Chosen to See Clearly

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[0:00] Thank you, Ellen. So let's, I want to invite you to find in your scriptures at home, if you have the scriptures at home, Mark chapter 10, verses 46 through 52, our sermon text. We detoured into Genesis last week to look at the call of Abram, but that's going to figure back into our worship today, our sermon today. But we are now continuing in Mark chapter 10. Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, on his way into conflict with all sorts of things and people and movements.

[0:33] So today I want to look at Jesus as kind of being motivated by two sort of streams. One is that Jesus has this, he's in this mode where he's definitely in conflict with everything that's standing in the way of what God wants to do in the world. So that's great. there's that. But there's also Jesus is coming with a great amount of purpose right now. And as we'll see in future weeks, especially in Mark, he is really confrontational. So in chapter 11, he's going to condemn how the temple operates in Jerusalem. He's going to get into arguments, so to speak, with people who are trying to trip him up with difficult questions. Like one of them says, can you pay taxes to Caesar? And they're hoping that he'll say something that will get him killed. Like, no, you shouldn't pay taxes. And that would get him into a lot of trouble, right? He has an argument with the Sadducees about the doctrine of the resurrection.

[1:29] He instructs a scribe on what the great commandment is. And then he openly criticizes the scribes and the greeds. These are religious leaders. And so he's making a pest of himself in these last days. And then he makes these really confident prophecies about the fate of the temple, about Jerusalem. And the coming generation. And so he's really just kind of bringing it on. So that's kind of the conflict that lies ahead of him. And now for the purpose, that's kind of the other theme is we read in Luke, a different gospel, how Jesus sets out for Jerusalem with great resolve. It says he resolutely sets his face towards Jerusalem. He's in Galilee. He wants to go south. And he just sets out on the way. He just sets his face in that direction. And he has these encounters with several would-be, what we call would-be followers. And he's going to be a follower. These are people who want to join him and follow him along. But they all have reservations. One's like, oh, I want to go bury my father. I want to say goodbye to my family. I want to take care of my family affairs and get those all in order. And Jesus says, no, never mind. Like, I'm going now. You can't catch up later. If you want to come, you come with me now. But he says,

[2:43] whoever puts his hand to the plow and then looks back over his shoulder isn't fit for the kingdom of God. So he doesn't have any room for people who aren't going to join right away. Because he's, I wouldn't say he's in a hurry, but he's in a purpose. He's purposely heading towards Jerusalem and nothing is getting in his way. He sends his disciples out and tells them, go to all these towns along the way. Stop. Preach to them. Teach them. But if they reject your message, you leave that moment. You don't even spend the night in that town because it's too precious what you have to say to give to them if they won't even listen to it. Go on to the next town right away. So there's this sort of urgency to keep moving, keep going from where they are to Jerusalem. And so they're headed for Jerusalem. They're headed for the cross and they're really stopping for nobody.

[3:31] But today we read that Jesus does stop to heal a blind man. In fact, it says that exactly in the text. He stops. It's not like he keeps walking and talking to people. He actually stops, which is, this is an interruption in the flow of the narrative that I want you to pay attention to as we'll see. So as we read, I want you to ask yourself, and then I'll give a chance to answer the question both in the chat log and anywhere else. Why does Jesus, who has said so much about not stopping on the way, why does he actually stop? So ask yourself that question. Let's go to our reading. It's Mark chapter 10 and it goes like this. Verse 46.

[4:20] Verse 46. Verse 46. Verse 46. Verse 46. Verse 46. Verse 46. Verse 46. Verse 46. I can happily, like, not help them very much, okay? Bartimaeus wants to see again. So this is one of those, what he asked Jesus is, will you let me see again? And so there's this sense that at some point in his life, he may have been able to see, right? That would absolve, in the thinking of the people then, that would absolve his parents of sin. But then people would say, well, then Bartimaeus, if he had been able to see at one point, and now he's blind, he must have done something really wrong. But what, you know? So they thought he got what he deserved. And as Victoria said, I always love how Victoria kind of lines all the pins up for us to knock over here. It's really great. Is that they saw him as less because he was blind. He must have sinned. And thus, when he wants attention from a visiting celebrity walking through town like Jesus, it's very easy for them to say, shut up. You don't matter. You don't matter. You don't matter. You don't matter. You need to stay over there sitting on the curb, begging. You're not important enough for Jesus. And as she said, it's very good, Jesus upends all of that and stops what he's doing,

