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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Although I am glad to be back in East Texas, I appreciated my recent vacation, with its opportunity to visit family and friends in Austin. There, I also enjoyed swimming in U‑T’s outdoor pool where I used to swim, and I enjoyed running outdoors, both by myself in the neighborhood where I used to live and with my sister and her dogs around Town Lake. Some things about Austin continue to change, such as new construction around campus and downtown, while other things remain the same, such as the heavy traffic and the roadside beggars at major intersections. The roadside beggar in today’s Gospel Reading himself is changed, and he is changed in a way beyond his recovering his sight, a way that is important for us. As my theme for today’s sermon based on the Gospel Reading puts it, he and we are “Moved by Mercy from the Roadside to the Way”—“Moved by Mercy from the Roadside to the Way”.
Today’s Gospel Reading begins in St. Mark’s account some fourteen verses from where last week’s Gospel Reading ended. In the intervening verses, some of which we heard on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Jesus again predicted His death, and He dealt with James and John’s request to sit at positions of honor in His glory, teaching that whoever wants to be great among them must be their servant. For, Jesus said, even He came not to be served but to serve by giving His life as a ransom for many (that is, for all). Then, St. Mark gives the account we heard today, of Jesus healing a blind beggar, moving him by mercy from by the roadside to the way. (Incidentally, the English Standard Version uses those two different English words to translate the same Greek word.)
This healing of a blind beggar is so significant that Saints Matthew and Luke also give accounts of it, though in our three-year series of Readings we hear only St. Mark’s account, as we do today. As is often the case, St. Mark’s account contains its own vivid eyewitness details, such as the name of the blind beggar, Bartimaeus, and his urgent excitement in coming to Jesus when called. The account as a whole notably illustrates in one deed Jesus’s entire serving ministry, mercifully moving Bartimaeus from begging by the roadside to following Jesus on the way.
We do not know specifically why Bartimaeus’s vision was impaired, just how blind he was, or how long he had been that way, but we do know his impaired vision apparently kept him from regular work and made him depend on others’ generosity. When Bartimaeus heard Jesus was passing by, he repeatedly called out, emotionally and emphatically, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” In those calls, Bartimaeus did not specify what he wanted Jesus to do, but, when Jesus indicated His willingness to serve Bartimaeus and lead him to express his need, Bartimaeus specified recovering his sight. Bartimaeus needed and received so much more.
You and I can likewise call out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” You and I can call out for mercy for whatever is physically ailing you and me today, and, like Bartimaeus, we may well receive mercy for that particular ailment. In the Church’s historic liturgy of the Divine Service, we plea for mercy for quite a number of things. With our recent midweek study of Jesus’s parables still in mind, I was reminded of Jesus’s “Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector”, the tax collector who prayed, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner”. In our study we talked about how that plea for mercy related to Psalm 51, one of the seven penitential psalms. In Psalm 51 the plea for mercy is for cleansing of transgression, iniquity, sin. Likewise, in Psalm 130, another penitential psalm and the basis for part of today’s Introit, the psalmist cries out of the depths of sin for the Lord to hear the voice of his pleas for mercy. Bartimaeus, you, and I are sinners, Psalm 51 tells us we are born sinful, and so, more than anything, we need forgiveness. You and I individually know better than others our specific sin, but God knows them best of all, and He wants to forgive them.
Like the blind, the lame, and the others returning from exile described in today’s Old Testament Reading, Bartimaeus had been brought, by words he heard about Jesus, to plea for mercy. So, likewise, you and I are called to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sin, to believe God forgives our sin, and to want to do better. When we so repent, God in fact forgives our sin—whatever our sin might be—He even forgives our sinful natures. He forgives us totally and completely for the sake of Jesus, His Son, the Son of David, the Messiah, the Christ, our Savior.
Bartimaeus believed Jesus to be the Savior and so was made physically and spiritually well. If there was any doubt in his mind, surely the miracle itself removed it. As God in human flesh, Jesus then could—and still today can—do what people cannot do: make the blind recover their sight. Jesus healed many blind persons, but the healing of Bartimaeus is special because Bartimaeus identified Jesus as “the Son of David”, the Savior, which identification the Gospel‑writers even repeat for us. Then, immediately after today’s Gospel Reading in St. Mark’s account, Jesus enters Jerusalem, and people similarly make reference to Jesus as the Savior, as they spread their cloaks and palm branches on the road (or, the way). Jesus took that way to the cross in order to suffer and die and so save Bartimaeus, you, and me from our sin. As with His healing of Bartimaeus, Jesus was crucified and resurrected because He had mercy on us sinners. As today’s Epistle Reading puts it, Jesus “saves to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him” because He, the perfect and permanent Priest, “offered up Himself”.
We today draw near to God and find His mercy through the priesthood He established: the Office of the Holy Ministry, the preaching of the Gospel and the administering of the Sacraments in keeping with the Gospel. As St. Mark tells it, Jesus healed Bartimaeus with words alone, but Jesus heals us not only with words but also with words connected to things that touch us: water in Holy Baptism, the pastor in individual Holy Absolution, and bread and wine in Holy Communion. In these ways, we are forgiven and changed, moved from begging for mercy to following our Lord.
For many of our fellow Lutherans, instead of today’s being the Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, today is a transferred observance of Reformation Day. You and I have our observance of Reformation Day this Tuesday, with a seven o’clock evening service at Our Redeemer in Longview. As a former TV-news producer, this morning I will just “tease” that service and, appropriate to this occasion, mention Dr. Luther’s final written words. Combining his learned Latin and native German, he wrote Hoc est verum, Wir sind alle Pettler (“This is true, we are all beggars”).
Mercy moved Bartimaeus from begging by the roadside to following in the way, and mercy similarly moves us from begging for mercy to following our Lord and, as fruits of faith, to showing mercy as He showed mercy. As we follow Jesus on the way through this life to the next, whom do we encounter to whom we can show mercy? East Texas may not have roadside beggars as Austin does, but more people contact me for help than our current support of Helping Hands and our Titus Fund can help. Can we do more? (I certainly am not saying we, or even the government, can help everyone, for Jesus Himself said we will always have the poor with us.)
As Bartimaeus persisted in pleading for Jesus’s mercy, Jesus took seriously Bartimaeus’s physical need and performed a miracle for him. Others persist in their pleas for our mercy, and we persist in our own pleas for God’s mercy, living each day with repentance and faith and so in the forgiveness of sins, both from God and towards one another. As those in the Gospel Reading calling Bartimaeus told him to “take heart”, so can others and we “take heart”. Ultimately, they and we can “take heart”, because Jesus has overcome the world. In the world, we live with anxiety, but we have no reason to fear what the world might bring, for we are in the hands of the Victor over the world. His final miracle for us is our reaching our goal at the end of the way, namely, eternal life.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +