Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.14UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.09UNLIKELY
Fear
0.11UNLIKELY
Joy
0.57LIKELY
Sadness
0.59LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.68LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.71LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.8LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.52LIKELY
Extraversion
0.22UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.88LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.68LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
A Blind Man Meets a Healer
Luke 18:35–43
Stevie Wonder (the singer) and Jack Nicklaus (the golfer) are sitting around the pool talking.
Inevitably the conversation turns to golf and Nicklaus is surprised to find out that Stevie Wonder, who is blind, has been playing golf for years.
The golf pro can’t believe it.
He wants some details so Stevie Wonder explains how he does it: “My caddy stands out in the middle of the fairway and calls out to me.
I listen for the sound of his voice and play the ball towards him.
Then when I get to where the ball lands, the caddy moves further down the green, shouts out and I hit the ball again.
Nicklaus is obviously impressed but then asks, “But how do you putt?”
The famous singer replies: “Well, I get my caddy to lean down in front of the hole and call to me with his head on the ground and his mouth just over the cup.
I just play the ball towards his voice.”
Nicklaus finds all this very amazing and then asks Wonder if they can play a round sometime.
Stevie agrees but says that because people don’t take him very seriously he only plays for money and he never plays for less than $10,000 a hole.
Nicklaus thinks about it for a minute and then says, “OK, that’s serious money, but I’m up for it.
When do we play?”
To which Steve Wonder answers, “You name the night.”
This morning I want to talk about another blind man.
Instead of being a professional golfer or a famous musician, this guy was wiped out by life.
Because he couldn’t see, he spent his days sitting by the side of the road, just waiting for someone to give him a coin or a piece of bread.
Before we meet this blind man, I want to first set the context for you.
If you have a Bible (and I hope you do), go ahead and open it to Luke chapter 18:35-43.
If you were to read through the Gospel of Luke, you would notice that beginning in chapter 9, there is a major shift in Jesus’ orientation.
We’re introduced to a “travel motif” that drives the remainder of the book.
We see here that His goal is not only His death, burial and resurrection, but also His ascension.
He set His face towards the place where He was going to die as the final sacrifice for sin.
And so, He begins His deliberate walk to the Cross.
There are three times in the Gospel of Luke that Jesus told his disciples about His approaching death.
And, each time He told them about what was to come, He got more explicit.
Without a doubt, Jesus is on a mission.
He’s headed to Jerusalem to do what He was born for.
Which brings us to text for this morning.
Let’s pray and then we’ll read our text.
Pray!
Jesus is approaching the city of Jericho, which is about 15 miles from Jerusalem.
Since it is about 800 feet below sea level, Jericho has a climate that is tropical and at times very hot.
The town is known as an oasis because of its fresh water spring and is called, “the city of palm trees.”
It was in Jericho that the pilgrims gathered to make the final leg of the journey to Jerusalem to celebrate the annual Passover feast.
As Jesus heads into Jericho, He meets a blind man named Bartimaeus.
We know that’s his name from Mark’s account of the story.
As we look at this incredible encounter between Bart and Jesus, there are four different stages that Bart goes through.
His Blindness
The first stage is blindness.
We see this in verse 35:
35 As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging.
Blindness was a very common problem in Palestine.
Generally, one who was blind was never healed.
In the city of Lydda, the saying was that everyone was either blind or had only one eye.
In Jaffa, there were 500 blind people out of a population of 5,000.
There was a cultural and religious stigma against blindness.
We see this especially in the account of another man who was healed of blindness in John 9.
And so, there’s a sense that the blind deserved their blindness.
Many people thought this disease was a consequence of sin, either by the individual himself, or because of something the parents did.
As a result, blind people were often ignored or even criticized.
Because this man was blind, he was relegated to a life of begging.
In the Gospel of Mark we learn that this man was wearing an old garment, which was a sign that he was a beggar.
He’s just sitting there, waiting for something to happen because there was nothing he could do to improve his condition.
This is really a picture for our spiritual condition, isn’t it?
We are spiritually blind and there is nothing we can do to change that on our own.
Just as Jesus gives sight to those who are physically blind, so too He grants spiritual insight to those who are in moral darkness.
This man knew he was blind, and so did everyone else.
Are some of you trying to act like you’re not spiritually blind this morning?
The first thing you need to do is to admit that you are just as blind in a spiritual sense as this man was in a physical sense.
Now, take a look at verse 36:
36 And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant.
This man was smart.
He knew that there would be a mass of people in Jericho that day preparing to make the journey to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover.
That’s why he was sitting by the side of the road with his hand out.
He couldn’t see what was happening, but he could hear the commotion and excitement.
And so he’s curious.
He wants to know what was happening.
Maybe he heard about a Healer who was headed to Jerusalem.
Verse 37 gives us the answer to his question,
37 They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”
His heart probably started to race.
Could it be, that the man He had heard of was right here in front of him?
It was almost too good to be true.
His Belief
The first stage is Bart’s blindness.
The second thing we notice is his belief.
Look at what he says in verse 38:
38 And he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
The crowd referred to the earthly heritage of Jesus He was from Nazareth.
That just lets us know where He grew up.
That’s like me saying that I’m from Northern Kentucky.
It tells you that I like fried chicken and Dixie Chili and normally just tell people that we’re from Cincinnati because we’re not like the rest of state, but it doesn’t tell you everything about me.
Instead of calling on Jesus as the guy from Nazareth, Bart expresses His messianic heritage.
He is the Son of David, the one who the Old Testament has been pointing to as the Savior of the World.
This blind man can see that Jesus is more than just a man from a small town in the north; He’s the God-man, sent from Heaven to be the Savior of the world.
I wonder if Bart was aware of what the Son of David had accomplished in the lives of other people?
Maybe he had heard of Jesus giving sight to other blind people.
Maybe he heard what Jesus said in Luke 4:18, when He stood up in the temple and read from the book of Isaiah:
When Bart called out for the Son of David to have mercy on him, he was expressing his belief that Jesus was the Messiah, and that He could heal his blindness.
He knew who Jesus was and He also knew what Jesus could do for him.
Do you know what Jesus can do for you?
If He can restore sight to the blind, He can grant you the deepest longing of your heart.
We need to cry out for mercy just like Bart did.
Do you know who Jesus is? He’s much more than just a good teacher.
He is the promised one, the Messiah, the Savior of the World.
If you are just beginning to get to know Him, I encourage you to join us each week as we walk together with Him to the cross.
Our journey will culminate on Easter Sunday.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9