[9:25] stops his motion, and has him come up. And so it kind of upends the social order. So Jesus is always, this is one thing we always have to remember about Jesus, in almost all cases, he's always doing the right thing. He's always doing the healthy thing. He's always doing the abusive thing. He's always doing the right thing. He's always doing the healthy thing. obedient thing to his father, but he's also always contradicting the dominant cultural view of his time. And he does this by healing this man. To the people there, they're like, he doesn't deserve your help. He's getting what he deserves. He does not deserve good. He deserves bad because he had sinned. And Jesus instead heals him. Our text actually says your faith has made you well. That's what we have in our text. Most Bible translations say that, but some actually say, because you could translate it this way, your faith has saved you. And that has a little bit more of a different feel to it. It has more of a spiritual feel to it than just a physical feel to it. And actually the Greek word for wellness, wholeness, and salvation is the same word. And so sometimes you have to go by the context. Most translators go with the context of your faith has made you well.

[10:39] Because he had a physical ailment. But Jesus never really just helps people physically. When Jesus helps people, he helps them in a whole holistic way. And so Jesus says your faith has saved you. Your faith has made you well. He put all those things together. Because he's talking about faith. It's a spiritual thing. Your spiritual faith has saved your physical body, but it's really going to save your whole soul, your whole body. And so Jesus says, your faith has saved your whole self. And if anyone was listening, they might have heard Jesus proclaim Bartimaeus then as a righteous person. And that would have really contradicted what they thought about blind people. This blind person is a sinner. Jesus is now calling him righteous. What's going on? Don't forget that this is the same sort of time frame as Jesus was going through Jericho, where he had an encounter with Zacchaeus, which is a great story. And Jesus says, salvation, today salvation has come. Or today wholeness has come to this house because he too is a son of Abraham. And so Jesus is including people that are being excluded. Jesus is upending the social order. The unimportant people, he elevates to the top. The important, he puts at the bottom. So Jesus is always

[11:57] contradicting or pushing back against the dominant culture. And I want us to see this as part and parcel of his conflict with the demonic in the world. He's always pushing back against the dominant culture. And I want us to see this as part and parcel of his conflict with the dominant culture. And I want us to see this as part and parcel because those sorts of rules and laws have only one source. These things that make us say that somebody is worse than somebody else, that doesn't come from the Father. That doesn't come from the Lord. It comes from the Father of lies. So there's, Jesus is undoing what was done in the fall. Remember last week, if you were here last week or you heard the sermon last week, we talk about August. So August is the end of August. August is the end of August. August is the end of August. Abram, has this sort of call from God and says, you're going to be a blessing. The people who curse you will be cursed. The people who bless you will be blessed. In you, all the nations of the world will be blessed. And so there's this undoing of the curse of the fall with these blessings that come through Abraham and his descendants, one of which is Jesus. And so this is all playing out. And so Jesus is answering the curse of the fall with the blessing of

[13:06] salvation and light and truth. And he's enacting this promise that God made to Abraham. And so it's good to think, I want us to maybe take a turn here and think about where we are now in the world that we are in. Do we have a culture like that culture? I mean, we could look back at that and go, oh, those uninformed people 2000 years ago, thinking that somebody who had a disease or a blindness or deafness was cursed because they were a sinner. We don't think that way. We don't think that way anymore, do we? You know, that was so rustic of them back then. We don't do that anymore. We're much more enlightened, but I want us to really look at our culture that we're in right now and ask ourselves, if Jesus showed up now, what would he push back against? What would he get really mad about? What would he do as an example to upend our social order? And the demonic is still at work. this world, the demonic power. And I don't do this very often because it's kind of spooky, but we're close to Halloween, so I guess it works out. To talk about the demonic, and if talking about it makes you uncomfortable, I understand. But I don't think we can ignore its existence, both in the time of Jesus and now. We don't do a lot of exorcisms here at the church,

[14:29] I promise you, though I've done one or two, and I can tell you it's real from my perspective. Honestly, I have. But Satan, I think Satan's big tool now and continues to be is to work through lies, and to work through greed, and to work through systems of injustice, and through cultures that divorce themselves from the way of life that God commands. So Satan is still at work in this world, right? We can idolize the rich in our culture, or the successful, and to a certain extent we do. And we can even assume today that the poor deserve to be poor. Right? When I was a youth pastor at a different church, but in an affluent community, once we talked about poverty, and I said to the kids, I said, why do you think poor people are poor? And it was like their parents were with them in the room, because they just said things that they had heard their parents say. And I was like, oh, this is interesting. If you want to hear what parents say, just ask kids questions, you know, which is a little bit like putting a bug in their house and kind of listening in. But one of the kids, and they are all like the same, they're like, oh, the poor people are poor because they're lazy.

