+Points to ponder

1. What does walking with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem (to the New Jerusalem) mean for your life?
2. How does knowing that your life has definite and blessed destination help how you to live today?
3. What are practical ways we can show people we are help, hope, and home in the body of Christ?

+Sermon Transcript

Grace, mercy, and peace be unto each of you from God our Father and our Lord and King, Jesus the Christ. Amen.

Let us pray: God, the giver of life, whose Holy Spirit wells up within your Church: by the Spirit’s gifts equip us to live the gospel of Christ and make us eager to do Your will, that we may share with the whole creation the joys of eternal life; through Jesus Christ Your Son our Lord, Amen.

The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I've seen that road before
It always leads me here
Lead me to your door

Here, even in the first verse of the popular Beatles’ tune, this song seems to speak of a longing for love, maybe we hear it even as a pensive and wistful soliloquy on one experiencing unrequited love.

But, the author, Mr. McCartney, says that the song is “all about the unattainable; the door you never quite reach … the road that you never get to the end of.”

And so, I could not help but think of our travels over the last weeks in the Gospel of Mark and for this morning, in chapter ten. The road to Jerusalem is long and winding. It traverses hills and valleys, forests and farms, cities and suburbs and small fading towns. Along this road are all manner of people. Each, in their own way, is feeble and frail. There are those who hurt and those who have been hurt, those who suffer and those who cause suffering, powerbrokers and those broken by power. They stand together-but-alone on this road and beg – with their words, with their eyes, with the desires of their hearts. They line this road, searching for something, or someone, to help.

Along this road walks the One who can. He sees those who cannot. He hears those who cry out. He walks this road to Jerusalem, hearing and gathering and healing as He goes. He instructs and invites and binds together all who call out for His mercy. He is Jesus, the Lord of creation, the restorer of body and soul.

Today, beloved, His long and winding road to Jerusalem turns into our congregation right here at Redeemer. And as it turns here, Jesus is calling me and you – not to walk on a road ‘that you never get to the end of’ – He is calling you and me to follow Him all the way home.

Today’s lesson focuses our attention on a specific spot along this road. “And they came to Jericho. And as [Jesus] was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside.”

Blindness in that time was a total disability – there was not regular work for one who was unable to see. And so, he sat by the road in the darkness without hope. Bartimaeus could offer nothing but a cry for help – a cry which would not be silenced. He was blind but not without faith – his faith would not let him stay silent.

But this text is not about Bartimaeus. And while some might be tempted to preach about the very real ‘spiritual blindness’ of which you and I, often, suffer, the text is not addressing that either.

This text is about the One who heard Bartimaeus – the One who hears our cries for mercy. It is about the Son of David, the fulfiller of the prophecy spoken by Jeremiah: “Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame …”

This was His road. He had been traveling this road for a long time – from the very beginning. The people alongside this road were His people.

And Jesus pauses on this road and asks Bartimaeus, “What do you want Me to do for you?” It was the same question, on this same road, a few verses earlier, that He had asked His disciples who were jockeying for a power position.

Bartimaeus’ request was simple, “let me recover my sight.” He wanted to see. With nothing but His word, Jesus has mercy: “And Jesus said to him, ‘Go your way; your faith has made you well.’ And immediately he recovered his sight and followed [Jesus] on the way.

Now, Jesus gave Bartimaeus sight; but that is not all Bartimaeus got! Along with vision he received salvation.

The words used in the phrase, ‘your faith has made you well,’ can be rightly translated as ‘your faith has saved you’! And with salvation came a place on the road for Bartimaeus as we hear that he ‘followed Jesus on the way.’ Bartimaeus was on the way with the One who had healed him. He walked with Jesus now. And walking with Jesus, he found himself walking with many others.

Jerusalem was always on Jesus’ road. He repeatedly made this clear and in case that we, like the disciples, missed it from a little earlier in the chapter, Mark reminds: “And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, [Jesus] began to tell them what was to happen to Him, saying, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles. And they will mock Him, and spit on Him, and flog Him, and kill him. And after three days He will rise.”

His road was always headed for the City of David, not for glory, but for suffering. It was a road to death. Not only for Jesus, but for everyone who would walk with Him. For all who would be baptized into His road with Him. But this road would not end at the grave, not for Jesus or Bartimaeus or anyone united with them. This road would go through the grave, back among the feeble and the frail, back among the weak-hearted and slow to believe, back among the power brokers and those broken by power. Along that road, the risen Christ would continue to call, continue to gather, continue to heal. He would continue to restore and bind together all who cry out for His mercy.

This road goes right up the aisle of our Sanctuary this morning. Right into the chancel – to the table where we get a foretaste of the feast to come. And from this road and this table He calls you and me again, inviting us to walk – not only with Him – but also with Bartimaeus, with James and John, with all the company of stragglers and laggards who have cried out for mercy and found salvation in Jesus.

And more, this road does not stop here at the chancel and this table. It goes out from our congregation, back out the church doors, back into the community, through hills and hollers and valleys, forests and farms, cities and suburbs and small fading towns.

Unlike Mr. McCartney’s long and winding road with no end, this road keeps going until it reaches the new Jerusalem. There the road turns into streets of gold where cries are no longer for mercy but for joy and praise. We travel along this road with Him who has also given us sight and salvation. He has given us eyes to see Him as our Lord and our Redeemer, and He enables us to see – to really see – all who are troubled around us.

Until this road finally reaches its ultimate destination, He continues to call more to walk with Him. And He continues to open our eyes to those who walk with us.

He invites us here at Redeemer to be Help, Hope, and Home. For Help it is the things we do to serve our neighbors and reminding them that God is “an ever-present help in times of trouble.” For Hope it is the things we do around worship and sharing the Good News of Jesus with others. For Home, a sense of love grows in our congregation as we care for each other, whatever the circumstance. All of this comes as we walk together on this road – as we walk with Jesus on this road.

And so, we walk with those who suffer – who have lost a loved one; who have endured illness; who have battled the seemingly unceasing flood of chaos in the world around us; who have struggled with their faith in the face of such suffering.

A word from St. Paul encourages our walk together: “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”

Therefore, we do not hide our eyes from the cross and suffering – not from our own or from others. We cannot possibly ignore it because we cannot overlook the empty tomb. We know that as we traverse this long and winding road, we have God’s promise that in our baptisms we have risen with the risen Christ and now walk with the reigning Son of David.

Right now, the road may not be paved with gold and is, in fact, wet with the tears of sorrow and suffering. But we travel with the One who is “the way, and the truth, and the life” – we travel with the One who is the door to life and salvation – we travel because He has called us to follow Him “on the way” – through death and the grave and into abundant and self-giving life here and now, and to eternal life in the new Jerusalem. Amen.

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”

---

Sermon Study helps for Pentecost 22YrB: Peter Nafzger (Ph.D. Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, MO) is Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Found at https://www.1517.org/articles/gospel-mark-1046-52-pentecost-22-series-b, accessed on October 18, 2021.