Receive your sight; your faith has made you well

Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.  For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon.  They will scourge Him and kill Him.  And the third day He will rise again."  But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.

Then it happened, as He was coming near Jericho, that a certain blind man sat by the road begging.  And hearing a multitude passing by, he asked what it meant.  So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by.  And he cried out, saying, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"  Then those who went before warned him that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"  So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be brought to Him.  And when he had come near, He asked him, saying, "What do you want Me to do for you?"  He said, "Lord, that I may receive my sight."  Then Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has made you well."  And immediately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying God.  And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.

- Luke 18:31-43

On Saturday we read that Jesus was casting out a demon, and it was mute.  So it was, when the demon had gone out, that the mute spoke; and the multitudes marveled.  But some of them said, "He casts out by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons."  Others, testing Him, sought from Him a sign from heaven.  But He, knowing their thoughts, said to them:  "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls.  If Satan is also divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?  Because you say I cast out demons by Beelzebub.  And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out?  Therefore they will be your judges.  But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.  When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace.  But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils.  He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters."

Then He took the twelve aside and said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished.  For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon.  They will scourge Him and kill Him.  And the third day He will rise again."  But they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.  Today the lectionary skips ahead from chapter 11 (Saturday's reading, above) to chapter 18.   An this point in the Gospel, this is Christ's third warning to the disciples about what is to come at Jerusalem.  But, we note, still they understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.   My study bible says that the saying was hidden not by God, but rather because the disciples couldn't understand His meaning until the actual events of the Passion had taken place.

Then it happened, as He was coming near Jericho, that a certain blind man sat by the road begging.  And hearing a multitude passing by, he asked what it meant.  So they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by.  And he cried out, saying, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!"  Then those who went before warned him that he should be quiet; but he cried out all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!"  So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be brought to Him.  And when he had come near, He asked him, saying, "What do you want Me to do for you?"  He said, "Lord, that I may receive my sight."  Then Jesus said to him, "Receive your sight; your faith has made you well."  And immediately he received his sight, and followed Him, glorifying God.  And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.  Son of David is a Messianic title, and this blind man is therefore recognizing Jesus as the Christ with his plea, have mercy on me!   My study bible says that even though Jesus knows what we want before we ask, He calls us to ask freely so that we might learn of His mercy (What do you want Me to do for you?).  But in this context we see (and the blind man hears) the crowds who go before, who warned him that he should be quiet.  But that does not stop blind man; instead he cried out all the more.  Have mercy on me! is the refrain of the Church, both in prayer services and in private prayers everywhere in the world.  In a spiritual interpretation of this healing, patristic tradition sees in this an image of the persecuted Church to come which struggles against those who would silence her, but who nevertheless all the more confesses Christ.    The blind man represents those of the future who come to Christ not by seeing but by hearing (see John 20:29).

The story of the blind man seems quite strikingly to be a teaching about prayer.  Have mercy on me! is a plea of frequent prayer.  In this context, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! is equivalent to the oft-heard prayer of the Church in all contexts, "Lord have mercy."   This is the basis of what is called the Jesus Prayer, or Prayer of the Heart, developed through monasticism as a formula for constant prayer.  It is called Prayer of the Heart as its constant repetition is meant to fulfill St. Paul's admonition to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17), and thereby sinks more deeply into consciousness, into the heart, the center of all that we are.  In the language of the tradition of the Church, the heart is the seat of the soul, our center of being.  Lord have mercy, then, becomes a plea for all that ails and needs healing, everything that needs to be set right, with ourselves, for others, for the world, for the cosmos of all that is created by God.  "Lord," of course is another title for God, and also for the Messiah.  Note that in today's passage, Jesus approaches Jericho.  Jericho, as we've noted in other readings and commentary, is a town that symbolized sin, the state of the world (see, for example, Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan).  In the case of today's reading, the man's blindness can be a symbol for sin.  We do things a certain way, we live a certain way, but we don't really see fully; there are ways of life we're blind to, the things of God we have not accepted, and therefore the healing we can't fully grasp and live.  Keep in mind, in this context, that sin can happen out of ignorance and that the word for sin in the Greek of the Gospels simply means "missing the mark."  There may be all kinds of ways in which we sin but are unaware, for which our enlightenment is necessary to correct, ways in which we could be living our lives closer to the mark of the image Christ holds for us as fully "healed" and living in holiness.  But this blind man knows that he is blind, unlike so many of us as we walk through life.  And his plea for Christ to have mercy is a plea for healing.  The most salient point in this context, then, is perhaps Jesus' particular remark after the blind man's healing, "Receive your sight; your faith has made you well."  In many stories of healing in the Gospels, Christ also attributes a person's healing to their faith (such as the healing of the woman with the blood flow).  But here, to receive his sight is particularly meaningful in the context of repeated and persistent prayer.  In chapter 11, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray (see this reading).  In response, He taught them the Lords's Prayer, or what is known as the Our Father.  After giving the prayer, Jesus taught, "So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.  If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will be give him a serpent instead of a fish?  Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"  In other words, the persistent prayer of faith is that which will be rewarded with illumination, deeper understanding, light -- all metaphors for sight in the ancient world.   Through persistent prayer, our faith can make us well and bring us healing through the gifts of God, and in particular the Holy Spirit.  This message is especially important for us in this week of Pentecost (yesterday in the West and this Sunday in the East).  What is illumination to you?  What is enlightenment, true sight, greater understanding?  What does that have to do with healing?  With making us well?  These are the questions we should really be pondering.  With the gift of the Holy Spirit, it is clear that growth in our faith and understanding, communion and participation in the life God and the Kingdom, is the most significant way to know that we become healed, that God works through us.   To be made well, in this context, is a matter of persistence in prayer and faith, and the desire for what it is God offers.   Let us note that Jesus invites the blind man into dialogue by asking him, "What do you want Me to do for you?"  But God's healing may not always take on the form we desire or expect; to heal our blindness is one thing, but to respond to the demands of blindness is another.  St. Paul famously tells us that he prayed several times for healing -- from what exactly we don't know.  He writes, "Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me.  And He said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:8-10).  When we are blind, we ask to see -- in faith; and it is the faith, we're told, that makes us well.  Let us consider the perfection of St. Paul, and its paradoxical place within his weakness, for this is the perfection and mercy of God, for which we need true sight to know that it is also our healing.