What do you want Me to do for you?

 

 Now as they went out of Jericho, a great multitude followed Him.  And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!"  Then the multitude warned them that they should be quiet; but they cried out all the more, saying, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!"  So Jesus stood still and called them, and said, "What do you want Me to do for you?"  They said to Him, "Lord, that our eyes may be opened."  So Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes.  And immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed Him.

 

- Matthew 20:29-34 

 

 Yesterday we read that as Jesus now began going up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, "Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify.  And the third day He will rise again."  Then the mother of Zebedee's sons came to Him with her sons, kneeling down and asking something from Him.  And He said to her, "What do you wish?"  She said to Him, "Grant that these two sons of mine may sit, one on Your right hand and the other on the left, in Your kingdom."  But Jesus answered and said, "You do not know what you ask.  Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?"  They said to Him, "We are able."  So He said to them, "You will indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with, but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by My Father."  And when the ten heard it, they were greatly displeased with the two brothers.  But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them.  Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.  And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave -- just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."

 

  Now as they went out of Jericho, a great multitude followed Him.  And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!"  Then the multitude warned them that they should be quiet; but they cried out all the more, saying, "Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David!"  So Jesus stood still and called them, and said, "What do you want Me to do for you?"  They said to Him, "Lord, that our eyes may be opened."  So Jesus had compassion and touched their eyes.  And immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed Him.  My study Bible comments that these two blind men greet Jesus as Lord, which is the common title for God, and also Son of David, a title which is deeply associated with the Messiah.  Although Jesus already 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 spiritual interpretation to this miracle in patristic literature, in which the blind men symbolize future generations who would come to faith only by hearing, without the benefit of seeing Christ in person (see John 20:29).  Those who tried to silence the blind men are persecutors and tyrants who, in every generation, try to silence the Church.  Nonetheless, under persecution, the Church all the more confesses Jesus Christ.

 

The blind men ask Jesus for one thing:   "Lord, that our eyes may be opened."  This is in some sense a strange phrasing of their desire.  Jesus has asked what they want Him to do for them.  They don't say, "We want you to open our eyes."  What they say is the final result they want, the reality they seek for themselves -- to have eyes that have been "opened."  In the Greek, when Jesus asks, "What do you want Me to do for you?" that word for "do" is a specific word that actually means to create, to form, to make something.  It is ποιέω/poieo in the Greek, the root from which is derived "poem" and "poetry."  In Genesis 1:1, when the text tells us, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," the Septuagint text uses this word translated as "created."  John the Baptist uses this same word in Matthew 3:8, when he demands that the religious leaders "bear fruits worthy of repentance" (in this case we understand it as akin to the command to "produce" something).  So, taking this word with its associated meanings, we see that Jesus is essentially asking the men what they want Him to create for them; or rather, what they want Him to produce using His powers as Creator.   Their response makes sense of this:  they want an outcome in which their eyes have been opened.  In a sense, in order to make this response to Him in reply to His gracious offer, they have had to envision what they would truly desire as an outcome, what thing they really want in life, and this is truly what Jesus is asking them.  Perhaps we should think this way, in terms of creation, and outcome, when we stop to think what our deepest and dearest desires are.  What would we want God to create or make for us?  Do we desire our relationships to be better?  Would our dearest wish be to have talents that we don't have?  Or how about simply that our eyes also be opened?  That is, to have the ability to see what we don't see, to detect what we don't detect, to perceive what we don't perceive.   Thinking about it in these terms, this is more than a request just to see as everyone else sees.  It is a request to truly see, that one's eyes may be opened to what Christ might give us the capacity to see, what the Creator may make us capable of seeing if God should be the One who opens our eyes.  Think then, what that kind of creative power might enable us to see!  The fullness of this request, then, becomes a request for all of us.  For there are so many things that we don't really see, that we can't commonly perceive.  But there are ways in which the God can open our eyes to perceptions that aren't part of everyone's every day experience.  Think of the ways in which the Holy Spirit makes possible for the apostles to see what they didn't see even when Christ was still with them.  Think what it might mean to have our perceptive faculties made open by God, by Christ.  Then how far might we possibly see?  How deep might our perceptions become?  What things could we see that we are blind to right now?  This is, in fact, a way to think about the creative power of God, that gracious call extended to these men by the One who asks, "What do you want Me to do for you?"  Let us consider all the ways we might answer that question, and how the question itself opens up so much more than we ever might have considered.  Elsewhere, Jesus teaches, "For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind" (John 9:39).  Let us be the ones who seek what He wants us to see, which might be so much more than we know.