Today's reading comes from Luke chapter 8 18 verses 35 through 43 as Jesus approached Jericho a blind beggar was sitting beside the road When he heard the noise of a crowd going past he asked what was happening They told him that Jesus the Nazarene was going by so he began shouting Jesus son of David have mercy on me Be quiet the people in front yelled at him But he only shouted louder son of David have mercy on me when Jesus heard him He stopped and ordered that the man be brought to him as the man came near Jesus asked him What do you want me to do for you? Lord? He said I want to see and Jesus said all right receive your sight your faith has healed you instantly the man could see and he followed Jesus praising God and all who saw it praise God to this word is true and can be trusted So I love this story It's a story that that I've kind of taught on several times some of y'all might say Chad It sounds a little familiar and you know you're right it does sound familiar I look back actually talked about this passage six years ago And I was thinking about like no we had to make some adaptations this week You're gonna hear from Amy Wiggins today. It was me fantastic.
I've seen her outline. I'm excited about it But COVID got into her house this week and so instead you get me But I love this message because it was so funny as this past week before I knew I was gonna be here in this capacity with you It's morning I was coming back to this passage I read through the gospel of Luke several times over this last week and realize like I was finding current truth inside of that But this is a great story This is a great story away for us to understand some of the larger pieces and the larger things that are going on in the life of Jesus Just kind of put this on a timeline Jesus is stepping into Jericho and Luke's gospel Luke does not put Jesus in Jerusalem at all until that last week of his life And Luke does that he's not he's trying to tell a specific story And so this is Jesus stepping into a lot of ways Jericho is like the last big town before you get to Jerusalem This is this is Jesus coming to the end of his life kind of doing things a little bit more seriously a little bit more deliberately with the disciples and seeing this Jericho also was interesting. I didn't know this until recently um You know Jericho when it was torn down it was cursed and God said you were never to rebuild this again And so what ended up happening though is you know the area outside of Jerusalem is very desert and it looks desert It looks miserable and there's no trees. There's no water.
It's not a fun place to be but at Jericho There was this massive oasis and so what ended up happening over a thousand years was this not being built out necessarily like a town But it was it was almost a resort Like it was a place that you went and it was this liminal space where you went and you got water and you got fed and you took care of Business as you were going to Jerusalem And so Jesus is with his disciples and they're coming in and we find three groups we find like three Characters in this story and I think it's inside of some of these characters that we can find ourselves We can begin to understand what's going on. Jesus is there. We all know who Jesus is Jesus does the Jesus stuff He comes in and you see healing you see miracles all of this We we have to understand but there's two other characters in the story that really help us understand the first the second character is the crowd And we read in the gospel that the crowd is they always talked about as the crowd and Earlier in Luke chapter 12 is this movement is just growing and growing growing Luke Luke says this He said they were now milling about and there were so many they were stepping on each other's feet and the picture that I have of this Crowd I you think back to um like like war movies Right nights and that sort of thing and these like battle scenes where people are just all like crammed in with each other And they can't even begin to breathe it It's just that just this blob of people just moving about and that's what the crowd functions as cuz the crowd you never see A individual people come out of the crowd but all the writers of the gospels they talk about the crowd as a character And they're made up some different kinds of people there are people that are there that are crazy about Jesus Like they're hanging on every single word He says they're a fan of this guy and they're dropping things to just follow him and whatever he does He also have people that are part of this that they don't like Jesus Like they're not a fan of Jesus they're they're hanging on every word He says because they're trying to trip him up They want to find something they can use against and you also have people that you know You imagine that they are there just to kind of be part of the party Just to run along for the ride and I never understood like when we think about this And you think what does it look like for someone to just to give up a portion of their life to walk around and follow this teacher? That sounds kind of weird doesn't it?
