Luke 4:14-21, Mark 10:46-52, Luke 19:1-10
Imagine the scene. It’s Saturday, time to go to the synagogue for the weekly service. You step in and there is a bit of a buzz. “Did you see who’s come back? It’s Jesus, Mary’s son. I hear he has been teaching in synagogues all over the place. Everyone is talking about him. It is strange, given the stories about him, that he would be so successful. And why did he never get married? I have a niece who would make him a wonderful wife. And Joseph, may God have mercy on him, would have been so proud to see him today. Here he comes now to read from the scroll.”
The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
With this Jesus announced that the Kingdom of God had come. Into the world of sin and death and decay had come a kingdom where there is no death or mourning or crying or pain. Jesus set out on his three years of public ministry with the coming of the Kingdom of God as his central theme. He healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, gave hope to the hopeless, dignity to the outcasts, sanity to the possessed, and life to the lifeless.
Reading through the gospels is like watching a black and white movie where a wave sweeps across the screen bringing vibrant color to the black and white images.
The Kingdom of God is what the world is supposed to be like and it sweeps over our dysfunctional world reclaiming lives and restoring hope.
Jesus met with opposition as he went along. There were those who resisted the coming of the Kingdom of God because it conflicted with their own objectives and interests. The Kingdom of God was resisted but nevertheless it swept through Palestine.
The Kingdom of God continues to be resisted but nevertheless it moves forward. In each generation the Kingdom of God sweeps over the world bringing new men and women, boys and girls into his kingdom.
I want to take a look this morning at a couple people Jesus met and how the Kingdom of God made a difference in their lives.
The first story is about a blind man named Bartimaeus.
Turn with me to Mark 10:46
Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (that is, the Son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
48 Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
49 Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”
So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” 50 Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.
51 “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.
The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”
52 “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.
We have no idea how old Bartimaeus was when he met Jesus, but whether he was twenty or forty years old, he had been sitting by the side of the road begging for a long time. Picture his life. He can’t go out working in the fields or in a trade like the other men in the family. The only way he can contribute to the family is by begging. In the morning someone led him to his spot and there he sat, day after day, until it was time and someone came to lead him home at the end of the day.
He sat there and listened and when he heard footsteps he called out asking for help. He was blind but not deaf and because he could not see, he learned to see with his ears. He became an expert, over the years, of the sounds people and animals made when they passed by. He could tell when it was an empty wagon or a full wagon. He could tell if the person was carrying a heavy load or walking free and easy. He could identify people by the sounds they made. “Here comes Samuel with his old wagon. Every time the flat part of the wheel hits the ground it makes a slapping noise.” There was a lot he could see with his ears.
And he heard people talk as they passed. He learned what was happening in the community from the bits of conversation as they passed. Always he listened and sometimes he was surprised by what he heard. People talked as if he wasn’t there. He was like a fly on the wall.
So he sat and listened and called out for help.
What was he thinking on the day that Jesus passed by? He had heard people talk about Jesus. In fact, there was a lot of talk in the community about Jesus and the miracles that were taking place through him. People who were born lame were walking. People who were sick were healed. People who were lepers were cleansed. People asked if Jesus could be a prophet. After four hundred years without a prophet, had Israel once again been blessed by God with a prophet who healed?
As people talked about what Jesus had done, what most got his attention was when he heard that Jesus had given sight to people who were blind.
On this day as he sat by the road he heard a large crowd approaching. “Who is it?” he called out. Over and over he called out, “Who is it?” until someone told him. “It’s Jesus. Jesus is coming.”
Bartimaeus determined that this day he would not be invisible. He waited, straining to see with his ears. The crowd came closer and closer and then he began to cry out. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” “Be quiet you fool! Don’t bother the teacher,” they told him.
But years of sitting by the road begging develops a certain obstinacy and he would not be kept quiet. The voices telling him to hush were not loud enough to drown out his desperate shouts, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
And then the crowd stopped moving. The ones who had told him to be quiet now told him, “This is your lucky day. He wants to see you.”
He was led to Jesus and then Jesus asked him a very strange question: “What do you want me to do for you?”
Good question. If someone in his family had asked him in the morning what would make this an exceptionally good day for him, what might he have answered? “On an average day I get one denarius. If I could get five or maybe ten denarii today, that would be incredible.”
