QuinquagesimaJesse JacobsenTypeset
Last Modified: "Sat Feb 2 17:42:32 2008" |
1 Our Lord Departs for Jerusalem
Today’s text shows us a dramatic contrast,
as between bright light and pitch darkness.
On the dark side are the twelve disciples of Jesus,
who didn’t know what He was talking about.
On the light side is a blind beggar,
who refused to stop believing and hoping in Jesus.
The difference between them is dramatic and ironic,
because it’s the difference between blindness and sight.
Because it’s not the disciples who see, but the blind man.
It demonstrates something exceedingly important:
Our own natural abilities are not able to discover divine truth,
but God alone can open our eyes of faith.
Jesus is well-known:
loved by many,
but also hated by some men of influence.
He knows what is going to happen to Him, and why it must.
That knowledge is now the foundation of our faith.
It means that we have eternal life.
But just as we often lose perspective in the middle of things,
Jesus’ own disciples were baffled by what He said.
So our Lord departs for Jerusalem.
He goes to complete His task and our work
We see Him go, but only through faith
2 Luke 18:31-43
Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, “Behold, we are going up to
Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son
of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and
will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill
Him. And the third day He will rise again.” But they understood none of these
things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things
which were spoken. Then it happened, as He was coming near Jericho, that a certain blind man sat
by the road begging. And hearing a multitude passing by, he asked what it
meant. So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried
out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Then those who went
before warned him that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more,
“Son of David, have mercy on me!”
So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be brought to Him. And when he had
come near, He asked him, saying, “What do you want Me to do for you?”
He said, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.”
Then Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has made you well.”
And immediately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying God. And
all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.
3 He goes to complete His task and our work.
What is your responsibility before God?
Our answer to this question reveals something about us.
Our government rightly enforces a separation between church and state.
So in the schools run by our government —
like the ones I attended from Head Start to High School —
those schools are supposed to separate faith from fact.
They are supposed to teach only facts,
and not matters of faith.
Yet in some classes an answer is at least strongly implied:
What is your responsibility to God?
The answer often given is something like this:
There is no god.
Even that answer requires faith,
while showing the limits of a faith-less classroom.
We can’t really blame the schools for this,
because it’s built into public education:
Our government just doesn’t have all the answers to teach.
So if we can’t each learn our responsibility to God at school,
then where?
Lots of people never set foot in a church.
Many parents prefer not to teach matters of faith themselves.
We have to learn it from God.
As it happens, we can confidently answer that question here.
Our responsibility to God is twofold:
First:
Matthew 5:48, You shall be perfect,
just as your Father in heaven is perfect.
Second:
Ezekiel 18:4, The soul who sins shall die.
Our responsibility to God, therefore is:
to be perfect in every way,
keeping all His commandments without exception,
and for anyone who has not done this,
to die for the guilt of our sins.
This is our work to do, our task set before us.
Which of us is perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect?
How many of us, therefore, must die for the guilt of our sins?
In the home, everyone has to learn to do their jobs:
sweeping, laundry, dishes, picking up toys, and such.
We have to learn that there is no other choice.
With God, the only choice of every imperfect human
is to die.
Isn’t there some other way?
Psalm 49:8 says
The redemption of their souls is costly,
And it shall cease forever.
The necessity of our death is too great.
Not even an angel can overcome it.
But then, as a matter of fact,
hear again what Jesus told His disciples:
Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written
by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will
be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon.
They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.
This is the death that justice demands from every sinner,
but Jesus was never a sinner.
So we are told in 1 John 2:2,
And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins,
and not for ours only but also for the whole world.
This Man who was perfect, just as the Father is perfect,
was about to go willingly to His suffering and death.
This was the guilt-payment, or “propitiation” God provided
to redeem every sinner in the world.
Was it enough?
1 Peter 1:18–19, You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like
silver or gold, … but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot.
His blood is precious because He is no mere man.
He is the Son of God.
As God’s Son, Jesus came to earth for one purpose:
to pay the price for our redemption by dying on the cross.
That was the task assigned to Him by the Father.
When Jesus spoke to His disciples in our text,
He was telling them that He would soon complete His task.
But the death He died was owed not by Him, but by us.
So when He spoke to His disciples,
He was also telling them that He would complete our work.
All of these things were hidden from them.
It means that their hearts were darkened,
so that they did not understand what Jesus was about to do.
These giants of men, the future apostles of Christ,
are like helpless infants in such matters of faith.
Like infants, they needed the illumination of the Holy Spirit
to understand, believe, and trust the work of their Savior.
4 We see Him go, but only through faith.
As our Lord departed for Jerusalem,
there was another man in Jericho who was blind:
physically blind.
Unlike the twelve disciples, this man understood.
At the least, he understood who Jesus is,
and believed that He would heal him.
He may have understood much more than that.
When this blind man asked what all the commotion was, it says:
So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried
out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Then those who went
before warned him that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more,
“Son of David, have mercy on me!”
It helps to know what he was saying.
By calling Jesus “Son of David,”
he was saying that Jesus was the promised heir of David:
the King of the Jews.
When he said, “have mercy on me,”
he was saying the same thing we do each Sunday:
Kyrie eleison, Lord have mercy upon us!
This was the hope-filled cry of faith,
a prayer to a merciful, divine Lord and Savior.
How terrible that some tried to silence Him!
Yet the same has happened to this day,
causing Christians to cry out all the more.
The blind man asked Jesus for the restoration of his sight,
and Jesus granted it, saying Your faith has made you well.
The disciples on one side in darkness,
not understanding because of the weakness of their faith;
The blind man on the other side in light,
whose faith in Christ had made him well.
This shows us what should be our heart’s desire:
faith in Christ, and the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
Ask for it as the blind man prayed, and God will grant it.
This week we will be entering the season of Lent,
leading to Easter.
We will hear about things Jesus did during His ministry on Earth:
overcoming the kingdom of Satan,
overcoming the world and our sinful flesh,
establishing the kingdom of God even here, on earth.
If we hear these things with dull minds and hearts,
the way the disciples were hearing Jesus in our text,
then we won’t really be able to understand and apply them,
like a man in a foreign country with a strange language.
But if we ask God to open the eyes of our faith,
and place our trust in the mercy of David’s Son,
then we will be blessed by the Holy Spirit,
and we will keep receiving
the forgiveness of our sins,
life purchased by the death of Jesus Christ,
and eternal salvation from the judgement of every sinner.
Even now, God has already accepted Jesus’ death in your place.
For Christ is risen.
He forgives your dull mind, and wavering trust.
He forgives all your sins, because in His eyes you are redeemed.
Even now, eternal life is yours,
and you are saved from the fires of hell.
How can you be certain of all this?
Because He said so.
You heard Him speak to His disciples in our text today.
He went to Jerusalem and completed His task and our work.
See? He did all of that for the whole world,
and therefore He did it all for you.
This document was translated from LATEX by
HEVEA.