I didn't realize what changed the story for me understanding the crowd was when Meredith and I were in Israel a year ago And I realized that you know Matthew Mark and Luke they tell their story very similar But they're they're wondering around a piece of countryside. There's no bigger than washertop parish That kind of condenses everything makes this a little bit more understandable We will have people kind of come in and come off this group of people but they're they're following Jesus around and they represent Many different people but they're folks that are wild about what Jesus says or folks that can't stand who Jesus is They're people that are just there to be part of stuff But all of them are hanging on these words He says for different reasons and we also have this blind beggar who's a different character in this story You know in our world now when we look at people who might have physical infirmities There's a level of compassion and care that we have and that we give one thing I'm thankful for is that in our world as we've progressed what we don't do is attach damaging spiritual assumptions to people who have physical needs and that time back then Physical needs especially in Jewish culture It's one of the ways that Jesus was kind of always talking about how broken this is is that you had a physical defect that meant that your parents Had to send and you were having to pay for their sins So you automatically see how unhealthy that is right? The next thing that we see is if you have a physical issue That then you're also to be pushed out of society because that means that you're unclean So you're unable to be part of the worshiping life of the Jewish culture You're also unable to have just the social connections that you need the physical needs of the second that you have any sort of physical issue What it automatically pushes you to is the margins of society and it means that you're gonna be destitute So we see how this person not seeing and his situation of being a beggar are very related And the first thing that we find in this story It's just so absolutely interesting is the ways that these two groups of people identify who Jesus is So Jesus coming to also sidebar right after this story is the Zacchaeus story You know Zacchaeus was a week like this happens at the same moment back to back after each other I've got a different thing the whole song So you've got that whole thing that's just going on and so the people that this blind man knows something's going on He hears commotion He asks like what's going on? We see the crowd do a couple things one the crowd doesn't treat him nicely He's not a person who deserves to be treated nicely because he has a physical infirmity Which means that he is broken as far as religiously he's broken culturally and civically he's broken socially that he is not worth what everybody else is worth And they say Jesus the Nazarene is here So the crowd identifies Jesus in a typical way by where he is from Remember tons of people milling about so big there's definitely two toes and they identify that he is Jesus the Nazarene And so this blind man begins to react and he says Jesus son of David have mercy on me A couple different things are going on here first of all says Jesus son of David He's recognizing Jesus not based off of where he is from But based off of who he's been revealing himself to be he's the son of David which in an Old Testament prophecy The Messiah is going to come from the line of the son of David says this blind man who has never been there following around Recognizes the truth of who Jesus is Even though he's supposed to be broken from religious life from experiencing God from the presence of God He understands who Jesus is and all the things that that comes with He's the anointed one of God the second thing he says is have mercy on me now That we think we know that that's pretty deliberate right it's pretty straightforward Well a couple of things about that that phrase have mercy on me is the first century version of like the will work for food sign So he's coming in he's ways that he's Jesus.
I know who you really are I Need for you to help provide for me Crowds doesn't be quiet. Hey shut up your father in the guy you're not really worth it kind of exact same thing as Zacchaeus later on what makes Zacchaeus get in the tree to see things because he's devoid of worth because of a couple of stuff And then the man just shouts even louder Jesus son of David have mercy on me And Jesus stops looks at the man addresses him and says what do you need right now? So this moment this man has no need his entire life I mean he's sitting outside of the gates of Jericho of the resort Waiting for all the rich folks to come in hoping to know food for the day and to find a place to sleep that night where he won't be in danger The Messiah the anointed one of God comes up and this man gets it Jesus stops Immediately he humanizes this man There might have been only a handful of encounters in his entire life He was actually treated as a human as a person of worth as a person of value and Jesus says again to him what can I help you with? What do you want me to do for you and at this moment?
We find this man offers just this incredible amount of bravery You know earlier we pray the words prayer because we pray every single Sunday and in the words prayer We asked for daily sustenance There's a thing about just that part of the prayer and this guy could have just asked hey Can you just give me enough like not have to come do this tomorrow? Like it's a little embarrassing He had some immediate needs right in front of him that he needed fixing but in this moment of Jesus just probably Peering into his soul understanding that just the fullness of what's going on this man decided to just be absolutely brave To throw a Hail Mary just to see what happens and he says Lord. I want to see so right there again that Lord He's he's telling Jesus. I know who you are.
I know what you can do. I've heard the stories I believe them to be true. I know you're just not this guy from Nazareth. I Submit myself to you Guys keeps just keeps on getting at the truth of you.
Jesus. This is I want to see and realize this site thing is not necessarily just a site thing Fixing this site thing will allow him to be a normal member of society again. It will allow him to live with his family Imagine that having a child Child has an issue and you have to get the child out of your presence in order to not have the curse following you I mean you'll see all the brokenness this man has been experiencing his entire life He's able to be part of worship again in the temple and to be back inside of the presence of God Just fixes his spiritual needs and all of the emotion all of this stuff that he could go through his entire life This is not just about fixing his sight It's at this moment with this man really is exercising This is where we can all begin to find truth in the story that at this moment What just man is doing is he is asking Jesus to heal him of the thing that stops him the most That's we find our own question. What happens if we realize we want Jesus to heal us of the thing That stops us the most Now luckily when we live in a time to where the social stigmas that were attached to this man are a lot better We've got a ways to go still but all of those sorts of things aren't there I think that if we just skip over the story when we realize hey, I'm walking.
