Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost: Jesus gives sight to the blind

Unededited Transcript Follows:

Name of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy spirit. Amen. I've been watching the Star Wars Saga with my kids. I'm kind of ashamed that I never really been through it.

So uh, we we, I've watched, like I've watched like the first three episodes or four five and six. But we're about halfway done with episode two now. So we'd watch four five and six and then we'd watched episode one. And we're halfway done with episode two and I always love prequels.

Like when you're coming into a story and then you get to re read or watch in this case, a prequel to the story and say, hey how how did Darth Vader become such a bad guy or whatever. But I I love prequels. That's why I don't entertain reading the Chronicles of Narnia.

Anything other than the publication order. So that like I, I'm really serious about this. Don't read this in any other order. Like, some Publishers are going to put this out in chronological order. Don't do it. That's silly. That's you. Read it in publication order. Starting with the lion, which in the wardrobe and I'm, I, I have very serious feelings about this, so, So so don't ever do it but in Our Gospel reading today we have Mark doing a bit of a callback To a situation earlier in his gospel, our tendency to read the gospels.

Short chunks because it's not really possible to do it any other way, the way that we organize worship, might lead us to miss some of what he's doing, but he's doing a bit of a callback to something earlier in the gospel and we'll talk more about that. But this blind healing of a blind man.

Isn't the first time he's done that and it's not the first time. He's that Jesus has healed a blind, man, even in the gospel of Mark. Arc and what we learn as we kind of jump into this second healing of a blind, man. And this call back to something earlier, is that our call needs to be the same as this blind man's call Bartimaeus call where he says to Jesus.

I want to see. Where he says to Jesus, I want to be one that sees. Today, we're going to look at how blindness is both Universal. So it's not just a problem that he had, or that people that are blind in their sight have, but it's Universal, and it's also debilitating, but we're going to see that we when we admit our blindness.

We ask God to meet us. We find them already in a conversation with us and ready to bring healing to us. So, first blindness is universal and it's debilitating. Our readings today, link together, physical, and spiritual blindness. So, in Isaiah 59, We see that we grope for the wall, like the blind.

So there's this picture of trying to find a wall as a blind person in darkness as we're seeking Justice and we're not finding Justice, we're reaching out like blind. These are the people of God that we're talking about in Psalm 13 David wonders. How long will God hide his face for me?

How long will you hide your face so that I can't see you? And ultimately he asked God, give light to my eyes. That. I don't sleep in death Enlighten, my eyes. How long will you hide your face from me? God, Enlighten my eyes. In the gospel of Mark. Makes this the most explicit.

See one of Mark's favorite narrative techniques is what people will call like a sandwich. We bred like where one event is. Sometimes he does this where he breaks up an event in the middle. So like Mark 5 21-4-3 is kind of a famous one where on the way to go raise this dot.

Well the daughter's not dead when the guy reaches out to him, but on the way to go heal this daughter who dies while he's on the way, this woman who has the who's been having Flow of blood for years touches the Hem of His Garment and the scene is kind of broken up.

Um, By this event. And so what we do is we interpret the events in the middle and the events on both sides by each other when he does this. So it's important to realize when Mark's writing the gospel of Mark, he's not just like following Jesus around writing things in the order that they happened.

Okay, so he he has a bunch of stories about Jesus and he puts those stories in the order that we have them, for a reason to tell a story. And so, now we have another of these sandwiches Where we? This blind man, Bartimaeus. And he's this blind man, Bartimaeus, like I said, it's not the first time that we see a blind guy getting healed.

This is one of these sandwiches. The first healing of a blind man is in Mark chapter 8, verses 22 through 25. We have this first healing of a blind man in Mark, 8 verses, 22 through 25 and it's kind of and so we you guys you guys remember how I got really excited about the message of the Loaves, right?

Like Jesus walking on water and this weird throwaway line from Mark where he says Understand the message of the loaves. It was right after the feeding of the 5 000 and saying they didn't understand the message of the Loaves. And then Jesus starts teaching them, the message of the Loaves, right?

And there's this another sandwich, a healing or the feeding of 5 000, followed by the feeding of four thousand, right? And then this message of the Loaves is happening in the middle. He's warning them don't be. Don't be led astray by the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees. They start arguing about having brought no bread and he's like, you guys are still thinking I'm talking about bread and they remember so he's telling them the message of the Loaves.

He he gives us this Mark, gives us this sandwich to teach that lesson and now he's doing a new thing right after that. He has this blind guy healed, but this blind guy was different than blind Bartimaeus, right? This blind guy was healed in two stages. Right? So he's healed.

