your malevolence that mocked Him. It was your insolence that insulted Him. it was the salvia of your lies spit upon the Lord. You scourged Him with your selfishness. Your sins put Him to death.
But none of this happened to Jesus accidentally. He doesn’t fall into a trap or make a mistake. Jesus goes to Jerusalem willingly. Out of love for those who do not love Him. He goes to death for those who have forgotten what love is. He goes to Jerusalem to bear the cross for a human race that wandered away from God’s love, fell into animosity, bitterness, and delusion. Jesus dies out of love for a human race that has no hope beyond this life.
Jesus tells all this to His disciples, but they do not understand. In three different ways, St Luke tells us they just don’t get it. But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them and they did not grasp what was said. A crucified God makes no sense. Man prefers to punish the sins of others whole excusing his own sins. That God would become man and Himself take man’s punishment, die man’s death - its foolishness and a stumbling block.
It is foolishness because we don’t really believe the necessity of it. We still believe the lie that we can, on our own, become like God. That we aren’t really that bad. That we are really, by nature, good, with a few flaws that we are working on.
The Twelve disciples who heard Jesus announce that He was going to Jerusalem to suffer and die for them were blind to their own situation. Only the blind man, whom they met along the road - the rode that became the Triumphal Highway - only he could really see. This story is true, as it all of Holy Scripture, but its is written for us that we may see ourselves in the blind man.
What is he doing? The blind man sat by the road begging. And this is the condition of man: beggars before God. We must understand that we are death-ridden, magot-infested, hell-bound, damnable sinners, so that we come to point of doing what the blind man did. When he heard that Jesus was coming, he did not silently hope. He did not whisper. He cried out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
The word that St Luke uses to describe his crying out is like a woman being raped, like a man shouting to address a crowd, or the roaring of a lion. It is the same word used to describe the cry of Jesus on the cross: My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? This was no ordinary cry that rises up from the blind man. And thats why the crowd shushes him. He isn’t being polite. But faith is not manners. Faith is recognizing that you are nothing, having nothing, can accomplish nothing, yet trusting that there, in Jesus, is your hope, your life, God’s love come in the flesh. The blind man sees what the disciples did not.
Which is why the blind man doesn’t care that the people around him don’t like it. Faith has only one thing to say - Lord, have mercy! - and it pays no heed to any voice telling him to be quiet. So he cries out all the more. This time St Luke describes it as a shriek of one who has been frightened, a shout of an epileptic, or the cry of a woman in childbirth. Faith says, “Without Jesus I am lost, so I will cry out for His mercy and will not stop crying out until I receive it.”
This is how St Paul describes the prayer of all Christians when they pray the Our Father with great earnestness and seriousness: For you did not rice the spirit of bondage to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” In our prayers, we ought to cry out with the confidence of the blind man.
And this is the simplest Christian prayer, the oldest cry of the faithful, a prayer you can pray before going in for surgery, when you wake up in the morning, or when lying on your death bed. The short, simple words capture the very crux of the Christian faith. And its based on the cry of the blind man in the Gospel text: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. The blind man, you see, wasn’t blind to the truth. This Jesus passing by was no ordinary man. He is the Son of David, the Anointed One of the Lord, upon whom the Spirit of the Lord has descended. He is the heir to the throne.
But notice this, the blind man regards Jesus as greater than a mere earthly king. He asks Him to do something that only God can do: restore his sight. And Jesus does. He restores his sight. And He adds one more thing: Your faith has made you well. Literally, your faith has saved you. What’s important here isn’t that his faith made him physically see again. It didn’t. Jesus, in whom faith trusts, saved Him. And his now opened eyes will soon close in the sleep of death. But by faith they shall open again on the Last Day and behold the same Lord Jesus, the Son of David, who stands before him now. This is the faith that we desire: saving faith that sees Jesus.
This Gospel comes today to show us what the season of Lent, starting this Wednesday, is all about. We too need recovery of sight. We need to see again how deeply sin is infested in us, how corrupt we are, how much power we have allowed the devil to have over us. We need to see that we are beggars before a merciful King. The Alleluias are about to disappear, but the Kyrie never does.
And how much joy there is in those words of Jesus, We are going up to Jerusalem. We. Jesus alone is going to bear our sins to the cross, but we get to go with Him. And Jesus rising from the grave at Easter - we get that too. We are going up to Jerusalem. On the road to the Cross, Jesus is with us, or rather, we are with Him. All of your suffering, all of your hurts, all of your blindness, all of your sadness, all of your sins, all of your death - He bears it all in love. For He loves you to the end with a true and sacrificial love.
We receive our wages according to His merciful desire to give, we receive the Word according to His reckless love, and we cry to Him as beggars who have nothing, but expect to gain all good things from His nail-pierced hand. In this Supper He joins us to Him, strengthening your faith, and also emboldening you to have fervent love for one another. Forget about the past; your former blindness and your shouts of anger. Cry out now, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! He hears your prayer. We follow Him, glorifying God. He loves you. And His love never ends.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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