I'm talking everything's cool I think we missed a heavier lesson. It's going on what happens if we begin to allow Jesus to heal us of the thing that stops us the most And I think that door that we all have to open really and truly is a door about fear It's about us realizing what is it like to not be scared and to trust now? Is this been kind of heavy so far? I'm gonna lighten this up a little bit trust me one of the best stories about fear I've ever heard came from a friend of mine and He told the story when I was at seminary and we all just our jaw just dropped and at this moment We realize there's just so much truth inside of this But I'm a good friend drew I grew up in this really really big Baptist church down and outside of Baton Rouge and he'll tell the story and What's so funny is I've heard the story I've told the story of Drew's and I hear from people who grew up around there at the same time.
Oh, yeah I remember hearing about that like you know this good church world kind of shook when this happened But they had an old-fashioned revival for we how many are the revival meetings, okay? Is anybody here not been to a revival? Doesn't know how that works. Okay, so we took it out It's about how revivals work.
This is what revivals are revivals are revivals I imagine going to church every night for like six or seven nights in a row, okay? And the way revivals to be worked and I grew up around them been to them Hold on yards is revivals kind of get a more emotionally heavy every single night and a huge amazing beautiful things happen there I don't want to discount the idea of what revival is we probably need to take revival back in some But one of the kind of key points of revival. It's kind of the same key point like a church camp or if you want to retreat is there's always cry night Okay, there's always cry night. There's always gonna be that night and This particular revival meeting about halfway through revival that week This guy started showing up to look really really rough Pulled up loud Harley had the black leather vest was wearing the colors So he was he was belong to some sort of outlaw motor cycle association holding on yards and he's there And like the first night he was there something very back row and every night he kind of gets up a little bit further and further One of the things that the bad things about church is you know when you see somebody who doesn't look at they belong You start keeping your eye on them and every night people saw this guy getting that closer and closer in front And the last night of revival on crown night the Holy Spirit just got this guy I mean completely down at the altar like sloppy crying like some not bubble crying hold on yours Everybody's big church big church to thousand people were there they saw this happening I mean you did not miss the biker guy down front.
It's not crying and Next Monday morning rolled around and eight o'clock the morning staff start showing up. There's the guy waiting by the front door and So comes in here me once talks to pastor goes into the pastor's office and says and hey, you know Altered snot cry holding on yards. My life has been completely different for the last 36 hours Whatever you need me to do I will do because I want to be here want to be here with this place all that all the Jesus stuff I want to be here I will do whatever you need me to do I'm so thankful for what the last day and a half of my life has been like and the pastor looks back and kind of sees the guy Assume some things about what this guy skill set might be and Hits the button on his phone and to the secretary says I need you to send the children's ministry in here will you and The guy kind of gets confused nervous and children's ministry comes in see It's not cry my car guy looks the pastor She's trying to figure out to get themselves into and the pastor looks at the biker guy and says I need you to teach third grade boys Sunday school I thought I was gonna fix the toilets like help out mowing the yo I've never even been to Sunday school in my life. I don't have kids looking at me I'm not good with you want me to go in the back It's just read the book talk about the book let the kids do the thing and children's men Go go get in the book and so I give him the book and Sunday morning rolls around apparently It's been a hard problem getting third grade boys Sunday school and my friend drew was one of these third grade boys so this is where the personal experience the story comes in and They get in there the bikers there like in his cleanest dirty shirt like it's probably tucked in for the first time ever in his life and He gets through the Sunday school lesson in about 10 minutes and all the little third grade boys I grew up in a big baptist church and 80s sweater vests like the bus around shoes I mean, I don't think any of we have any bus around some kids anymore Adrian, okay Yeah, that'd be kind of funny, but so they're all sitting like dumbfounded on the tiny little wooden Sunday school chairs Because nobody had ever finished early before And so they're kind of looking at the guy and the guy's kind of look at them And he's like, well, what do I do now?