And Jesus doesn't have to do it in two stages. It's not because he like didn't muster enough up enough power the first time. So he had to really breathe hard and try harder and do it again. That's not why he was healed in two stages. He was healed in two stages to teach us something, and so this guy in in Mark, chapter 8 is healed in two stages.

We don't have his name and then Disciples and Jesus like go on a journey. And that Journey Begins, it's it's it marks. The only gospel writer that gives us one trip to Jerusalem. Jesus isn't going in and out of Jerusalem in the Book of Mark. He's making one long trip to Jerusalem and on the way, what is Jesus doing?

He's saying I'm going to be handed over and killed. And he does that three times on the way to Jerusalem. And three times the disciples blow it right? They the three times the disciples don't get it the first time. Peter rebukes him, right? The then you have you have them arguing about who was the greatest right after the second time and then you have the request of James and John, what we talked about last week about who gets to sit at his right and left hand.

The third time so three times, he just he describes himself as one who's willing to die. And three times his disciples are saying, are messing it up and arguing about who's the greatest or doing whatever they're doing. And then at the end of that, right before Jesus enters in Jerusalem, the very next passage is going to be the triumphal entry.

Right, it's going to be Palm Sunday, right? And it's going to be him entering into Jerusalem. You have this blind guy getting healed, but he gets healed in one stage. All right, boom. The lights turn on and he sees and this is a picture of what what his disciples have been through.

They partially understood what it meant that Jesus was Messiah Peter. Confessed that you are the Son of God, right? And so they, they understood part of what it meant that Jesus was Messiah, but they didn't understand that. That many was going to be handed over to the Romans and crucified, they were partly blind.

And then they finally Were then able to see. Blind Bartimaeus is showing us that these ones are beginning to understand. Beginning to understand what it means to follow their Messiah and to follow Messiah. Who's willing to give his life for the sake of the world. Everyone's blind. In the gospel of Mark.

The Pharisees are blind. The, the people are blind, God's disciples. Jesus own disciples are blind. They don't see, they need someone to turn the lights on. They need to Enlight, everyone's blight in the Book of Mark. And it may remind us of a story. You know, I received my mail-in ballot this week for the election.

So, I I'm mailing my ballot. I don't know. That might be controversial statement now. So we can argue It depends on who you ask that might it might be controversial when I mail it in. I don't know. I am blown away like by how unmotivated I am to participate right now.

So I am like looking at the whole thing and just like I am so convinced. Of the blindness. Of I, I and to the point like and some of you young adults, like, Haven't participated. In an election cycle where it wasn't this crazy. But like the level, like the political discourse is like debates are not much better.

Maybe one step above like schoolyard. Taunts like my dad can beat up your dad. You know, like I I mean that's like how we argued on the schoolyard. Like I think my dad could beat up your dad and that was that was the argument, right? This is like where we're at.

As a country in like the presidential debates, like this is where it's at. We're not talking about policy. We're not, we're just like insulting each other. Like, everyone's just insulting each other. And this is what qualifies. And like, the whole deal is like a bunch of people yelling about who's on their team.

It's like, like, it's like, if you had the two captains of the two teams at the homecoming game, Dunking on each other before the game started and then everyone going. Oh, like and that, that's like political discourse. In our nation right now, and We don't even know who to trust, right?

I mean, I think that's the narrative. Like we there's all new sources or untrustworthy, social media is untrustworthy, like we don't even know to trust the whole thing is a mess like and If we're not convinced of our blindness today, I don't know if we ever will be guys, we're blind.

Like we Uh, it's hard to discern the truth. We are out of our minds. Um, It's a It's a time where we should know. About how blind we are and that we need to make be made to see. But it often seems like we're tempted instead of admitting our blindness and that we're all blind.

Just like in the Book of Mark, everyone's blind to be most like the Pharisees In John 9 40. Remember that story where they say are you saying we're blind to And Jesus said, if you had admitted, you were blind. We I could help you, right? But since you claim, you can see.

I can't help you. Right. We're a blind people in a sea of blindness. The Disciples of Jesus are blind. The Pharisees are blind. The people of God are blind in the book of Isaiah. They're reaching for the walls as blind people and they can't find it. David can't see God's face.

This is the situation. We find ourselves in The blindness is universal. No one can grope after God. None of us can find God and yet. Jesus wants to give us sights. Jesus wants to let us see. He wants to Enlighten the eyes and he tells us in The Sermon on the Mount.

That blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. See Jesus says something. Strange at the end of this interaction with this blind Bartimaeus, right? He says your faith has saved you. Use that word salvation. So, Joe You know, salvation. And he says your faith has saved you.

It's kind of an interesting word like I mean it might show us just how desperate it was to be blind and unable to provide for yourself but salvation he receives salvation that day your faith has saved you. Your faith has brought salvation to you. In other words, linking this spiritual darkness and this physical blindness.

Faith saved you. We see this link between our spiritual state. And this blind, man, we're supposed to enter into the story as the blind, man. Crying out. Lord, have mercy on me. I want to see Our goal in many ways, the goal of life in many ways is to see God.

Is to see God's face. And we can't see him. Because we're blind, and all of us are But the good news is, when we cry out to God, for Mercy, We find Jesus. Already conversing with us. See, our story is the same story as the blind man, Bartimaeus. And do you realize that our liturgy invites us?

To enter into the place of Bartimaeus, really every week, every week, our liturgy begins in the same spot. Do you realize that What's he crying out? What's he crying out? Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Kyrie. Kyrie and laison you guys might be familiar with those words.

Have mercy on me, have mercy. Lord have mercy Christ, have mercy. Lord. Have mercy. What do we? We are entering into the same story as the blind, man. Bartimaeus is right at the beginning, right? Before Jesus enters into Jerusalem, he's seeing the curier. He was the first guy to say it, right?

Lord have mercy on me. And we're invited to do the same thing every Sunday. As we come together in worship to say, Lord, have mercy on me. Christ, have mercy on me. We prayed in our colic today that God would mercifully hear our supplications, And then, finally, What does Jesus do with blind Bartimaeus at the end of the story?

He says. Go your way. And at the end of worship, every time after having received the body and blood of Jesus, what do we say, go in peace to love and serve the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Blind. Bartimaeus's story is all of our story. We come to God, we ask him to have mercy, he heals us and then he sends us on our way. But what's really neat is when we is when, when blind Bartimaeus calls out in this story, what we find is that Jesus was already having an ongoing conversation with Bartimaeus.

There's the Greek formula in this passage and it's often not translated because it's pedantic and it would be really boring to translate it that way. It's kind of a but it's it's Jesus answering said to him, right? So instead of it, just Jesus said to him or Jesus answer wherever the ESP gives us.

It's actually Jesus answering said to him now. What's interesting about that that formula is all all over the place in Greek. So we don't translate it every time because like I said, it'd be really pedantic. But what's interesting about it being here, is it usually happens, like, in the case of like a dialogue of some kind, there wasn't really any dialogue happening here.

You have a man yelling out. Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. Up, because he's being loud and annoying when they're on the way somewhere. You know, I'm not somewhere very great, but they're still learning. Um, but they're they're on the way and so telling him to shut up.

And then he cries out all the more Jesus have mercy on me, right? And, but then what happens is, Jesus calls for me comes and it's this starts out with Jesus answering said to him. Already answering already been with this man. I don't know how long you know maybe in the words of the psalmist, how long O Lord will you forget me?

How long will you hide your face from me? Maybe blind Bartimaeus might be right in that spot. He would have known these words he might have been, how long has he been crying out for God? To have mercy on him and to give him sight? How long Has he been excluded from the house of the Lord?

How long? And he says, And Jesus says, Or what Mark tells us is that Jesus is answering. This long going. Conversation with Bartimaeus, where he's been crying out for Mercy. Any answers. Him. I think what I find from that is just like, when we're when we put ourselves in the posture of crying out, for Mercy, what we'll find is that God was already there.

In that spot. Ready to show Mercy.

When we stop saying with the Pharisees, Am I blind? And we start saying with Bartimaeus, Lord, let me see. We find a merciful god who was already there and answering and moving to answer the Deep cries of our heart.

See, we are blind. All of us we couldn't see God, we're grasping around in the darkness. And God knew our blindness and he sent his son and he sent his son in the flesh. So that when we looked at the Son of God in his flesh we saw God he made the invisible God visible to our dull senses and his son gave the one who gave sight to the blind man.

Wants to give sight to all the blind men and women on the Earth. Jesus died. So that we might see God. He paid the price for our sin. He conquered its power and he purchased our sight. So, if you Will join Bartimaeus in recognizing, your blindness and your need for God, he will show you that he has heard your cry.

He'll meet you. He will show you Mercy. And he'll feed you with his body and blood. So come to the table, blind people. And let the Cry of your heart. Be Lord, have mercy on me. And then find Jesus ready to show you Mercy. And give him very his very self to you.