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Listen to Him: Forty Steps on the Road to Resurrection
Luke 18:35-43
Moving toward Jerusalem, Jesus meets the blind man in Jericho. In the Gospel of Mark, the man is identified as Bartimaeus, a beggar who relies on the alms of others to survive. Once again, an unlikely individual seems to have a deeper understanding of who Jesus is than the religious leaders. Bartimaeus identifies Jesus as “Son of David,” a Messianic title. Perhaps Bartimaeus knows the Old Testament Scripture passages which explain that the Messiah will bring sight to the blind. (See Isaiah 42:5-7; Luke 4:18-21.) It is no coincidence that Jesus’ last miracle before the Cross is to bring sight to one who cannot see. The blind man was visually impaired but the religious leaders did not recognize that Jesus was the Messiah, sent from God.
The crowd sees the blind man as a nuisance, but once again Jesus makes it a point to connect with someone who lives on the bottom rung of society’s ladder.
In the moment that Jesus heals Bartimaeus he restores more than his sight. Jesus also validates his worth as an individual. He speaks to him directly, and asks him a life-changing question: “What do you want me to do for you?”
Bartimaeus answers, “Lord, I want to see.”
Throughout his ministry, Jesus made a practice of asking this question in one form or another. He insisted that individuals give voice to the deepest desires of their hearts. It seems that Jesus wants us to acknowledge our longings as we sit in his presence. He will always meet us at the point of our greatest need. When we spend time contemplating what we want God to do for us, we may often discover that what we really need is spiritual insight.
Walt points out that the blind man’s answer can be our prayer as we turn to Jerusalem and move closer to the Cross (page 140).
Why is “Lord, I want to see” a meaningful prayer to pray during Holy Week?
After Jesus healed Bartimaeus, the man joined the disciples, “glorifying God” as they traveled the road to Jerusalem. Luke records that the crowds also praised God because of the testimony of the man who had been healed.
What testimony do you have that will cause others to rejoice? What is required for you to give witness to the goodness of God?
Luke 19:45-20:18
Throughout the Gospels we see that the Pharisees and religious leaders who surrounded Jesus had a sense of self-satisfaction about their personal spiritual lives and the system of worship that they perpetuated. They believed they were following God’s law and they would justify their behavior and their attitudes, twisting Scripture to suit their purposes. We also see another group in the Gospels. The vulnerable and the sinners– like the blind man and Zacchaeus – realized their desperate need for God. The tension between the groups was evident in the parables Jesus told and the conversations that he had. The religious leaders were satisfied and the sinners were desperate. Jesus spoke about the difference whenever a crowd would gather, but he had minimized the conflict until this point in his ministry. Now as he moves into Jerusalem, he is ready to directly confront the religious establishment.
Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey and heads to the temple, where he challenges the worship practices of the religious leaders.
When you stepped inside the temple door, the first area you got to was the Court of the Gentiles. This was the only part where non-Jews were allowed. It was the biggest section of the temple, and you had to go through it to get to the rest. Beyond the Court of Gentiles was the Court of Women, then the Court of Israel, which is where observant Jewish men could go. Beyond the Court of Israel was the Holy Place where the priests would go to minister and then the Holy of Holies which was only entered one time a year on the Day of Atonement so that the priest could bring the blood offering and scatter it on the mercy seat on behalf of all the people. The temple was a place of progressive holiness and connection with God.
All the business operations of the temple were set up in the Court of the Gentiles. When Jesus walked in, he would immediately have seen great throngs of people buying and selling animals at dozens of stalls, and exchanging foreign currencies at money changers’ tables. This was the place where the Gentiles were supposed to meet God through quiet reflection and prayer.
My house shall be called a house of prayer comes from Isaiah 56:7, where it is part of God’s promise that in the time to come there will be a place for outcasts and foreigners to worship God with his people.
The religious leaders were living in a way that kept the outsiders – the sinners, the tax collectors, the Gentiles, the poor, and the vulnerable away from God. They had become complacent, satisfied with themselves and the system they perpetuated. The temple should have been the place where the poor and the oppressed found refuge but instead they found themselves pushed to the very edges of society. They had been robbed of their place in the presence of God. God had intended the temple to be a place of blessing, where the grace and mercy of God extended out to the world. The Gospel of Mark records that Jesus not only confronted the temple authorities with his teaching but also with a prophetic action, turning over tables to indicate God’s great displeasure at the practices which violated the very heart of what it meant to live in relationship with God (Mark 11:15-19).
J.D. Walt points out that when God moves in the world, “he begins by restoring the center of worship” (page 155). Soon Jerusalem will be the place from which the Word goes out, a place of sending, where the gospel moves outward with the Holy Spirit’s centrifugal power of love to Judea, Samaria and away to the ends of the earth” (page 155). Walt goes on to suggest that we must evaluate our treatment of those who find themselves on the margins of society. Do we unintentionally erect barriers that the poor and vulnerable must cross in order to get to God? Are there “reforms that need to happen at home?”
Are there tables that Jesus wants to overturn in your life? How is disruption connected to spiritual growth? How do you see God moving in our church?