So when Jesus asked him what do you want me to do for you, he could have responded, “Could you have the people in the crowd all give me some money?” With the influence of Jesus people would give generously; that would be a great collection and he would have a fabulous day.
If this was a Roman centurion who had stopped and asked him what he wanted, maybe this is what he would have asked for, but Bartimaeus had heard about Jesus and his miracles and the blind who had been given sight. He was not thinking about money, he was thinking about what Jesus and only Jesus could do for him.“Rabbi, I want to see.”
And Jesus told him, “Go. Your faith has healed you.”
Immediately he received his sight and although Jesus had told him to go, he reversed course and followed Jesus along the road. And why not? Why would you not follow the one who brought life into the deadness of your existence? Why would you not follow the one who lifted you out of the hopelessness of your daily routine and gave you a future? Why would you not follow the one who helped you to see?
The Kingdom of God is not a theological concept; it is a very real change in our life circumstances because of the work of God in our lives. If you asked Bartimaeus for a definition of what the Kingdom of God is, he would have replied, “I used to sit by the side of the road, a blind beggar, but then Jesus came and now I see.”
In I Corinthians 4:20, Paul was trying to reassert his authority over the Corinthian church and contrasting the power of what he called the “super apostles” who were trying to take over the church with the power Paul brought to his ministry among them. So he pointed out to them:
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
Anybody can talk a good game but it comes down to who has the power to change lives.
Jesus brought Bartimaeus into the Kingdom of God and his sight was restored. The fact that we know his name indicates that he was a follower of Jesus and a member of the early church. I would imagine he never got tired of telling people his story that day Jesus called to him to come.
I want to take a look at a second story, the story of Zacchaeus. Turn with me in your Bibles to Luke 19.
Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’ ”
8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
What was Zacchaeus’ world? He was born a Jew and although we know nothing about what his life was like when he was growing up, we do know that at some point he made the decision to follow money rather than faith. He decided to become a collaborator with the Romans, collecting taxes from his fellow Jews for the despised Romans who were occupying the land of the Jews.
In doing so, he turned his back on the synagogue and the social life of the synagogue. By working with the Romans he was not only a traitor but was unclean and no respectable Jew would have anything to do with him..
He became a wealthy man and had all that money could buy but it is clear that this was not enough. It is not mere curiosity that makes a wealthy outcast climb a tree to see someone passing by. People already despised him; this story of him climbing a tree would only add to the stories they used to humiliate him.
Zacchaeus was a wealthy man but there was a hunger inside him for something money could not buy. The bargain he had made did not deliver all he had hoped it would. He had a full belly but was still spiritually hungry.
When Zacchaeus heard Jesus was passing by he must have tried to stand in the road but he was short and the crowd was large. What made him risk humiliation by climbing a tree to see Jesus?
Jesus had healed, cleansed and delivered people. But Zacchaeus was not sick, leprous or possessed. What had Jesus ever done for people like him? Perhaps it was Matthew who was now a disciple of Jesus that gave him hope. Matthew had been a tax collector and Jesus had called him. Zacchaeus was so used to rejection from religious leaders that he was curious, more than curious about Jesus who reached out to people like him.
Zacchaeus was wealthy but he was not happy. He was rich but he was not content. So he risked humiliation and climbed a tree so he could see Jesus. And when Jesus came to where he was, he stopped, looked up at him and then, to the surprise of Zacchaeus and everyone else, Jesus said, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.”
There was a huge silence. Had people heard Jesus correctly? Was this Rabbi saying he would allow his lips to touch the cup of this unclean tax collector?
When Jesus invited himself to the home of Zacchaeus, he announced to everyone that he not only accepted this traitor Zacchaeus but he also forgave him.
Remember what Paul wrote to the Corinthians?
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.
The power of God came into the life of Bartimaeus, restored his sight and Bartimaeus gave up his life of begging to follow Jesus. The power of God came into the life of Zacchaeus, restored him into community and Zacchaeus turned around and announced his repentance in front of everyone.
“Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
When the Kingdom of God advances it changes us. The blind see and pocketbooks open up.
These are wonderful stories and we delight in them but it is one thing to read about these stories and another to experience them for ourselves.
When Paul Miller and his team were here last week he used a chart in one session that I found to be very helpful. I drew this in the bulletin. You can see a vertical line which measures hope and a horizontal line which measures time. When you start a project or pray a prayer you begin with high hopes and you move quickly up with high expectations. Maybe the hope is to find meaningful work or to meet someone to marry or to have one of your family members accept Jesus as their Savior. Whatever the hope is, it soars at the beginning but when you stay stuck in a job you do not like or do not develop romantic relationships or the ones you pray for show no interest in Jesus, then hope begins to diminish over time. And then you find yourself stuck in a wilderness experience. You still want God to change your circumstances but nothing seems to be happening.
Paul Miller said there are three characteristics of a wilderness experience: it is painful, there is no exit and there is no end in sight.
Moses sat in the wilderness for forty years with his low self-esteem, just marking time. Elijah, after a stunning success in combating the prophets of Baal, ran for his life from Jezebel who threatened him and sat in the desert waiting to die. Bartimaeus sat by the side of the road for years without any hope that his life would ever be different. Zacchaeus sat in the midst of his wealth and thirsted without hope his thirst would ever be satisfied.
The gospels are full of stories of people stuck in wilderness experiences. The woman who was unclean because of bleeding and an outcast, lepers who were outcasts, the blind, the lame.
I have had wilderness experiences myself. Transitions in my life have never been easy. I can say so easily now that I was a pastor, then went to work with my former church history professor and then went into business with my dad, but the reality is the transitions were terribly difficult for me and I despaired of moving forward. The early years of my marriage were painful and I thought Annie and I would never escape the conflict and pain of our marriage. My sister and her husband came to visit us one Easter and sat with us in a restaurant encouraging us to work out our issues and not to get divorced. The feeling of being trapped was oppressive.
Some of you are in wilderness experiences right now. It is painful, you do not see any way out of your situation and you don’t see how it will ever end.
It makes a huge difference, as you sit in your wilderness, when you know the Kingdom of God is advancing. Paul Miller pointed out that when you sit in the wilderness and are overwhelmed with how hard your situation is, it helps to know that there is a story being written and the story will take you from tragedy to pilgrimage. You seem stuck but God is at work and you are, in reality moving forward. The creative power of the Holy Spirit is at work in you so how can you ever be without hope?
There are times when I get stuck in a traffic jam here in Rabat. Cars keep going after the light turns red so the intersection is filled and then cars that have the green light begin cutting through and there is a terrible, crisscrossed mess. People are yelling and honking horns. My strategy for coping with this is to say to myself, “I am confident that within two or three hours I will no longer be here,” and I immediately feel better.
In the same way, when you despair, if you realize the creative power of the pre-existing God is at work bringing the Kingdom of God to this fallen world, you will feel better because whatever happens, your story will move on and you will one day look back at your situation and see it from a much healthier perspective.
God will take care of you. Things may not end up the way you expected or wanted, but God will take care of you. You will never die in the wilderness. As a child of God, you will move forward into his kingdom.
Let me offer one more encouragement: as God takes care of you, he will use you to advance his kingdom on earth. You have the privilege of working with God to advance his kingdom.
When you are hurting because of what someone said to you or did to you and you forgive them, the Kingdom of God has advanced. When you do something as little as carrying baggage for someone up the steps at the train station, kindness enters into the world which is one of the characteristics of God’s kingdom. Any time you sit down and listen to someone and put yourself in their shoes so that you have genuine compassion for them, the Kingdom of God has advanced. Having a real conversation with someone where you have the opportunity to share where you find hope is an advance in the Kingdom of God.
Healing someone who is blind is a huge step forward. Helping someone with their baggage is a small step forward, but they are all steps forward in the Kingdom of God.
I am finding the reality of the advancing Kingdom of God to be a great encouragement when I face uncertainty and discouragement.
Once again, I encourage you, if you are in a wilderness experience and do not see a way out of your predicament, realize that God is at work in you and he will move you through life. You are not stuck. You will not die in the wilderness. God will take you into his kingdom. Lift up your head. Realize who your God is. Be encouraged and share your hope with others in this world who need to know they do not have to stay in the wilderness.
