Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!

 

 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 infants were brought to Jesus that He might touch them; but when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them.  But Jesus called them to Him and said, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God.  Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it."  Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"  So Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good?  No one is good but One, that is, God.  You know the commandments:  'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not bear false witness,' 'Honor your father and your mother."  And he said, "All these things I have kept from my youth."  So when Jesus heard these things, He said to him, "You still lack one thing.  Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."  But when he heard this, he became very sorrowful, for he was very rich.  And when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, He said, "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!  For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."  And those who heard it said, "Who then can be saved?"  But He said, "The things which are impossible with men are possible with God."  Then Peter said, "See, we have left all and followed You."  So He said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life."

 

  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.  My study Bible says that this saying was hidden not by God, but because the disciples could not comprehend its full meaning until after the evens 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.  This blind man begging by the road greets Jesus as the Son of David, which is a title associated with the Messiah.  "Have mercy on me" is the refrain of the Jesus Prayer practice, and also the repeated interjection in worship in the Church.  Note the blind man's fervent desire, repeatedly asked, and asked all the more after being told to be quiet.  That Jesus stood still is an indication of God's response to frequent, repeated, and fervent prayer.

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.  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.  There is also a patristic interpretation of a spiritual nature to this miracle.  The blind symbolizes the future generations who would only come to faith by hearing, without the benefit of seeing Christ in person (see John 20:29).  Those who tried to silence him are persecutors and tyrants who , in each generation, try to silence the Church.  But nevertheless, under persecution, the Church all the more confesses Jesus Christ.

There's something about the repeated demand of the blind man that is very poignant.  We don't know how long he has been sitting by the side of the road begging.  Like so much else that we encounter in the Gospels in the persons of people waiting for a cure, or for help, there seems to be an endless period of waiting for help and assistance.  John's Gospel speaks of the paralytic who had an infirmity for thirty-eight years, who waited by the side of the pool called Bethesda, for the time when an angel stirred the water so that he could be cured (see John 5:1-15).   There is the woman with the blood flow of twelve years, who had spent all of her money on doctors, and had only gotten worse (Luke 8:43-48).  We get a sense of persons endlessly waiting for help that doesn't come, respite that somehow isn't possible with the things at hand, the limited options that are available to them.  The stories about these people and their infirmities tell us that it is the encounter with Jesus that brings in something entirely new, "out of the box" so to speak, into the world.  The paralytic at the pool by the Sheep Gate doesn't need an angel to stir the water nor someone to put him in it.  The woman with the blood flow needed but the great courage and daring, exemplifying her faith, to touch the hem of the garment of Jesus.  And this blind man needs the alacrity, persistence, and energy he musters to realize who Jesus of Nazareth is, to shout the proper cry, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" and to have the gumption to defy the crowd and persist in his plea to Jesus.  The actions on the part of the people desiring healing in each of these stories are meant to teach us about our faith, and our proper conduct in that faith.   As Jesus has taught in many times and places in the Gospels, we are to be persistent in our prayer.  We are not to lose heart (Luke 21:9, 19).  We are to endure (Matthew 24:13).  And fervent and frequent prayer is rewarded with response (Luke 18:1-8).   So in the understanding of these stories of the hope of the paralytic, the faithful courage of the woman with the blood flow, and the persistent, insistent prayer of the blind man in today's story, we are to understand the "flavor" of our character before Christ in the midst of our faith.  We're not to lose heart, we're to insist on our prayer, we're to call upon Christ.  Often, it is quite possible that our prayers are not answered in precisely the way that we'd hoped, but it is only persistent prayer that connects us with the magnitude of the power of God to work in our lives in ways far beyond what options seem to be presented to us by life.  It is that persistent prayer that connects us with strengths we didn't think we had, hope where we were hopeless, a renewal of faith, an energy in new options and new thinking that didn't present itself before.  These are the things I have found from prayer, and they bear out the truth in the Gospels.  Possibly the greatest gift of Christ is the hope where there was none, and the outside-the-box insight into options that didn't previously present themselves.  Today's story of the blind man in Jericho is an image of the limited understanding and insight of a sinful world, and the powerful effect that prayer to Christ has on our own blindness and limitation.  There will always be new ways in which we might be expanded and enlightened, and therefore healed.  So we greet Him as Son of David, but most properly as Lord, for it is His power that we ask Him to use to help us.