[15:34] So I was like, oh, that's what you're hearing at home. And, right, there's a little bit of truth in that, in at least one direction. And I'll tell you what it is. You know what it is. If you are lazy, you will end up impoverished fairly quickly, because you, unless you're, you know, are born into a wealthy family, or somebody plops a lot of money in your lap, or you win the lottery. So if you're lazy, yes, you'll probably end up poor, but there are a lot of poor people who are not lazy at all. They're just poor because they haven't had the opportunities, or they, their hard work doesn't pay off at the same rate as other people's hard work. They haven't had the opportunities or the circumstances that would allow them to exit from poverty. And so it kind of only works one way. If you're lazy, you're poor, but if you're poor, you're not necessarily lazy. But we think that way. I think that can creep into our thinking. That's a cultural thing. We love, we love fame, we love wealth, we love, we love people who can trend well on social media, all that stuff. But do we ignore the vulnerable? Do we ignore those with infirmities? Do we ignore the young, the old, the other? We do. We do. That's our culture. And so Jesus would come now, and I think

[16:48] he would go, hey, you're paying too much attention to the wealthy, the famous, the athletes. They'll, they're getting what, I mean, they're, they're doing just fine. Why don't you pay attention to those who can't fend for themselves? For the vulnerable, right? So what else would Jesus confront if he came here now?

[17:12] I think he would, I think he would stand up against a lot of the lies that are just floating in the ether out there. I don't have time to talk about them all, but, but I don't think the truth has taken more of a beating than it has in the last two years. I, I, but I could be wrong. I mean, I don't, I haven't lived that long. I don't know. I don't know. But I just feel like the, yeah, go ahead. I mean, could you argue that Jesus was poor, and that, so his view of the world at the time was through a poor person's lens? Yeah. I mean, where you are in society, those will depend on who you think, where the demons are, right? Yeah. Yeah. When you ask the question, you challenge us, I mean, should we think as if we're Jesus, or should we think as if we're living on salt boats, when we, you know, we're not, you know, this is a nice area. We are living in a different place. Yeah. More than in other parts of the world, right? Yeah. Because how do we, do you try to look at both, even though you're not? Yeah. Or in a different world, let's say. So we did get some notes that not everybody can hear when people in the crowd speak, but John asked a very good question, is does Jesus say this because he himself was poor,

[18:22] and how should we view the world? Should we view the world as if we're like Jesus, and poor like Jesus, or should we view the world, did I get that right, as if we are actually living in a very wealthy place in the world? And I guess maybe the answer is no. I think the answer would be both, and I don't know how poor Jesus was. I assume he was pretty poor, but I think he could see the world outside of himself, too. So I think he wasn't constrained just by the worldview of somebody who was poor. I think he could see the whole world at once, hopefully. But I think we shouldn't feel bad for being wealthy, unless you've gotten your wealth by bad means, you know what I mean? I think that can be a blessing, but it's also like, it's this, it's like, it's like kind of like Spider-Man, you know, with great, with great gift comes great responsibility. And so when we have more than others, and we are, our eyes are open to the suffering in the world, there's that call to generosity and that selflessness that, that, that Christ calls himself to, and Christ calls other people to.

[19:20] And there's this upending of the order, this sort of subversive upending of the social order that Jesus is always doing. And I don't think he, I think he wants us to do the same. I think he wants us to look at our brokenness, our broken social order, cultural order and go, hey, you know, this isn't quite right, or it's terribly not right. And we need to do what we can to kind of upend it, turn it over. That's good. And I'm glad John did that. And if anyone wants to do that, raise their hand while I'm talking, do it. I like that. I really like that.

[19:54] So, let's go back to the story. Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem. He doesn't want to, he doesn't want to put his hand to the plow and look back. He doesn't want to be a slave. He doesn't want to be a hypocrite because he just said, don't stop, keep moving. But as he's walking along, someone screams for him. And the people who don't think he deserves it, tell Bartimaeus to shut up. And if you read the text, kind of how the verbs are kind of put together, it implies that the more they told him to be quiet, the louder he became. And so this exchange could have been longer. Like he's like, I want to hear him. People like shush. It's like, no, I want to hear, I want to see him. No, you gotta be quiet. And then louder and louder and louder. So there's this crescendo. And you don't, it doesn't capture exactly in just a few sentences, but there's this idea that he's not going to take it anymore. He's like, this is my chance. You tell me to be quiet. I'm going to yell even louder. I'm going to yell until, until Jesus notices me. Right? It's that persistence. Exactly. Something woke up in him and said, I am doing this. I've lived my life like this too long. My moment is now, and I'm not going to let it get away. And I think that's what Jesus responds to.

