“JESUS’ GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOUR WEAKNESS”
Saint Luke 18: 31-43
Quinquagesima: 23 February Anno Domini 2020
Father Jay Watson SSP
You must not forget that Jesus only came “nigh unto Jericho,” because He and the 12 were going “up to Jerusalem.” It is what Christ did at The Cross, at Calvary, that make what He first did at Jericho for a “certain blind man,” more than symptom relief and successfully restorative eye-surgery.
Bartimaeus, the blind man, was just like you. Or, you are him. He had heard of Jesus. He had heard of Jesus’ miracles and teachings. He knew the word, maybe not as well as he should have, could have, but, he trusted that Jesus would help him. The blind man was miserable. All Christians are miserable during the course of their lives. That’s not to say that life is not also filled with countless joys, Godly pleasures, and grace filled moments—with loved ones, family members, and friends. You have all been blessed in the “kingdom of the left” with family, food, lodging, friends, a parish with brothers and sisters In Christ…and…and…well,
I’m dancing around the “body, eyes, ears, members (limbs), and still preserves them.” They are not always preserved, are they? Not the way we would desire. Some here have better eyesight than others. Some of our brethren are blind. Not everyone this morning is free from chronic pain, debilitating disease, or failing over-all health. Our Christian family daily looses Saints to earthly death.
No one wants to lose their father to death. But we all do. Isaac, Jacob, King David, Peter, Augustine, Luther, Daniel Preus, Mary Magdalene. Our Lord, Jesus Christ, had His own Guardian and dear loved one Saint Joseph die…Jesus is God…Jesus could have kept Joseph from dying!
Why Enoch and Elias but not Joseph. Why is Bartimaeus miraculously healed but your wife, husband, son, daughter, brother, sister was not. Why are you not healed?
I have no answer. No man has any answer. Even Job was not given any answer…although praise The Lord, Job was healed. Solomon with all his wisdom despairs for an answer in his book of Ecclesiastes.
They say that a friend is someone that you can look at over the table and say, "You, too? I thought I was the only one." The Lord has given you brothers and sisters that share in and with, not just your joys and triumphs, but more importantly, in your defeats, tragedies, and pains. Each person's suffering is their own, and the one common thread is that they draw us closer to Christ and to each other.
You are not alone however. All the Lambs of The Good Shepherd are in this same situation. Even the great Apostle Saint Paul asked Jesus, not once, but three times, to take away his own “thorn in the flesh,” but it was not done. The Lord gave Paul what He gives to all of us, not what we might desire or long for—healing, relief from pain, a long, long, LONG life, but rather something better, something that God knows we truly need: “My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness” [2 Cor. 12.9]. Now that’s not what we might want to first hear when we’re praying from the depth of our souls with sighs and tears, aided by The Holy Ghost, for relief, but it’s what is. The Word of The Lord. The Lord is good and merciful and His Mercy endureth forever. We pray God that He would grant us Peace and the patient understanding that as a loving and tender Father, He will guide and protect us, and that at the end, we will be raised imperishable with glorified bodies, never to ache, spoil away, or weep again.
Bartimaeus points to all of this: “Thou Son of David, have mercy on me.”
Jesus did, and does. “He… [went] up to Jerusalem, and all things that [were] written by the Prophets concerning The Son of Man [were] accomplished.” Bartimaeus got to see again, and went home to his loved ones leaping and singing; praying and giving thanks to God. Jesus went to be “delivered unto the Gentiles [to be] mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted.”
Jesus was scourged for, and bore the burden of, all of your incurable, chronic, catastrophic, and horrible diseases (physical, mental, emotional) that even as He rose again the Third Day, so too He would raise you, He WILL RAISE YOU unto life everlasting. He gives you His promise on that. He gives you His very own Last Will and Testament to seal His covenant with you. Your trespasses have been canceled out. You have life and salvation. This true Body and true Blood strengthens and preserves you both in BODY and soul, to life everlasting!
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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