Sermon - Quinquagesima 2024 - Luke 18:31-43

Jesus Healing Blind Bartimaeus, Johann Heinrich Stover, 1861

Jesus is our Savior

1. In times of need, where do we look for help?

2. Jesus is our merciful Savior.

3. We follow Jesus where He leads.

“If there’s something strange in your neighborhood who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!” Or more seriously, if there’s actually a real life emergency, the first thing we’re taught to do is call 911. If you’re having a health problem you call your doctor. If your water heater breaks you call your plumber. If you’re depressed you call your psychologist. If your house is damaged in a storm you call your insurance agent. That’s all fine and it makes sense, but where does God fit in in your times of need? Where does your help come from?

“Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me! For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me.” Our help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. The blind beggar knew to call out to Jesus for help. When he was told that Jesus was passing by, he didn’t let Jesus pass him by, instead he incessantly called out to the Lord to get his attention! “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” He would not be quieted by the crowd following Jesus, but he only cried out all the louder. He did this because the only One who could truly help him was the Lord Jesus.

Now this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t call your plumber when the water heater breaks or your doctor when you have pneumonia, but it does mean that our first line of help is from the Lord, not the plumber or the doctor. The plumber and the doctor are only going to be successful if the Lord so wills it. Before you call 911 or anyone else, call upon the Lord. It doesn’t have to be an extensive prayer, it can really be as simple as the blind beggar’s prayer, “Lord have mercy on me!”

But this lesson is also especially important when it comes to our broader issues of the day. We focus on presidents or other politicians to fix things like inflation, immigration, abortion, marriage, and education. When our churches are struggling, we think that a pastor or a district president might solve our problems. We think voting in new changes of policy will resolve our issues. We place humans and our actions as the center of the solution. While it’s true humans do need to take appropriate actions in order to make some things better, that isn’t the place to start.

The sinful human heart is the source of most of the broader cultural problems that we’re facing. The only One who has any authority over the heart is the Lord. He alone can change hearts and effect real change. He may use our words and our actions to accomplish this change, or He may not, but ultimately our help comes from the Lord, not from man. This perspective is very important in a Christian, and it’s actually what drives Chrsitians to action. Because we believe that the Lord helps us and hears our prayers, we step out and take action, knowing that God’s will is going to be done. Like the blind beggar, we cry out and disrupt the crowd, even ignoring the rebukes of those around us, in order to be faithful to the Lord and call upon His name.

We do this because the Lord is our Savior. Jesus explained very clearly that He is our Savior: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will 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.” Jesus is the Son of Man, the Son of David, the Savior promised throughout the Old Testament. He came in order to accomplish everything necessary to be our Savior. Namely, Jesus was crucified, died, buried, and raised in order to save us.

He is the Lord and has the authority to lay down His life as the sacrifice for sin, so that by His holy and innocent suffering and death the power of darkness is defeated. Sin’s effects in this world are healed through Jesus’ sacrifice. We ourselves are redeemed from sin and death, from the power of the devil, through Jesus’ sacrifice.

He did this not because of any merit or worthiness in us, but because of His great love and mercy for His creation. The blind beggar on the side of the road had nothing to offer Jesus, He had done nothing to deserve to be healed, all he had was faith in Jesus as his Savior. Yet, as Christ said to him: “Your faith has saved you.” Or in other words, because the blind man believed that Jesus wasn’t just some guy from Nazareth, but is the Son of David, the promised Savior, he was saved from sin and its effects.

We learn here that we are all like the blind beggar. We have nothing to offer Jesus, we do not deserve His mercy, and yet out of His great compassion, out of His abundant mercy, He saves us. Sure I still have the effects of sin in my body, as evidenced by the glasses I have to wear on my face, but Jesus is my Savior and He has saved me from Sin, death, and the power of the devil. When He restores my body to new life on the last day, I will be like the blind beggar and immediately I will recover perfect sight because sin will be no more.

Like the blind beggar, until that awesome day of the Lord comes we follow Jesus throughout life. Where does He lead us? Often into frightful places. Jesus said to His twelve apostles: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem.” Jerusalem was no cake walk. Jesus was brutally killed. One of the twelve fell away and killed himself. All the other eleven fled and denied their Lord in His hour of greatest need. A couple months later Stephen, the first martyr, was martyred outside of Jerusalem. All the rest of the apostles suffered a lot because they continued to follow Jesus.

Being a Christian and following Jesus today is still no cake walk. It’s definitely harder than it used to be even just a couple decades ago. I would be entirely unsurprised if one day I am arrested or considered a criminal for confessing the teachings of scripture. Even if we’re not arrested, Christian living is quite countercultural, and leaves us rather isolated. Like we sang in our hymn: “Through a world that would deceive us and to sin our spirits lure. Onward in His footsteps treading, pilgrims here, our home above.” Christianity is a pilgrimage, and we are pilgrims journeying in a foreign hostile land.

Yet, we don’t follow Jesus just because we like to suffer and be miserable or because we’re gluttons for punishment. Instead, we follow Jesus with the apostles and the blind beggar because of where our Savior Jesus is leading us. “Joy will follow all our sadness; where He is there is no loss. Though today we sow no laughter, we shall reap celestial joy; all discomforts that annoy shall give way to mirth hereafter.” 

We follow Jesus because He leads us through this hostile foreign land, out of death and sadness and into life and gladness. He has conquered death and gives us immortal breath. The grave and death has now become the gate to heaven. Jesus is the God who gives us life in a world which worships death. This world seeks to deceive us into thinking that worldly and sinful living are good and that following Jesus is restrictive and repressive. But what the world doesn’t tell you is that sinful living always leads to death and destruction, sinful living hurts us because the devil wants us to be hurting and dying. This current transgender issue is a clear example of this, because the world says that transgenderism is freeing and helpful, when it’s really nothing more than mutilating the body. 

Jesus however always leads us to life! The blind man was made whole again! Not only could he see, but he was saved and given eternal life! Even if he had still been blind, if Jesus had said to him, “no, it’s better for you to remain blind for now, and have your sight restored in the resurrection,” he would have still been saved and followed Jesus and later received physical restoration. Jesus is the God of the living, not of the dead. Jesus gives life, and no one else gives life the way that Jesus does. So when we cry out to Jesus to take away our crosses, our thorns in the flesh, and Jesus tells us “no, my grace is sufficient for you for My power is made perfect in weakness,” we continue to follow Jesus because we know that only in Him is life.

“Let us also live with Jesus. He has risen from the dead that to life we may awaken. Jesus You are now our head. We are Your own living members; where You live, there we shall be in Your presence constantly, living there with You forever. Jesus, let me faithful be, life eternal grant to me.”