Encounter Jesus: A Blind Beggar (Luke 18.35-42)

Images courtesy of www.LumoProject.com

Introduction

Have you ever wondered what it must be like to be totally blind? Would you close your eyes for a minute...?

What if you woke up one day, and opened your eyes, and this is what you saw; nothing. Complete darkness... After a moment, you’d probably feel a bit anxious and start to worry.

Keep your eyes closed… I blindfolded myself this week for about five minutes and walked around the house. I managed to make myself a cup of tea but only because I know where everything is. Most of the time, I was walking into walls and closed doors. It was completely disorientating and quite scary.

You’d get an emergency appointment and go to the doctor. What if the doctor didn’t know what to do? What if no diagnosis could be found? What if this condition failed to improve for days, or weeks, or months? You would have to adapt.

Keep your eyes closed… You’d definitely lose your driving licence. You might no longer be able to carry on doing your job. It might dramatically reduce your income. It might put a strain on your marriage if you are married.

You might have to move to somewhere better suited to living as a disabled person. You’d no longer be able to watch films or enjoy sport. You’d have to learn braille in order to read. You’d have to get a guide dog to go out shopping. Your whole life would have to totally change.

Thank you. You can open your eyes now if you haven’t already. If you keep them shut any longer you’ll probably drift off to sleep…

Well, having looked at encounters with Jesus from the centurion, the crippled woman, the woman with the jar of perfume and ten lepers, our last encounter, in this five-week series in Luke’s gospel, is with a blind beggar in chapter 18. It’s on page 994 of the church Bibles.

The Blind Beggar Is Like the Church

In this short story we are introduced to a man who has five problems. Five major problems.

First of all, and most obviously, he’s blind. I don’t need to give you a dictionary definition about that or go into the Greek. We all know exactly what that means; he lived his life in complete darkness.

Secondly, as a direct result of being blind, he cannot work. He is unemployed, destitute and is reduced to begging for his bread. This is the only way he can keep going; there is no jobseekers allowance or disability benefit that he can claim. His only hope of eating today is the charity of passers-by. Most days, most people probably ignore him. Let’s hope a few are feeling generous today.

Thirdly, he is side-lined. The Bible says he was sitting by the roadside; that’s his spot, that’s his place - out of the way; he’s a bystander, uninvolved in day to day life. He is in the place of a spectator, only he can’t see the show.

Fourthly, he is looked down on - literally. He’s sitting down in the dirt by the roadside. He’s almost certainly unkempt, unclean, unshaven and with dirty hair. Chances are he smells a bit rough. There’s nothing attractive you would see about this man. And we can tell just how much people look down on him because as soon as he makes a noise everyone tells him to be quiet.

And fifthly, he is dependent, he’s needy. Someone has to take him by the hand and lead him to Jesus because he can’t even do simple things like that on his own.

As I thought about this man it struck me how much he is like much of the church in our country. He could be a personification of the struggling church in the UK today. What I mean is this:

Blind: People see churches up and down the land overshadowed in spiritual darkness; where people never see or expect to see and experience the power of the Holy Spirit. There is a blind spot about the anointing of God.

Unemployed: People see churches up and down the land that don’t work; the few demoralised people who go there are spiritually idle, because they don’t know there are have spiritual gifts they can ask for and use.

Sidelined: People see churches up and down the land that are dismissed with as irrelevant and unnecessary, incapable of making any impact on the nation.

Looked down on: People see churches up and down the land that are unattractive and dull. They’re like badly run museums. They’ve had their day. The prophetic voice of God’s people is put on mute. People just say, “Oh, be quiet!”

And dependent: People see churches up and down the land that are immature and needy. Congregations lack basic discipleship. They are nursed by a pastor on a Sunday. But Monday to Saturday people are running on empty because their Christianity is little more than turning up for a performance on Sunday.

Now of course not all churches are like that. The media almost never highlights the healthy ones that are growing and full of the Holy Spirit.