[21:03] His persistence. But also the fact that this is what Jesus was called into was to help the blind. So he's screaming at the top of his lungs. Just imagine, you know, this is a bit of a scene. There's kind of sometimes an orderly procession as a, as a dignified person walks through town. And there's this person that nobody thinks much of is screaming his head off. So this is a scene. This is an interruption. This is, this is a social faux pas. They're like, you're not supposed to be this loud right now. You have to stop that. And Jesus stops and says, okay. And he says, bring him over here. And everybody's like, wow, you got a break today. Take heart, you know, come on up. And so Jesus waits while a blind man gets up from the curb and walks to him. And that takes a while, right? Cause blind people don't move very quickly if you know, unless they have somebody helping them. So Jesus is totally interruptible and says, bring him here. And then there's this wonderful question.

[21:55] Jesus actually doesn't assume he says, what do you want me to do for you? It's not obvious. Although it is obvious. But he, he frames these encounters with this question because he had actually asked the very same question to his disciples, James and John in the section before this in the scripture. What do you want me to do for you? And there's such a contrast because what they said was, we want to sit by your side in glory. That's what they wanted. But here's a blind man. That was a selfish sort of grandiose request, right? We want to sit one on your left and one on your right. When you come again in glory. And this is such a contrast with Bartimaeus. He's it's a straight and clear and simple answer. He says, I want to see again.

[22:44] I have this immediate personal physical need. I want you to help me. I've lived like this too long and I used to be able to see, and now I can't. And so probably maybe misses it all the more. And so he was healed and Jesus says, it was your faith that healed you. Now. Jesus, of course did heal him, right? Jesus did heal him, but his faith was such a part of it because there was nothing. It seems in Bartimaeus his mind that was any reservation that Jesus couldn't heal him. Jesus definitely could. And so he yelled as loud as he could. And so that, and from that moment he began to follow Jesus. And I'm curious, like I would love to know, cause it's not mentioned. Does that mean he leaves Jerusalem that Jericho that day and follows Jesus all the way to Jerusalem? Does that mean he. He was near the place where Jesus was crucified and raised again and was one of those disciples later on in life? We just don't know, but it's one of those really intriguing questions. What happened to Bartimaeus? Cause it said he started following Jesus from that moment on.

[23:48] In the beginning of Jesus's real mission in this world, Luke chapter four, we read that he sits down in the synagogue in Nazareth and he reads from the scroll of Isaiah chapter 61. And he reads this. Luke chapter 61 verse 1. And the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me. This is very messianic language because that's the word for Messiah is the anointed one. He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And then when Jesus had stopped reading the scroll, he said, today, this scripture has been fulfilled. It's been fulfilled in your presence. And at that moment he was claiming, this is me. This is my mission. And it includes to bring the sight to the blind, good news to the poor, right? Proclaim release to the captives, let the oppressed go free, proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. So he laid it all out in the beginning. And the question is, why did he stop? Why did he go off mission? This was the mission. This was the mission. It was always the mission to bring sight to the blind.

[25:03] And he's compassionate. And he's here to bring release for those held captive to sin and death and the devil. And it's all part of this great cosmic conflict that's just going to keep growing as he gets closer to the cross. And I mentioned some of the future conflicts he'll have.

[25:19] This cosmic conflict he's in with the demonic power, which is ruling the world. And it plays out in every area. It plays out in physical health, in power, in culture, in family, in politics, and in truth itself. Like actually telling the truth.

[25:34] And we get that Bartimaeus is physically blind. But the healing of a blind person, it carries all these spiritual meanings too. And blindness, when you read about blindness in the scriptures and it's described as blindness, it's not always physical blindness they're talking about. In this case, clearly it was. But there's sort of a different kind of blindness, which is the spiritual blindness, the inability to see or sense what God is doing in the world. What the spirit is doing in the world. The inability to sense our own sin. That's big. That's the spiritual blindness. To be a hypocritical person and not, and to, like the religious leaders he was talking to, you tell other people not to do these things, but you do them yourself. That's a spiritual blindness.

[26:19] And so when you have this encounter with Jesus, people always come away from it being able to see things as they truly are. So even, even today. Even non-physically blind people, when they encounter Jesus, they lose some of their spiritual blindness. Unless they reject him completely. And this is a really powerful thing. And this kind of goes back to what he says from Isaiah 61. I'm bringing recovery of sight to the blind is not just for the physically blind. It's for a blind world that's unable to sense what God is doing. And in a blind world that can't see the rot and the brokenness in their own culture. Right?

