Living in the Spirit
October 25, 2015
Scripture Reading: Mark 10:46-52
Many sternly ordered [the blind man] to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stood still and said, ‘Call him here.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; get up, he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘My teacher, let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way. –Mark 10:48-52
If we trace the events in the gospels that describe Jesus’ interactions with individuals he often asks the question, or some form of it, in our scripture today: What do you want me to do for you? It is the question he is always asking each of us. For most of us it is a really hard question to answer. The blind man already had the answer before the question came. He wanted to see again. What he most likely really wanted was to be self-sufficient again and to be whole but to attain such independence he had to see.
Jesus was a very practical mystic, I think. He understood the desires and dreams of the people. He did not condemn and he did not itemize sins. Most likely he knows what is separating us from God, but until we see the divisive parts of our lives we cannot turn away from them. Even when we face the truth about ourselves, it is very hard to change the habits of our hearts. God can enable us to change. I like to think of us as changing back to the person we were created to be in the first place before we allowed the world to reshape and remold us.
When I first read this scripture in preparation to write about it, I thought it included something about the man being blind from birth but that is in another gospel. Perhaps it was a different blind man in the other recounting, perhaps the authors just remembered it differently, or wanted to stress a different part of the story. We often run the four very distinct gospels together. I do believe it is important for us to also see that we are not called to discern what is separating another from God. The gospels’ variety of perceptions of Jesus are important to us today as we celebrate the beauty of God’s diverse world within the wideness of God’s love for all.
Prayer: Lord, I really don’t want to see my faults but I do long to be whole. Grant me the courage to see what I need to see to make wholeness a reality and make me a better conduit of your love for others. Amen.
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.