5th
Trinity August
Luke
18, 35-43
It happened as he approached
Jericho: a certain blind man was sitting by the road begging. Hearing the crowd
going by, he wanted to know what was happening, and they told him Jesus of
Nazareth was passing by. He cried out in a loud voice: “Jesus, Son of David,
have mercy on me!”
Those
leading the way threatened him and wanted him to be quiet. But he cried all the
louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Jesus
stopped and had him led to him. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want that I
should do for you?”
He
said to him, “Lord, that I may look up and see again.”
And
Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight. Through your faith and your trust, the
power for healing has been awakened in you.” ( your faith has healed you)
In that
moment his eyes were opened. He followed Him and thus revealed the working of
the divine within the human being--and all who saw it praised God.
5th August Trinity
Luke 18, 35 – 43
Incidents often have several
layers to them. On the surface they may seem simple enough. But opening the
layers reveals a richness of complexity.
Today’s short reading seems
simple. A blind man asks for and receives his sight. But there are further rich
layers to be mined.
First of all, this takes
place near Jericho Jericho
The man, though blind, is not
cut off from his surroundings; he perceives much – he hears; he is attentive,
even curious. When a crowd goes by, he takes the initiative to ask what is
happening. When he discovers that the well-known Jesus is in the crowd, he
amplifies his initiative. He cries out in a loud voice, addressing Jesus as the
son of David, hinting at the hope that because Jesus belongs to the house of
David, He could indeed be the expected Messiah. He asks for mercy, that is, for
compassionate consideration of the imprisonment of his blindness.
Immediately he meets with an
adversarial reaction from the leadership. He is threatened and told to be
quiet. But he does not let pressure or fear overcome his desire to connect with
Christ. He cries out all the louder.
Jesus, meanwhile, doesn’t
just storm over and cure him. He stops. He stills Himself. He invites, by
having the blind man led over to Him. The blind man must be courageous and walk
toward the one he cannot see. And then Christ asks the blind man what it is
that he wants. In effect Christ lets the blind man determine his own outcome by
having him define what it is that he wants.
And the man’s reply bears
looking at closely: “Lord, that I may look up and see again.” Luke 18:41 [2] He is asking, in effect, asking not only for everyday
eyesight. He is also saying, ‘May I raise my eyes to the heavens, to the
divine, and once again perceive that to which I am now blind. May the evolution
of my being move forward again. ’
Jesus’ answer is “Receive
your sight again.” Luke 18:42. He doesn’t say, ‘I have cured you’ or even, ‘You are
cured.’ It is as though He holds out to him his sight, which inwardly the blind
man must receive and accept. And then Jesus makes it clear that what lives in
the man’s soul, his trust, his faith, the power for healing that already lives
in him is what the man himself has awakened through his interaction with
Christ. “And in that moment his eyes were opened.” Luke 18:43 He
looked up and saw again.
After this climax of healing
it is easy to overlook the important line that follows, for it says that the
blind man then got up and followed Christ, and that it is this that reveals the
working of the divine within the human being. The working of the divine in the
human being – initiative despite resistance; the desire and movement toward
evolving again, trust in the power of healing, following Christ – this is the
revelation of the working of the divine in the human being. This is Christ in
all of us.
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[1] She is mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1. There are two Rahabs: Joshua 5, Rahab, an inhabitant who cooperated with the Hebrew spies and
subsequently joined the Hebrew people. Another Rahab is the only other Rahab in the OT - the mother of Boaz - definitely in the family tree.
[2]
Literal translation of the Greek anablepso
