Have mercy on us, O Lord, son of David!

 

 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 Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, 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 the two blind men greet Jesus as Lord, which is the common title for God, and also Son of David, a title deeply associated with the Messiah.  Although Jesus knows what we want before we ask, it notes, Jesus calls us to ask freely so that we might learn of His mercy.  There is also a patristic spiritual interpretation to this miracle; in that understanding, 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 each generation, try to silence the Church, and still attempt today to do so.  Nonetheless, under persecution, the Church all the more confesses Jesus Christ.

 

 Blindness has an important significance in spiritual terms.  We first might turn to Christ's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount regarding the lamp of the body, or the eye:  "The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"  My study Bible interprets this symbolically and spiritually, indicating that Christ is referencing the mind.  It says that the mind (νους/nous in Greek) is the spiritual "eye" of the soul.  It illuminates the inner person and governs the will.  To keep one's mind wholesome and pure is fundamental to the Christian life.  This word for mind in Greek is used widely in Orthodox theology to indicate our capacity for the grasping of spiritual things, and is what is understood to be referenced by Christ in the many times He echoes the words of the prophets regarding spiritual blindness (see Isaiah 6:10, Jeremiah 5:21, Ezekiel 12:2, Matthew 13:15, Acts 28:27, Romans 11:8).  In Matthew 15, Jesus referenced the Pharisees as those who are blind, meaning spiritually blind.  When the disciples asked Him if He knows that the Pharisees were offended by His teaching, He replied, "Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch" (see Matthew 15:1-20).  But here, by contrast, we are ask to see the poetic symbolism of the Holy Bible in a different way.  For these men, although physically blind, are apparently the only ones in this crowd in Jericho who have true spiritual sight.  They see the truth about Jesus, as is evident in their calling to Him, using correct titles for His authority and Person, such as Lord, and Son of David.  They also perceive enough to know to ask for His mercy, for it is God's mercy in action, even Incarnate, that Jesus embodies for us in the world and in His ministry.  Note also how they are set apart from the crowd, which does not understand Jesus' nature, as evidenced by their attempting to shut down the pleas (read that as "prayers") of the two blind men.  There is also an interesting connection, as occurs in the Gospels from time to time, between the senses of sight and of hearing and of speaking.  For while these blind men may not have the physical use of their sight (their eyes), Jesus stops and encourages them to use what they do have -- their hearing and their ears.  They have already made themselves a chance through the use of their voices, addressing Jesus by true titles, and pleading for mercy.  Here He stops and asks them to explicitly plead or pray for what they want, "What do you want me to do for you?"  They must use their voices to articulate what diminished sense they wish to be restored -- importantly, to be "opened" to them, saying:  "Lord, that our eyes may be opened."  We are told of Jesus' response with compassion, and He touched their eyes, and they immediately they received their sight.  These three components of the story:  Christ's compassion, His healing by touch (that His body is life-giving), and the immediacy of the healing are again all hallmarks of Christ's work in the Gospels.  But let us consider once again that before receiving their physical sight, these formerly blind men first had spiritual sight enough to know who Jesus is, to address Him unceasingly despite the attempts of the crowd to silence them, and to respond to Christ's question in the way they were asked to.  It is their spiritual sight, their inner mind's understanding, that comes first, and makes possible this outcome through faith.  It helps also to understand the context of this miracle, the city of Jericho.  Jericho was a low-lying city strongly associated with sin.  The parable of the Good Samaritan is set on the road to Jericho as travelers there were a frequent target for ambush by bandits.  Sin and blindness, such as the blindness of the crowd that seeks to silence the blind men, are strongly correlated; so Jericho functions as a backdrop of a sinful world into which we're all born.  Blindness of many kinds infiltrates our lives in the ways of the world and its limited understanding and sight of the ways of God, and God's salvation plans for us.  Let us consider also that it is often through affliction that we are visited with opportunities for healing in spiritual terms.  Just as these blind men are encouraged by Jesus to use their other senses to communicate with Him and request what they want so they are drawn out in their expressions of what they want, so our own obstacles and perceived "handicaps" and challenges may also be the instruments of our coming to God, our learning to overcome what hinders us and moving toward Christ in our own lives.  Prayer is so often a response to difficult circumstances, and so such opportunities may be in fact in disguise, so to speak, as the ways in which our true enlightenment may be made possible for us.  Let us consider the poetic reality of the Gospels as well as this dimension of how our spiritual lives and God's presence is at work in the world.  For "we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).  And to this, the blind men testify.