[27:01] So, um, when you have this encounter with Jesus, you see the lies all around you more clearly and you see the lies that you tell yourself and you see, then you start to see the lies that you tell other people. And I'm still pondering how telling the truth breaks demonic power, but it really does. Telling the truth breaks demonic power because the way the fall began. Remember? The way the fall began in Genesis chapter three, it began with a lie from the serpent about God. That's how the fall began. It began with a lie. We call Satan the father of lies. And I think lies have this power. They almost take on a life of their own. They take a foothold. They're hard to shake. And we believe the lies that benefit us. That's really powerful. Like if there's a lie, I'm not going to challenge it if it's kind of helping me, you know, that's, that's just how I'm. That's just how I'm wired. And if there's a lie that, that, that helps somebody else, but doesn't help me, I have all sorts of skepticism. Like my skepticism is really healthy for lies that other people are in the middle of that I can see in it and disturbing that lie doesn't hurt me. Then I'm, oh, I, I'm very analytical now. I'm very, I can really do all this, you know, philosophical stuff.

[28:25] But when it's about stuff. For me, right then it's harder. So we have to choose the truth. I mean, this is really the, this is our part of the spiritual battle right now. We have to choose the truth. We have to choose to learn and know things that make us uncomfortable. And so I think the big question that comes out of all this is how do we tell the truth and how do we uncover the lies around us? Right? And, you know, they say, it's telling the truth. truth is its own reward. And I think that's absolutely true. I mean, just remember that. Telling the truth is its own reward. You have less to worry about, less to lose sleep over, less to explain later. My daughter was asking me about all the bad things that I did when I was a kid. Why do we have these conversations with our kids? You know, like, tell me all the bad things you did when I was a kid. Like, well, me and a friend burned down a fence. We were playing with matches. She's like, this is really good. She's like, wow, what a great story. And then when I was 14, I drove the family car around with a friend. And I didn't have my license, obviously, because I was 14. And we broke the car. But some, like, weirdly, a friend of my friends, a family friend of my friends, helped us tow it home. And we managed to get it up into the driveway

[29:40] and just left it there. And then when my parents got back, they're like, that's weird. The car doesn't work. And I'm like, oh, well, that's odd, isn't it? That's a very strange thing that happened. And then they're like, but why would it just stop working? I'm like, I don't know. No, that's just so coincidence, you know. And then they're like, did you do something with the car? I'm like, no, you know. And then they're like, well, maybe I drove it around the block once. And then it kind of got, it grew, you know. And then finally, my dad said, time to tell the truth. Time to tell the truth. You can't just keep telling more lies to cover a lie. It just keeps eating you up. And I was like, it all came out, you know. And I got punished. I got lost. I was grounded for a month, which actually seems light now. I mean, because that was crazy what we did. But, you know, these things, they grow. And the harder you hold on to it, the more lies you're going to tell. It just snowballs. And so I would just rather not even start that way, right? What do we do? We start with the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves. That's so important. I'm not sure we can recognize truth unless we practice it ourselves. And that

[30:52] can start with confession. Go to God and list your actual sins. Like, have that moment like I had with my father. Let it all out, you know. That's okay. God wants to hear that. He doesn't actually believe you're as great as you think you are. He doesn't believe that. Don't worry. You know, you can really be yourself with him. And he'll be like, I know. I know. And I still love you. That's how God is. Go to God and list your actual sins. Do it tonight. Kneel down and put your knees on the floor and put your elbows on your bed. And say, God, this is how I'm going to live. And I'm going to live. And I'm going to live. And I'm going to I've sinned this week. I need your mercy. And I can't pose anymore. It doesn't work.

[31:31] And at the end of that, you might say, wow, that was really healthy and kind of painful. But it was a good dose of reality. And once we're able to tell the truth about ourselves, then we need to be open to what God wants to show us in the world. And that we may learn about why the poor are really poor. We might learn why this world is so messed up. And then we'll have a roadmap. To join Jesus in this great conflict against the demonic. And to help Jesus overcome the evil in this world. We go to Jesus and we say we want to see again. We want to see things as they really are. That's what Jesus wants to give us. And so we become part of Jesus' great work of confronting and defeating evil in the world. And we start by telling the truth. And many other things. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray. blind and desperate person who would not be shushed but who came to Jesus in great need Lord we come to you in that same need right now help us to see ourselves as we truly are help us to confess and help us to join you in this work you're doing in this world and we ask it in your name amen