Sermon - Quinquagesima 2023 - Luke 18:31-43

The Healing of Blind Bartimaeus, Fernando Gallego, 1480-1488

God’s wisdom is hidden in the cross.

1. David did not outwardly appear like a king, but God sees not as man sees.

2. The Messiah suffering, dying, and rising isn’t grasped by human wisdom, since the world seeks outward glory.

3. Christ is glorified in His suffering; so Christians too must take up their crosses and suffer with Christ.

Dear brothers and sisters, this Wednesday we embark upon the great lenten fast, where we seek greater devotion to the word of God and pull ourselves away from our love of this world. This world blinds us, like our brothers Bartimaeus and the apostles were, to the wisdom of God. Today therefore we are reminded that God’s wisdom is hidden in the cross. In order to meditate on this, we shall consider that: (1) David did not outwardly appear like a king, but God sees not as man sees. (2) The Messiah suffering, dying, and rising isn’t readily grasped by human wisdom, since the World seeks outward glory. Finally, (3) Christ is glorified in His suffering; so Christians too must take up their crosses and suffer with Christ.

Perhaps you’re aware that David, in the Old Testament, was a great king in Israel. He slayed Goliath with the giant’s own sword, he was a skilled musician and poet writing many of the psalms, his sins (though great) were sincerely repented of and forgiven. Yet, by all worldly standards, David didn’t look like a king. He was too young, just a boy. “He was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome.” That doesn’t sound too bad, for a court musician or a farmer boy, but not quite kingly material. He wasn’t a tall, strong, mountain of man whom you’d think would valiantly charge into battle. He was a boy, not a man; a musical shepherd, not a fierce warrior.

Yet the Lord said regarding David’s mature, larger, more muscular brothers: “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.” So it is that God’s standards are different from the world’s. The world looks for glory, pleasure, and wealth right now. Yet the Lord ultimately desires the eternal salvation of His people, not simply their temporary pleasures in this world. King David was to be the second king of Israel, replacing king Saul. Saul outwardly looked like a king, but inwardly he had turned away from God. Saul stopped following the Lord and doing the Lord’s commandments; this made him unfit to be king. God’s requirement was faithfulness, not simply the outward appearance of godliness.

But the world doesn’t understand this important truth. When Jesus, the Messiah, suffered, died, and rose it made no worldly sense. Jesus plainly told His apostles that He would be “delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging Him, they will kill Him, and on the third day he will rise.” But, emphatically, the apostles didn’t get it! “They understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.”

The challenge for them isn’t that Jesus didn’t speak clearly, it’s that their expectations for Jesus were not at all what He came to actually accomplish. Worldly wisdom doesn’t understand suffering. Worldly wisdom wants only glory and pleasure right now. So when Bartimaeus was healed of his blindness by Jesus, the world understood it, “All the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.” But when Jesus talks about suffering, even His apostles are confused and don’t understand it. 

The Jews in ancient Palestine thought Jesus would be an earthly King, setting up an earthly kingdom, conquering the Roman government. But like king David, Jesus didn’t look the part, and He foretold His suffering and death. Still today there are many Christians who are only looking for worldly glory from Jesus. There’s a good number of Christians who expect Jesus to come back and set up an earthly kingdom here someday. There’s many Christians who think that if they do what Jesus says then they will be rich or prosperous here on earth. Now recently there’s been that “He Gets Us” ad campaign, (maybe you’ve seen some of their ads) which is trying to improve Jesus’ image and make Him more palatable and attractive to the world today.

The problem with all of this is that Jesus did not come to set up an earthly kingdom, but His heavenly eternal kingdom. Jesus did not come to make people rich or  prosperous on earth, but give them the eternal treasures of paradise. Jesus’ cross does not make sense to the world, it contradicts worldly wisdom, and it looks foolish to the world. “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Jesus, in all of His humility and suffering, His call to repentance, is foolish to the world. That Jesus Christ came to save sinners through crucifixion on the cross is offensive and embarrassing. “But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles.”

The world hates the Gospel. For one thing it looks weak and miserable. The emblem of our faith is a cross with the dead body of God hanging on it. The world wants success stories and positive self-help messages, but we don’t have that. The world wants to be told that you can make yourself better, because deep down you’re a good person; but that’s not the Christian message. 

Instead we preach Christ crucified. We proclaim that all are sinners and deserving of God’s eternal wrath, that there is no hope within ourselves, and that nothing good dwells within us by nature. So God, out of His infinite love for us, laid down His own life for the forgiveness of our sins. His suffering and misery was the cost for our redemption from sin.

So when we see the cross and Jesus’ dead body, it is ugly and grotesque and morbid. But such was the cost that God had to pay out of love for us poor miserable sinners. It’s unpleasant to think that I did that, I caused His suffering, my sins nailed Jesus to the tree. Truly, His ugliness is my ugliness. He who is more beautiful than all creation became ugly, despised, scorned, ridiculed, because it’s what I deserve. It’s not a nice, pleasant thought, but it’s the message of the cross. So that, in a way, the horrid image of a dead Man is the most beautiful and glorious image in all creation, because there the love of God was made manifest for me! I, who am loveless, have been shown such great love, when He became ugly and made me lovely in Him.

The cross, which is strangely despised by even many Christians, is the place where Jesus’ glory was shown more clearly than anywhere else, because it is there that Jesus’ purpose was made clear. Jesus came to redeem sinners from their sins by dying and rising for them. Therefore, we should not, we must not, ever apologize for the cross nor even the most seemingly insignificant word of God. To do so is to deny Christ and all of His glory.

This means that we Christians, who are called by Christ’s name, shall suffer alongside Him. Our Lord says: “Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me… If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” The cross of Jesus is our cross too. Like Simon of Cyrene, we have been called upon to bear our crosses, to forsake our sins, our worldliness, our riches, and ourselves, all for the sake of gaining Christ.

We don’t have to apologize for Jesus nor what He taught, we don’t have to make Him look more attractive, we simply need to be faithful to Him. We will look like fools, misunderstood by the world, shamed and canceled. The world will say we are antiquated, that we need to get with the times and evolve. We, like Christ, will be mocked and shamefully treated. So be it. The wisdom of God is hidden in the cross. Though we shall suffer here in time, the Lord will use it for His glory and according to His purposes. The world won’t understand it, and usually neither will I. But by God’s grace He will give me cross and trials in life, but He will equally give me strength and faith to endure, so that in bearing my crosses He will draw me closer to Him and the salvation which flows from His cross.

I wish you all a blessed Lent.