But there are enough failing churches in Britain for my caricature to be recognisable. You know exactly what I mean. How long will the church in our land be an embarrassment, spiritually bankrupt, begging to be relevant, side-lined by society and nowhere near God’s purposes for it?

That’s why we’re uniting in this Thy Kingdom Come prayer initiative this week. Millions of Christians worldwide are falling to their knees and crying out to God, just like this man did, for a new and unprecedented outpouring of the Holy Spirit so that the church will be renewed and more people to come to know Jesus Christ.

When the Archbishop of Canterbury says “I cannot remember in my life anything that I’ve been involved in where I have sensed so clearly the work of the Spirit” you know this is significant.

We were praying yesterday at the prayer breakfast. There’s a prayer walk tomorrow. There’s a half-night of prayer on Thursday (you haven’t got to be there for all of it) and there’s Ablaze next Sunday evening. I hope to see you there. This is important. This is a move of God.

Setting the Scene

Anyway our reading is set around a national holiday, a bit like this bank holiday weekend, but this is just before Passover. It’s a bit like a Cup Final or a Music Festival; the roads and small towns on the way to Jerusalem, like Jericho here, are starting to fill up with pilgrims. People would throng together, stopping off to lodge for the night or to stock up on food and water.

And Jesus at this time is part of that swelling crowd, he’s passing through too and quite a number are crowding round him because Jesus is always good to be around. Stuff is always kicking off when Jesus is in town. What’s he going to do this time? Feed 5,000 people with a picnic? Annoy the Pharisees again by breaking all their man-made rules? Raise the dead? You just never know what will happen.

Close Encounter

As they pass through, our blind beggar hears a commotion and asks what’s happening. When he hears that it’s Jesus passing through he starts to make a scene.

He calls out (in v38) – the Greek word is eboesen. It means “to raise the voice, to exclaim, sorely needing a response.” He says, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” Remember, he’s blind. He’s a beggar. He’s unemployed. He’s almost certainly homeless. He probably smells.

Notice that he doesn’t say, “Well, if God is a God of love why did he allow this?” He doesn’t say, ‘This isn’t fair, you owe me an explanation.” He simply says, or rather shouts, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” He has no sense of entitlement. He has no bitterness against God. He doesn’t feel God owes him anything. He only feels his need for mercy. Do you? Do you feel you need God’s mercy?

But the crowd tell him to be quiet. Why? First of all, because it’s embarrassing, it’s undignified, it’s unseemly. It’s annoying the neighbours. Secondly, I’m sure Jesus’ minders are saying “Step aside. This is a VIP. He is much too busy to waste time on the likes of scroungers like this.”

Do you go into a shell when you’re offended? Not this man. It just makes him all the more determined to turn the volume up. He refuses to be silenced. “Jesus, Son of David!” The word translated “shouted” in v39 is different to the one in v38; it’s ekrazen. It comes with two other words, literally it reads “he much more yelled out.” It’s ear-splitting now. It’s very uncomfortable being near this man.

Kathie was pregnant once, and at about 12-13 weeks she had a threatened miscarriage. We had had three miscarriages before that, at about the same time in the pregnancy, the same signs and it didn’t look good.

We asked a friend called Marie-Christine to pray. And she got in her car and started to yell out to God. Visceral, passionate, emotional, loud crying out in prayer, she laid hold of the authority she has as a child of God and refused to accept that the baby would die.

Kathie went off to A and E and I stayed at home looking after the children. A couple of hours later she called. I braced myself. I thought it might be to say the baby had died. She said “John, they’ve found a heartbeat. The baby’s alive. They’re giving me a hormone boost and have told me to rest. Keep praying.” 27 weeks later the baby was born and we named him Benjamin. He’s been leading you in worship this morning. Marie-Christine is his godmother.

So the blind beggar cries out all the louder. And notice something in v40; Jesus stops. Not once in the gospels does Jesus ignore someone who calls out to him. Jesus always slows down. Jesus always stops. Jesus always has time.

