A sermon on Luke 18:31-43 for Quinquagesima. Delivered by Pastor Caleb Strutz.
Once when I was a kid, I got lost in a WalMart. I was old enough to remember it but young enough to really freak out. I thought I was still in the same aisle as my mom but when I turned around she was gone and I couldn’t find her in any of the nearby aisles. Losing your mom in the store is really scary but what’s even scarier is what you have to do next. I had to approach a stranger who worked there. And she asked me some hard questions, “What’s your mom’s name?” I didn’t know, I just said through tears, “Mommy.” She had to go on the PA system, “Would Caleb’s mom please come to customer service,” which is really embarrassing, now everyone in the store knows what’s going on. It was really awkward and really uncomfortable, but doing that was the only way to reach out to my mom and let her know where I was.
This third and final week of Pre-Lent, Quinquagesima, deals with another fundamental. These past weeks, we’ve looked at grace and God’s Word and now we are drawn to see faith. The faith of the blind man led him to do some really awkward and uncomfortable things, but that was the only way that he could reach Jesus. Faith is embarrassing, but it is what makes you well because faith calls to Christ.
I. Faith is embarrassing
This miracle account is pretty typical in its general outline. Someone in need calls out to Jesus and is healed. But as always, there’s also some interesting wrinkles that draw us in and make this account unique.
There’s this blind beggar in Jericho, Mark tells us his name is Bartimaeus (10:46). Jericho is pretty close to Jerusalem, Jesus is passing through it as He’s on His way to celebrate the Passover. The traffic would’ve been pretty bad in Jericho with lots of other pilgrims going through on the same journey. But the blind man can tell that when the crowd accompanying Jesus passes by that something special is going on here. Here’s where the wrinkles come in.
When Bartimaeus asks what’s going on, he’s told that “Jesus of Nazareth was passing by.” But notice the shift in language. He cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” And the crowd warns him “that he should be quiet.” In other places, people are carrying the sick and disabled to Jesus. But here, they’re telling him to shut up. Why?
A few possibilities, but really, the same issue. Maybe he’s just making a ruckus. He’s too loud, making a scene, come on, calm down, it’s embarrassing. But maybe there’s also something to that shift in language. The crowd recognizes Jesus as “Jesus of Nazareth.” He’s a prophet, a teacher, interesting to listen to, but that’s it. The blind man takes it a step further and they’re uncomfortable with that. “Jesus, Son of David.” A Messianic title. A deeper understanding of who Jesus is.
The crowd doesn’t want to hear that. That’s not where they’re at. That’s not who they recognize Jesus as. So they try to silence his faith. Ironically, the blind man has better vision than the seeing crowd. He looks at Jesus with the eyes of faith. It’s the others who are truly blind.
The truth is that faith is embarrassing. It makes you do some awkward, uncomfortable things. And other people don’t want to hear it. Now the situation in our context is a little more nuanced than that. In Florida, people will talk openly about God. 70% of adults self-identify as Christian. You won’t be ostracized for talking about Jesus here like you might in other parts of the country or other parts of the world. That is, until you get to some difficult truths.
Again, most people in Florida are pretty conservative on moral issues, but that only makes the lines that we have to draw all the more uncomfortable. “Well, I believe in God, I just don’t think that going to church is that important.” Is that really a Christian attitude? “We’re all Christian. We all like the Bible. Our differences aren’t really that big of a deal.” Well, we baptize babies. And believe the Lord’s Supper is what Jesus says it is. That’s kind of a big deal. “Oh, so you think you’re better than me just because you’re a Lutheran? That’s prideful.” Is it really pride when we’re just being faithful to what the Bible says?
Bartimaeus had a deeper understanding of who Jesus was than those around him. And he wasn’t embarrassed to express that, he didn’t let their rebukes silence him. How often are we tempted to gloss over our differences, to not speak up when we know what’s right, to allow ourselves to be silenced? What does that say about our faith if we’re not willing to do uncomfortable things?
II. Faith makes you well
Although Bartimaeus was causing a bit of a scene, this outward expression of his faith paid off. Jesus heard his cry, brought him near, and restored his physical sight. “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.”
But this raises the question: how did this man’s faith make him well? He had faith when he was still blind, so it’s not like the mere presence of his faith is what healed him. Obviously, it took Jesus and His word to perform this miracle, so how can He say, “your faith has made you well?”
Well, we need to understand something about faith and what it does. When we think about faith, we shouldn’t be turned inward because if we do, we’re only ever going to be disappointed that our faith isn’t stronger. The point of faith is to point to the object of that faith, not just that you believe, but what you believe in. Faith leads us outside of ourselves to someone else. Our faith leads us to Christ.
He is more than a prophet from Nazareth, He is the Son of David, the Christ. He is more than a great teacher or a good role model, He is our Savior and Redeemer. He does more than cure physical ailments, He comes to save our souls.
Jesus, the object of our faith, was heading on to Jerusalem. He was going to fulfill what was written of Him in the Scriptures, to be delivered, mocked, insulted, and spit upon. To be scourged and killed. To rise again on the third day. This was always the plan, this was always what everything was leading to. To take your sins away, remove your spiritual blindness, give you His great healing.
This is how faith saves. It receives. The blind man’s faith wasn’t the active agent in the miracle, Jesus was. But his faith received this gift from Christ, so in that way his faith made him well. And so it is with us. We are saved by faith alone. This does not mean that our salvation is dependent on how hard or how much you believe but that faith, trust in Christ, is how we receive the great benefits He has won for us.
And this faith is a gift from God. Something that He gives. It’s not on you. You don’t have to feel guilty for not having a faith that’s strong enough. It never will be, there’s always room for improvement. Your salvation depends on Christ and what He has done and what He gives you. Faith is what He has placed inside you to receive all those good things.
And we see what this faith does. It trusts in Christ and calls out to Him for help. And it transforms your life. The previously blind man, who had seen Jesus for who He was the whole time, followed Him and glorified God. And when the people saw this expression of his faith, they changed too. They went from rebuking him to praising God with him. What a powerful thing faith is.
One of my college professors used this illustration to explain what faith does and how we should view it in a way that’s stuck with me ever since. He took out his keys, a big ring of them and tossed them to a student. He asked, “What happened there?” The student replied, “Well, you gave me your keys.” That was the right answer. That’s what was going on there. The wrong answer, my professor explained, would be to say, “Woah, did you see that? Did you see how I reached out with my hand and I took hold of those keys?”
That’s what faith is. It’s the empty hand which receives. God’s great gifts are the focus, that’s what’s most important. Faith is what gets them to you. So faith is important. It’s fundamental, up there with grace and God’s Word. We should talk about it. Faith saves. But faith saves, it makes well, because it receives. We can endure any embarrassment, suffer any rebuke, because of God’s great gifts that He gives to us. Amen.
