2024 10
27 Proper 25B Pentecost 23B
“I had heard
of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;…”
How true, it
is for all of us, that we hear of God by the hearing of the ear. Our parents may have been the ones who
introduced us to God, or maybe a friend or teacher. Something has led us, such that we are here
in a place of faith. We are in a place
of faith literally,(church building) but also, figuratively (where we are at on
our journey of life). Our faith is a
result of our experiences, who we are and what we have heard.
Job was such
a faith-filled man! He was devoted to
God and there was no one so faith-filled and righteous in all the land. Then, Satan was allowed to afflict him and he
remained faithful to God, but he did eventually grumble. This is us.
We live in this fallen world and we experience probably just some of
what Job experienced. Job had lost his
fortune and his children. He was a man
deeply grieved and after a time of grief that was too deep for words, he
spoke. He knew he’d done nothing to
deserve the calamity and we can only imagine his feelings.
Perhaps you
can do more than imagine. Perhaps, you
too have experienced deep grief. There
are many, who I know, who turned away from God after experiencing grief. One dear friend of mine has experienced
pretty near the amount of grief as Job.
It seems that it was one thing after another. Just when she starts to feel that she is
getting her life on track another wave of calamity comes to overwhelm her. She says that she doesn’t believe in God
anymore, even though she was heavily involved and faithful as a young
adult. When we talk, she describes God
to me as “YOUR God”… not hers. What has
happened, is that she feels betrayed by God and hurt beyond being able to
accept that God, if he exists, could possibly love her.
At this
point in time, my friend can not SEE God.
She has more than one good Christian friend who try to care for her and
encourage her to have faith – but we have not experienced all that she has. She hears about God, but she can not see him. She can not see God, because her experience
has taught her that God is not on her side and so her eyes are closed to him.
Our Psalm
today, tells us that “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD
rescues them from them all.”
Afflictions happen… over and over, regardless of how righteous we
are. This is the message of the book of
Job; bad things happen to good people and it isn’t because of anything that
they do. The cause is unseen and unknown
to us, but our response has an effect in the heavenly realm. Job was truly loved by God and God lifted Job
up in the end, but first God showed Job something super important, and a lesson
we all need to remember: When our eyes
are opened to see God, we will see that he is so far beyond our image of him
that we will be somewhat overwhelmed and even embarrassed. In Job’s words, “therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes." Job
formally considered himself righteous, but now that he actually SEEs God, he
despises himself… such is the glory and righteousness of God.
There was a
song in the 90s, “One of Us”. “If God
had a face what would it look like? And would you want to see - If seeing meant
that you would have to believe - In things like heaven and in Jesus and the
Saints - And all the prophets?” What we
learn from Job, is that God is bigger and beyond any box that we put him in….In
fact, we have been learning this in the past weeks also, when we looked at the
“fear of the Lord” and how that was to have an understanding of the greatness
and majesty of God, and we should keep this understanding that God is greater, in
mind as we continue to get to know him.
We also need to ask that same question as the song…. Would you want to
see?
I often ask
this question; Would you prefer the truth or a lie that makes you feel
comfortable? It is the same with
God. Do you want to see God? Remembering that seeing will mean realizing
your own error and like Job, despising ourselves and repenting.
In our
Gospel reading there is a man who wants to see.
Blind Bartimaeus is named as the son of Timaeus. This tells us that Timaeus was a known person
and his son was not just some random blind beggar. However, his blindness had rendered him
completely reliant on others. In fact,
his vision of himself, as a person who needs others to help him, enables an
attitude we all need… humility… to ask for help. Bartimaeus is used to calling out for help, so
when Jesus comes by, he calls out loudly.
Jesus asks
the man what he wants him to do for him.
This is an important question, Jesus doesn’t assume that the blind man
is begging and wants money, and he doesn’t assume that the blind man knows who
he is and desires healing also, but he asks the blind man what he wants.
We know from
our previous weeks that Jesus is the exact representation of God. And something we are told about God is that
he respects our free will. If we don’t
want God in our lives, God will seem silent. But quite often we expect God to
know what we want even though we haven’t asked.
God does know… but he respects our free will and therefore asks us;
“What do you want me to do for you?”
In Old
Testament times, God was sort through the mediation of a priest. The Good News comes with Jesus who is greater
than a high priest. With the priestly
organisation, there would be certain sacrifices given and then your sins
declared forgiven. The Good news we have
is that we give no sacrifice to be forgiven.
We are forgiven because Jesus has, once and for all, become the
sacrifice. So now without any hinderance
God asks of us, “What do you want me to do for you?”
Bartimaeus
knows what he wants. He wants to see
again. Seeing clearly brings about
change. The Gospel of John tells us that
unless you are born again – or born of the spirit, you can not see
the Kingdom of God. We are encouraged to
know the truth and the truth will set us free. We need to see the truth…. We need to realize
that God is asking us that same question; “What do you want me to do for
you?”
God is
always there and always hoping that we will ask him to enable us to see. We have heard of the goodness and love of God
and perhaps we have “seen” that goodness also, therefore we responded by
choosing to belong to the family of faith.
However, we live in this world,
and we go out into this world, and become distracted or blinded by its
temptations. Its temptations might be
the pressure to fit in… and be politically correct, or it or maybe simply its
busyness etc… Sometimes these things align with God’s goodness, but often times
that pressure to fit in and go with the flow is a long way from putting God
first… and we become blinded…. And so, we notice that word at the end of
Bartimaeus’ request, the word “AGAIN”! "My teacher, let me see again."
Jesus
responds to that request, and the blind man was healed. Did you notice that when Bartimaeus was healed
his life direction changed? Not only was
he no longer begging, but we are told that he followed Jesus on the way. In some places in the New Testament “The Way”
was how they referred to becoming a follower of Jesus.
We need to
consider; Do we want to see? Seeing
means that we will need to respond to our cleared vision and this may mean
perhaps more directly following Jesus. Seeing
God’s way, may even mean a complete turn around. Bartimaeus threw off his cloak before Jesus
healed him. He already knew that his
life was going to change and he welcomed that change. But he needed to let go of his old life, in
order to step into the new. Are there
any things that we need to throw off?
What is it that is holding us back from stepping into the path that
Jesus has marked out for us?
When Job had
his eyes opened to the greatness of God, he repented of his prior limited
vision and his future was brighter than his past had ever been. This life will have afflictions and hardships
but our future in God is brighter than anything we can imagine. To be brave and step into all that God calls
us to, we need to see him clearly. “Lord
I want to see again”. Let this be our
prayer this week as we strive to walk into the path that God has called each of
us.
No comments:
Post a Comment