Jesus brings resurrection life

I think we all have experienced being with someone who looks past you when you’re having a conversation with them.

This often is a sign of disinterest.

For some people it’s because they’re always scanning to see if there is someone else that they would rather be talking to.

Eye contact is a sign of respect in a conversation.

It shows attentiveness to a person.

Someone that you could always overlook is a blind person.

A blind person doesn’t know if you’re granting them the dignity of looking at them or not.

You can fade in and out of their life and there’s not a lot they can do about it.

You can’t chase someone down when you’re blind.

Jesus is moving with intention towards Jerusalem, and people are trying to chase him down.

But there’s a man who can’t.

And Jesus is going to make one last stop.

One last healing in this book of John.

He will not overlook this man.

Why?

Because Jesus is bringing resurrection life into the present.

Discuss.

3 points

Jesus: With us in misery

Misery is something that we have all experienced at different times and in different ways.

Misery is the fruit of the sin tree.

Misery is opposite of comfort.

Heidelberg 1

 What is your only comfort in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own,1 but belong—

body and soul, in life and in death

to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

Q. What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?

A. Three things:

first, how great my sin and misery are;1 second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.

This is essentially the structure of this sermon.

If joy is the opposite of misery, and misery is the result of sin, how are we liberated from misery?

The writers of the Heidelberg say there’s a 3 ingredient recipe.

Ingredient 1: Know how bad your situation really is.

This man’s physical blindness is characteristic of the profound spiritual blindness we all have.

We are all desperately blinded.

I think this is why when God saves the apostle Paul he blinds him.

Paul THOUGHT he had clear sight.

Our culture increasingly loves to surround ourselves with things that feel like clear spiritual sight.

Crystals.

Horoscopes

Tarot

Mediums

Rico and I have a friend who told us recently that he enjoys talking to the good demons.

We told him there is no such thing.

Paul had to be physically blinded in order to see his spiritual blindness.

And God will do the same thing to us.

He will use physical things to point us to our spiritual need.

This man already was blind.

He already had the physical need.

And what I love about this story is that what he seemed to need more than anything was encouragement.

He KNEW he needed Jesus.

He’s crying out “Son of David have mercy on me.”

And people are telling him to shut up.

But Jesus hears him.

And he instructs the people around him to call him.

And the word they now use to call the man, translated here as “have courage” basically means, “cheer up”.

And in the bible this word is exclusively reserved for people who are in misery.

Matthew 9:2 LEB

2 And behold, they brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher, and when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Have courage, child, your sins are forgiven.”

Matthew 9:22 LEB

22 But Jesus, turning around and seeing her, said, “Have courage, daughter! Your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that hour.

John 16:33 HCSB

33 I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”

Acts 23:11 LEB

11 And the next night the Lord stood by him and said, “Have courage, for as you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”

The second ingredient the Heidelberg writers knew was part of our liberation from misery is faith.

The entrance into resurrection life occurs by faith.

Jesus: The Giver of Faith

I find it so fascinating that Jesus stimulates faith in the life of this man.

He doesn’t just see the man’s need and immediately heal him,

he wants the man to engage with him.

Why?

Because that’s what we are made for.

Human beings are made to walk and talk with their God.

And by asking him this question,

he stimulates faith in this man’s soul.

“What do you want me to do for you?”

Rabbi, the blind man told him,

“I want to see.”

This should be the cry of our hearts.

The gift of faith is what we should earnestly desire and ask for.

Faith is believing that God is who He says He is.

New Testament II: Mark (Revised) Adoration of the Light

How could he not be desirable, who illumined minds buried in darkness, and endowed with clear vision “the light-bearing eyes” of the soul?

- Clement

The third thing the Heidelberg writers include in their liberation recipe is obedience.

Q. What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?

A. Three things:

first, how great my sin and misery are;1 second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.

Jesus: The Giver of Life

Ultimately what happened for this man?

He was given freedom.

To be blind is to be imprisoned.

To be spiritually blind is to be a slave to sin.

By faith, this man received freedom, which is life.

This is why Jesus came.

To bring the eschatological resurrection life to come into our present.

To begin to beat back the works of darkness and instill in us the fruit of life.

I tried to think of an example to illustrate how we view salvation often.

For many of us, we have spent years considering salvation to be this intellectual affair.

As if the only thing required for salvation is a certain intellectual ascent.

I’d like to label this comatose Christianity.

Where all your called to do is lay there and be in your mind all the time.

Jesus, and this is good news, has redeemed every part of us.

And not only every part of us, but all of the cosmos.

And not only has he redeemed us, but he is continuing to redeem us, and one day He will make all things new.

The church can and should be a technicolor image of the resurrection life to come.

How foolish for blind Bartimaeus if he were to say,

thank you for saving me, I hope that thing you’re doing in Jerusalem goes great and stuff, I’ll see you never.

Isn’t that exactly how we treat our Lord.

But when He saves us we are bound to him.

Which means we are to be about what He is about.

What do we see this man do?

Follows Jesus.

And this may sound redundant but what does that entail?

Moving His body.

Watching where Jesus is going and following along.

Something that prior to this moment he could not do.

This was us all.

Before Christ, in regards to your ability to be about what God is doing in our world, you were worthless.

But now.

Now the scales have fallen off of your eyes and you have the ability to see where Jesus is going.

So follow Him.

Move your body.

Following Jesus on the way is the fruit of obedience.

Obedience is an outworking of faith which is a gift from God.

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume Mark 10:46–52

It is not enough to come to Christ for spiritual healing, but, when we are healed, we must continue to follow him; that we may do honour to him, and receive instruction from him. Those that have spiritual eye-sight, see that beauty in Christ, that will effectually draw them to run after him.