And they said nobody's ever finished early before What do I need to do? And I said, we're a teacher you gotta teach us something Well, I've done the whole book. I mean, I haven't read next week's thing in the book yet. Well, you gotta just teach us something's okay I said well, I know about two things in life.
I let you pick which one I teach you He said I know about bushhogging. I know about knife fighting which one you all want to learn about Well, which one you say third grade boys you're gonna pick the knife fight and so remember my buddy drew eight years old in the room with This happens to the guy's okay First rule of knife fighting is you're gonna get cut First rule you're gonna get cut Second rule of knife fights is you need to pick your blocking hand Mine's my left holds his left hand up and drew says what he distinctly remembers this little thing right here was cut and like was too little flappies He's like you also said and never button this never button this shirt sleeve and they got ripped his shirt off about five seconds I had it wrapped around his hand so 25 minutes later All the parents come to pick up their third grade boys from school before we go to big church and all that It was they're all there with their Sunday shirts wrapped in their forearms doing that with like the big crayons Great story, but the stories about fear That stories about fear because why do reasonable people not get in knife fights? We don't want to get cut first rule. You're gonna get cut You know why are we fearful for allowing Jesus to come in and really work out healing in our lives?
It's because we're scared we're gonna get cut But the necessary process for healing to occur is getting cut Is allowing those things in our life to be trimmed out and to be fixed and to be healed And it's backwards in our mind to think that it like more things like that have to happen in order for it to get better My sister is a physical therapist and she specializes in wound care and she's like oh absolutely for a wound to heal correctly Especially one that's not been intentionally inflicted So it's a lot easier to fix a surgical wound that is to fix an accidental wound There always has to be some cutting in order for restoration that happened It's the same thing was just the issues of our heart In order for us to find healing in those spaces and restoration we have to realize the first rule of healing is we're gonna be cut You know what I thought about this week that was that had this story on my mind before I knew that we were gonna I was gonna talk about it this Sunday morning It was just reflecting on the last six months the last year the last year and a half the last several years all those things and kind of processing through Just a handful of emotions enough spend a lot of time working with and I mean it's been some time with a therapist I'm sorry this you're talking about a handful of these things and and my realization this past weeks okay Here are these spaces that are gonna be really tough for me to own up to on my own Because there's some healing that I have to have and I am experiencing and it needs to be experienced that happen at the hands of others And that sort of thing but here are these ways that I've been acting for the last 10 15 20 years where I've just been kind of like taking that wound and just like pulling it back open And we have to ask ourselves like Jesus why we want to keep those things open sometimes What are the things that we are not we'll maybe kind of go deeper into to allow us to keep things closed keep those wounds closed To allow them to truly heal up in a way that leads to wholeness and long-lasting health It's us getting past the fear And us beginning to just like that blind man said to correctly know who Jesus is in this situation And we know who he is and we put ourselves underneath him We allow him to come in and just to do those things that this is what's kind of heal us the thing that's stopping us the most and whereas You might be thinking right now. Chad this sounds important. What is very important. It's not just something we have to do one time But if we're growing with Jesus what we realize is that we will always be coming into these new spaces And we have to invite and ask and let him come in as Lord And exercise and do the true healing that he's promised us that thing that's stopping us the most if we never do it the first time We are not going to build up the skills and understanding the experience and the faithfulness for him to come in and do it the 10th the 15th the 25th time because this is Part of the process of being a disciple of Jesus Christ I just want to ask you that this morning because I close up so I go back into worship Are you willing for Jesus to heal you the thing that stops you the most?
You just step in that In a real way and to spend time with him asking him that Spend time surrendering and letting him do the things that he does best. Let's pray together this morning father is we are here God, you know some of us might be able to bring that thing up to you instantly Got some of us might have something that's very very real Right there in front of us God others of us know we think everything's great I might think we don't need to see you in this way But God if we did that we would never experience just the healing mercy The peacefulness that brings upon us. God some of us might be able to ambivalent We might have had something that's just been sticking around for a long time We've just gotten used to it. It's so calloused over But Lord what I pray for is for us to To be honest with ourselves to be honest with you God for us to make that shift from just saying this is Jesus this person who's around To us saying this is Jesus He's the anointed one who sent from God To heal all things And all I have to do is just call him Lord God to let him take control So God I pray for us all to make that transition of not just from identifying what stops us stopping us the most But moving into a space of this is the thing that energizes me the most because this is where Jesus has taken me And this is how he has healed me She's gonna be pray together Amen.
Let's stay in and continue singing