One
Jesus is Passing By
As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind beggar cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” People told him to be quiet, but he shouted louder. Jesus stopped and restored his sight, saying, “Your faith has saved you.” Immediately he followed Jesus, praising God, and everyone praised God too.
The blind man is us. And he hears Jesus is passing by. He can’t see Him, but he knows something big is happening. And He is told that Jesus is at the center of it.
That’s us. We can’t see Jesus, but we know He is nearby. We know He’s available now. He’s close by now. Now is our chance. Today. Tomorrow may be too late. This is our chance. So call out to Him. Open yourself up by asking Him to come to you. Call out, “Son of David! Have mercy on me!”
Two
What Do You Want?
If we call out to the Lord, He will hear us. He’s God. He knows everything, hears everything. He can’t not hear us. If we call Him, He will hear, and He will come. That is guaranteed. But when He comes, He will come with a question for us. And it’s a very, very important question. So much hangs on how we answer it.
When Jesus comes, He will ask us, “What do you want me to do for you?” So how will we answer that question?
Three
Healing
When Jesus asked the blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” the blind man said, “Lord, let me receive my sight.” In other words, “Lord, heal me!” The blind man didn’t say, “Fix my external circumstances,” or “Change other people,” or even “Accept me as I am.” The blind man knew that he had a problem. That he was broken. And the blind man asked Jesus to heal him. And Jesus did.
Four
Jesus has Come to Heal us
The blind man wanted to be healed, and Jesus wanted to heal him. It was a perfect convergence of their two wills, and that brought about a miracle. Now the question is: do we want to be healed from our sins, our vices? Because we know Jesus wants to heal us from that.
And He will heal us if we ask Him. No matter what the sin, the vice, the bad habit, the spiritual brokenness, the moral problem, Jesus will heal it. We just have to keep begging for His mercy, and we will receive it.
Five
Resolution: Persistence
The blind man refused to stop calling out for Jesus. Even when the people around him said to shut up, it was useless; it wasn’t going to work, he cried out all the louder. That’s what we have to do with Christ’s mercy, Christ’s healing. We have to keep relentlessly asking for it.
Asking for his pardon again and again. Going to confession, again and again. Calling out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! Please, Lord, heal me.” Jesus wants to heal us. Jesus will heal us. If we show our faith by means of our persistence, He surely will.