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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Pastor Galler is continuing his vacation. This morning for our reflection on today’s Third Reading, Pastor Galler edited a sermon that was written by The Rev. Rudolph F. Norden, at one time a pastor in Texas. Rev. Norden’s sermon was originally published in the 19-85 volume of Concordia Pulpit, intended to supply sermons on occasions such as this, when a congregation’s pastor is away. The edited sermon reads as follows:
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today’s Third Reading finds Jesus on the outskirts of Jericho, with His sight steadfastly fixed on Jerusalem some 15 miles away. Jesus is accompanied by a festive company of pilgrims to Jerusalem, who not only want to celebrate the Passover with Him there but also hope to proclaim Him the Messiah-King in the Holy City. Little did they realize that in a week’s time the glory road would become a way of sorrows. Jesus, of course, knew what the result would be, for just earlier He had predicted: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles, and they will mock Him and spit on Him, and flog Him and kill Him” (Mark 10:33-34). Jesus was going to give His life for the life of the world. He would bear the sins of the whole world. All the millions of people who constitute the human race, past, present, and future, are the objects of His redeeming love. Yet, He is not too busy or too preoccupied to give attention to individuals – such as blind Bartimaeus outside of Jericho. Jesus ever seeks to help and heal persons in their individual needs. His ears are open to their cries and His heart is ready to show compassion. That is true of Jesus also today in His relation to us here and now. Jesus is, as the title of this sermon identifies Him, “A Savior Who Hears Our Pleas”.
St. Mark reports that when Jesus was leaving Jericho, He encountered a needy man sitting by the roadside. In those days, finding incapacitated persons along roads leading in and out of a city was very common. Saints Matthew and Luke likewise report this or a similar incident in their Gospel accounts. Their accounts together complement, rather than contradict, one another. St. Luke states that Jesus gave sight to a blind beggar as He approached Jericho, and St. Matthew seems to combine the two events by saying that Jesus healed two blind beggars. St. Mark’s account focuses our attention on Bartimaeus, whose name in Aramaic, the language spoken then, identifies him as the bar, or “son”, of Timaeus.
Bartimaeus bore a heavy affliction: He was blind and consequently poor, for sightless persons in those days were rarely given the opportunity to be trained for useful work. Blindness and poverty constituted double distress. Blindness deprived the individual of the ability to see—to see the faces of dear ones, read a book, or behold God’s wonderful works in nature. The resulting poverty was likewise a load of grief to bear. Poverty not only deprives, it also demands. A well-known painter tells in his auto-biography of a time when he was a starving artist in an unheated garret studio. He said, “The trouble with poverty is that it takes up so much of your time.” Bartimaeus would agree. He had no time for amusements; he had to spend all his time by the roadside begging. In most cases, God has anticipated your need and mine by giving us eyes to see and hands to earn. He has, in Martin Luther’s words from the Small Catechism, “given me eyes, ears, and all my members.” Along with sight God gives us many other associated gifts to till our many needs. The whole world is opened to us through our vision.
When told that passing by was Jesus of Nazareth—He whose fame as a teacher and healer had spread throughout the land—Bartimaeus immediately stated his case. His brief but fervent prayer was, “Have mercy on me!”. After Jesus responded to him, he made the specific request: "Let me recover my sight.” The two short prayers are an outright appeal to our Lord’s compassion. No personal merits are pleaded, no rash promises are made, no flattery is uttered as a possible inducement for Jesus to help. Bartimaeus casts himself unconditionally on the Savior’s loving concern. “Have mercy on us!” is also the cry of Christians as they make their needs and requests known to Jesus. These needs, if not physical as in the case of Bartimaeus, are certainly spiritual—the need for sins to be forgiven, for faith to be strengthened, for doubts to be overcome. We do well to imitate the blind man’s plea, “Lord, have mercy on us!” From ancient times the Church assembled for worship has sung the Kyrie, with its prayer, “Lord, have mercy”; has prayed in the Prayer of the Church, “Lord, have mercy”, and has sung in the Agnus Dei: “O Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, have mercy on us.”
In laying his plea before Jesus, Bartimaeus was both hindered and helped by members of the traveling group. At first some sought to deter him by “telling him to be silent”. The implication was, Do not trouble the Master with your personal problem, as if, He has His mind on bigger things in Jerusalem. But the beggar was not discouraged. He cried out all the more when he learned that Jesus of Nazareth was so near. Then, after Jesus had summoned him, there were others present who sought to help him by saying: “Take heart, get up, He is calling you”. To this day some people around us discourage us from making our plea to God in prayer. They say, “God is too busy running the universe”, as if, “He has no interest in little you.” Or they say, “It is useless to pray. Your situation is hopeless and beyond cure. What right have you to expect a miracle?” Thank God, others will tell us, “Jesus has invited all who labor and are heavy laden to come to Him. Take heart! State your plea to Him, confident that He is your dearest Friend.” And, here we might ask ourselves: How is it with us? Do we hinder or help others in coming to Jesus?
