Luke 18:35-43 2025/01/26 Osaka Church
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit
As Jesus was walking through the town of Jericho, a blind beggar suddenly called out to him. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”
Jesus stopped and asked the blind man.
“What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied. “I want to see.”
Jesus said to him, “Become able to see,” and praised his steadfast faith.
The man, whose eyes had been opened by the Lord, raised his hands, looked up to the sky, and followed the Lord with a boundless heart, filled with joy at finally being able to begin living.
Here is Jesus, waiting to be called upon.
What did the Lord see as he walks through the streets of this world, in the midst of people’s busy lives? He saw the weary and impoverished, the sick and bedridden.
He saw those counting silver coins day after day, their emotions rising and falling with each gain and loss. He saw people who, pretending to forget the frailty of life, recklessly spend their days in fleeting pleasure. He saw those burdened by troubles, struggling with conflicts between people, suffering, fearing, arguing, and wounding one another. And He saw those grieving the death of loved ones, crying out as if to rend the heavens.
Jesus did not observe such people from on high.
Jesus is the “Man of Sorrows…who bore our griefs and carried our sorrows…who was despised and rejected by men” prophesied by Isaiah. He is the one who sat by the well, exhausted and thirsty in the scorching sun. He is the one who “wept” with his heart torn apart by the death of a friend. He is the one who was betrayed by one disciple and ultimately abandoned by others. Jesus sometimes showed intense anger towards people, but he never hated them. They spat on him, mocked him, flogged him, and crucified him. But the Lord never hated them, and he prayed for them. On the contrary, he was unable to sit still as he sympathized with the pain of those who hated him, whose hearts were burned by the hot flames of hatred.
Jesus knew all too well the “death” of us humans and the suffering it brings…But this Jesus did not run up to us one after another and say, “You’re suffering, I’ll help you,” using his divine power to respond to each and every one of us. Painfully aware of their suffering and sorrow, the Lord walked on. He passed by.
He was waiting to be called out to.
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”
The One who knows everything passes by those who have lost hope and believe that “there is nothing else to do but resign himself to the coming death,” and waits for them to call out to him and say, “Have mercy on me.”
Is it cold? Is it unloving? No. What is there is the true love of God. There can be no entrance to the “true happiness” that God promises unless people get to know God as the Lord of life, understand the incredible depth of God’s love for man, and believe in that love and cry out from the bottom of their hearts and begin to pray. For a long, long time, people have become increasingly sinful and have lost sight of this simple truth. This is why God came to this world as a man. And he walks. As he walks, he shows himself to the people, waiting for us to call out to him.
Saint Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome in the 6th century, preached powerfully: “The blind man kept crying out to Jesus, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me,’ and stopped Jesus as he passed by…. If you too pray fervently, you will surely be able to stop Jesus.”