Thank God, Jesus stopped for me. Thank God he touched my heart, changed my life.

But it’s then that Jesus gets it all wrong. Did you notice? Clearly he didn’t go to Theological College and train to be a vicar. At vicar school they would tell you off for this. “Think it through” they’d say. “He’s blind. You can see. It’s humiliating to ask him to come to you. You should go to him and crouch down to be at his level.”

Jesus knows exactly what he is doing. He calls the blind beggar to come to him to change his mind-set. All his life this man has been saying “I can’t, I’m useless, I need charity, I’m needy.” His whole life has been stuck in negative, defeatist thinking. But Jesus calls him out of that, out of negativity.

“What do you want me to do for you?” says Jesus. Is this not a slightly awkward question? The blind beggar might reply, “Fetch me a cheeseburger and double fries! Duh! I am registered blind. I walk with a white stick. I can’t work. I am reduced to begging my bread. Isn’t it obvious what I want you to do for me?”

Again, Jesus knows exactly what he is doing. He is looking for a simple confession from his lips.

“What do you want me to do for you?”

“Lord, I want to see.”

And this man is healed. And what is the first thing that he sees? The face of Jesus.

Can you imagine what it’s like to be healed from blindness?

Bob Edens from Columbia South Carolina was blind for over 50 years. Everything was darkness to him. And then, one day in 1981, he underwent pioneering surgery for a detached retina and it was a complete success. They took his bandages off his eyes and he could see for the first time. The experience was overwhelming. Here’s what he said in an interview.

"I never would have dreamed that yellow is so... yellow. I don't have the words. I am amazed by yellow.

But red is my favourite colour. I just can't believe red.

Grass is something I had to get used to. I always thought it was just fuzz. But to see each individual green stalk … and birds flying through the air… it's like starting a whole new life. It's the most amazing thing in the world to see things you never thought you'd see.

I saw orange recently in the face of a tiger. I could see the individual hairs and the colors and his eyes.

I can see the shape of the moon – and… a jet plane flying across the sky leaving a vapour trail. And of course sunrises and sunsets. And at night I look at the stars in the sky and flashing lights...

I can't wait to get up each day to see what I can see. I am still seeing most of it for the first time. Everything is like a constant high. You could never know how wonderful everything is.”

Jesus still opens the eyes of the blind today.

I have a friend called Mark Aldridge who travels a lot and helps churches around the world to grow in faith and release people in ministry. Last year he was in Uganda. They brought him a young lad called Derek who was blind. They said “Can you pray for Derek?” Mark believed God could heal this boy. But Mark felt perhaps it was time for lunch. “No” they said. “You pray for Derek now.”

So he says "You pray too" and they begin to pray. After a short while, Derek can already see better. They keep praying. There is a further improvement. They pray a third time. Slightly better still. They break for lunch. By mid-afternoon, Derek is playing football for the first time in his life.

Heidi Baker serves the Lord in Mozambique. Years ago, she was given a prophetic word “the blind will see and the poor will hear the good news of Jesus Christ.”

She prayed for the blind for a whole year and saw nothing happen. Then one day a blind beggar woman came to church. As Heidi prayed for her, her eyes began to turn from white to grey and then to brown. Her sight was restored.

The next day she prayed for another woman who had been blind since the age of eight. She received her sight too. On the third day, Heidi prayed for yet another woman who was blind from birth and she also received her sight. Now, this is a common feature of her ministry.

Ending

·        Is this the day when you say, “Yes, I am going to cry out to Jesus for the eyes of our nation to be opened?

·         Like my friend Marie-Christine, do you need to find a new intensity, a new authority in prayer about something specific?

·         Is your Christian life like this blind beggar? Are you fed up with missing out on life in all its fullness? Is this the day when you say “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me? Lord, I’m blind, my faith is not working, it’s pitiful”?

Let’s stand to pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 28 May 2017