Jesus to Whom Bartimaeus, we, and others come, is “A Savior Who Hears Our Pleas” and who also dealt with Bartimaeus and deals with us and others in a very personal way: in a one‑on‑one relationship. In the Third Reading the people call Him, “Jesus of Nazareth”. The unimposing Galilean city of Nazareth was not only His hometown, but it also became a part of His name, as in the superscription hung above Him of the cross. More than being a man from Nazareth, Jesus is all the things that Bar‑Timaeus declared Him to be in his request. The names and title given Him describe His divine person and office. He is “Jesus, Son of David”, a confession of faith that the blind man made twice. The confession of faith “Son of David” points to Jesus as the promised Messiah, Who is both the descendant of David according to the flesh and the very Son of God, born of a virgin. Isaiah prophesied of Him, referring to His teaching and healing ministry: “The Lord has anointed Me to bring good news to the poor; He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the year of the Lord`s favor” (Isaiah 6:1-2).
A third name or title the blind man used for Jesus is “Rabbi”, Rabbouni in Aramaic. Rabbouni is the same respectful title Mary Magdalene used to address Jesus at the empty tomb. St. John, who reports that Easter incident, equates the title Rabbouni with the Greek word for “Teacher”. Jesus was truly the Teacher come from God, the divine Prophet, Who by word and deed revealed Himself as the Son of God. He came to proclaim the Gospel of the forgiveness of sins thanks to His reconciling life, death, and resurrection. For Jesus to be our Healer and Helper, we need to believe in Him not only as the Man from Nazareth but also as the divine Messiah, our Lord and Master, as Bartimaeus believed in Him and so experienced His healing.
The first step in our Lord’s healing of Bartimaeus was our Lord’s refusal to take one more step on His journey to Jerusalem until He had helped this man. Having heard Bartimaeus’s cry for mercy, “Jesus stopped” Jesus certainly could have spoken a word of healing as He kept walking, but that was not Jesus’s way. He wanted to give this man His full attention as He ministered to him. Next, in order to perform His healing ministry, Jesus said, “Call him”. Jesus wanted Bartimaeus to be brought into His presence. The man`s reaction was as immediate as it was energetic: St. Mark writes, “Throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus”. What happened after that may at first seem superfluous. Jesus asked him, “What do you want Me to do for you?” Jesus’s question invited Bartimaeus to express his desire in specific words; which helped him focus on his own need and on Jesus’s power to heal, and his answer let bystanders know that the plea was not for alms but for the far‑more‑precious gift of eyesight. The meditations and desires of our hearts, although perfectly clear to our Savior, take on an added dimension for us and for others when we put them into words. Our Lord speaks to us of His mercy in words, and He invites us to put our desire for that mercy into words.
With preliminaries out of the way, Jesus proceeds with the healing act. How does He perform it? St. Matthew's account tells us that Jesus “in pity touched their eyes” (Matthew 20:34). Mark omits this outward act but quotes these words of Jesus: “Go your way, your faith has made you well”. The effect was immediate. Thanks to the power of Jesus’s word, the blind man was able to see. Jesus commends those who in faith come to Him for help and healing. Bartimaeus had clearly expressed his faith in Jesus as the Messiah, mighty in word and deed and given to mercy. Faith in Christ as the Savior from sin and Giver of eternal life is an unspeakably great force in our lives: It has the power to save and to make whole, not because of any virtue or vigor in itself, but because faith relies on Christ and His Word.
Although no longer present with us in the exact same way, Jesus Christ, our Savior Who hears our pleas, is nevertheless still present, speaking His healing Word. In Holy Baptism, Jesus’s healing Word combined with water rescues from death and the devil those who believe it. In individual Holy Absolution, Jesus’s healing Word spoken by the pastor forgives the sins of those who privately confess to him the sins that they know and feel in their hearts. In Holy Communion, Jesus’s healing Word combined with bread and wine gives His Body and Blood, to strengthen and nourish us body and soul to live everlasting. Let us not sell short the power of Jesus Christ through His Word and Sacraments to heal us as total persons.
There can be no repayment for any gift God gives, but there can and should be responses on the part of all recipients. On the Jericho road after blind Bartimaeus had received his sight, he apparently followed Jesus as a disciple and spoke words of thanks and praise. The short, crisp account in Mark makes no direct mention of either, but St. Luke’s account mentions both, saying “Immediately he recovered his sight and followed Him, glorifying God, and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God” (Luke l8:43). As the Savior Who hears our pleas blesses us through His personal relationship with us, we also follow Him as disciples and speak words of thanks and praise, and, as a result, others come to praise God. Together in the Church we not only follow Jesus in the easier way of going to a festival‑bound company of pilgrims but also in the harder way of carrying the crosses He permits us to face. Christianity is not of the balcony or the easy chair but of the road to the cross. We live in the forgiveness of sins with each other because we have received forgiveness from God. To Him—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—be all the glory, now and forever!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +