Lord, Have Mercy!

 The sermon from October 24, 2021. Due to technical challenges the sermon is printed below:

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.

He was blind. This already gives Bartimaeus a leg up on pretty much everyone else in the Gospel of Mark. Those who get to know Jesus through their eyes never really quite get it. They don’t totally see Jesus, if at all. But Bartimaeus can’t use his eyes. He must use his ears. He must hear about Jesus. What He says. What He does. And faith comes by hearing.

While begging on side of the road, Bartimaeus hears that Jesus of Nazareth is drawing near, so he cries, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (v. 47) That title says a lot about what Bartimaeus believes, about who he believes Jesus of Nazareth is: the son promised to David, the king who would sit on the throne forever. The chosen one. The Messiah. The Saviour. And Bartimaeus knows that Jesus is the king who has mercy.

“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (v. 47) And the crowds walking with Jesus rebuke him. They try to silence him. We’re not told why they try to silence this beggar, nor should we try to fill in what the Bible leaves blank. That’s a dangerous game. Instead, it is better to ask: what is it that silences your cries?

The world can convince us that dependence on the Lord is weak, embarrassing, fruitless. They come alongside us as we cry to the Lord and they tell us to stop. It’s embarrassing. “You keep crying,” they say, “but we don’t see anything happening, nothing changes.” “Lord, have mercy” makes us stick out from the crowd. It makes us different from everyone else. It keeps us from fitting into that multicultural message that says such cries & faith are old-fashioned, worthy of ridicule, not trendy & hip. “Lord have mercy” won’t always let you fit in with friends or even parts of your family. Thus there’s the pressure when they visit, or when we visit them, it’s not the best to take the time to go to church to pray for the Lord’s mercy, it’s not the best time to say our prayers. We wouldn’t want to stick out, be disruptive, or be rude. That’s just one way the world silences our cries.

The devil is a crafty demon. He can make rebuke sound pious, so right. He can take what God speaks in the law and use it against us and God’s will. His will is that law be used to chase us into the arms of Jesus. The devil’s will is that the law be used to chase us into the arms of despair—hopelessness. The devil uses our sins to deceive us that God could never save us, that there’s a chance that He might not even want us. He puts a question mark where God puts a period. “Did God really say… Have you seen how you treat other people? Have you seen how much black death is in your heart? Have you seen the vile thoughts that run through your heart in anger & passion? There’s no way God could have mercy on you,” So our cries are silenced in guilt and shame.

Or perhaps we think that since we’re baptized, that since the curtain’s been ripped in two at Jesus’ and we can go directly to the throne of grace, we no longer need to pray to God for mercy. Or, perhaps we look at the Christians around us & find all the specks in their eyes & convince selves don’t need mercy because we don’t have those same specks that we find in everyone else. Both are the same error. Pride. Failing to see the log firmly wedged in our own eyes. The log that ought to bar us from the throne of grace, the log that deserves only the wrath of the Lord. And our cries are silenced because we don’t need the mercy of the Lord. The Old Adam, that sinner that lives in all of us hates mercy, despises charity, rejects pity. Which is exactly what Jesus is—the mercy, charity, pity of God for fallen humanity. So then, when we silence our cries for mercy in pride is to also speak a despising word on the mercy of God in Christ Jesus.

“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (v. 47) Look at the power that little prayer has with Jesus. He hears & stops. Literally, He takes His stand. At the sound of that prayer, everything stops. Though the crowd had tried to silence him, though they deemed this beggar to be the last among the crowd, Jesus takes His stand with Bartimaeus.

Why He came. To take His stand with sinners. To stand firm with sinners in need of mercy. To take His stand with those who call out to Him for mercy. That’s what the Son of David does. He comes to be the king who has mercy. The Messiah who stands with those in need, who cry out to Him & give Himself so that they might be healed. And the Son of David who has mercy with nothing but a word. Bartimaeus received his sight. He’s made well. But so much more. That word for made well means so much more. It means “saved.” It’s the same word that the Bible uses to declare that we are saved. Saved from the world, the devil, and our own sinful flesh.

Now Jesus comes to you who cry to Him every Lord’s day in Kyrie: “Lord, have mercy! Christ, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!” Now Jesus comes to you who cry out to Him each & every day: “Lord, have mercy!” He takes His stand with you who’re last, who’re least in your wayward hearts. He stands firm with you by virtue of the cross that He endured for you. He’s the Messiah who has mercy by giving Himself to death. The Son of David come to die that you might live. The King who stands on the path to cross to give Himself to answer for your greatest need. He’ll give His blood for your sin, offer His body on the cross to bring healing to your broken conscience. To give life to your dying heart and body.

“Jesus said to him, ‘Go your way; your faith has made you well.’” (v. 52) Healing and salvation are a packaged deal with the Lord. The faith that healed Bartimaeus is the faith that saved him. It wasn’t like Bartimaeus was healed and saved because his faith was so strong. He was healed & saved because his faith was in Jesus. And faith knew that Jesus was strong.

We always want to quantify faith, but we run into so many problems when we talk about needing a strong faith, or ensuring that our faith is always strong. Faith is something you either have or you don’t. Even if that faith is weak, riddled with questions and doubts and hanging by thread either you have it or you don’t. And faith saves because Jesus is strong. Jesus is special. Jesus is the Son of David who came to have mercy, to heal your flesh broken by sin.

His healing starts when He opens the eyes of faith through your ears. With his eyes opened, “Immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.” (v. 52) The way of Bartimaeus is now with Jesus, and the way of Jesus is to go to Jerusalem. To the way to cross. To Good Friday and Easter. To the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

Such is the way of Jesus. It is the road to death, not only for Jesus but for all who cry to Him for mercy & walk with Him. It is the way for all who are baptized onto this road with Jesus.

It is a road that goes through the grave. Through the watery grave of Baptism and daily repentance. The road that goes among the feeble and frail, the weak-hearted and slow to believe, the prideful and despairing. It is the road that rises from the watery grave to life in Christ, to life in the mercy of Christ to receive the sight of the merciful Saviour who promises healing to all who call on Him, whether in this or in next.

This road leads straight into this congregation, up this very aisle this very morning to the altar. Here He calls you. Inviting you to walk with Him and Bartimaeus and all the company of stragglers who’ve cried out for mercy and found salvation in the words of Jesus. But this road doesn’t stop here. It goes back out again into your homes, your neighbourhoods, your families, and all those video chats across our county, province, nation, and the world that we’ve all become so familiar with nowadays to stand firm in Lord’s mercy with those who need mercy. You travel along this road with your Jesus who’s given you sight & salvation. You travel with Him who has given you the eyes to see Him as your Lord and Redeemer. The eyes to see all who are troubled around you.

He was blind. Yet he saw Jesus clearer than anyone. Faith spoke its humble prayer. The only prayer that could put this blind beggar and His Lord and Saviour into the same sentence: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.