Seeing things from God’s perspective

Sermon for Quinquagesima

1 Corinthians 13:1-13  +  Luke 18:31-43

Some of you have trouble seeing, don’t you? Some of you have eyes even worse than mine, although, Lord willing, I’ll be getting my eyes “fixed” next month. But even if your eyes work correctly, that doesn’t mean you always see straight. There are different kinds of seeing. There’s seeing with your eyes, but that’s the least important kind. The most important kind of seeing is to see things from God’s perspective, to see yourself as God sees you, to see your neighbor and the world and God’s plans as He sees them. In today’s Gospel, as Jesus and His disciples approached Holy Week, there are several different perspectives represented—different kinds of sight and blindness and recovery of sight—and through them, the Holy Spirit teaches us to see things from a divine perspective, which will be especially helpful for us as we are about to enter the Lenten season on our steady approach to Holy Week.

Jesus took His twelve disciples aside and told them very clearly what He saw: Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.

Jesus saw the road to Jerusalem clear as day. This would be the final trip to the holy city. He saw exactly what the Old Testament prophets had seen: the suffering, death, and resurrection of the Christ. You remember, just a few weeks ago we heard the Gospel of the Transfiguration, where Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus, talking with Him about His departure to Jerusalem and to the cross. Jesus saw it all clearly, and rather than avoid it, He headed straight for it.

Why? Because He saw the world through a lens of love, the same kind of love Paul described in today’s Epistle. He saw a world full of people who had rebelled against Him. Some hated Him. Some couldn’t care less about Him. Some loved Him with half a heart. But “love is patient,” Paul wrote; it “suffers long.” It “does not seek its own.” Instead, it seeks the well-being of another. So, in spite of all the hatred and apathy and half-hearted love Jesus saw in the world, in spite of the suffering that He knew was waiting for Him in Jerusalem, He saw the path to mankind’s salvation: His own torture, His own suffering and death would pave the way so that all might be justified by faith in Christ, who was delivered over to death for our sins and raised for our justification.

That’s how Jesus saw things. Such was His perspective, which was, therefore, also the divine perspective. But it’s not how His disciples saw things.

They understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.

The twelve heard the words, understood the words, but couldn’t see how they made sense. They figured Jesus must be speaking in riddles. What does He mean He’ll be handed over to the Gentiles, mocked, insulted, spit upon? Not Jesus! What does He mean they’ll scourge Him and kill Him? If that were true, why would we be heading toward Jerusalem? Rising from the dead? It must be a figurative saying. And where did the prophets speak of any of this? Even the twelve disciples still saw Jesus from an earthly perspective, from a perspective of glory. Peter, James, and John still had the vision of the Transfiguration dancing in their heads. How could a good God let His Son fall into the hands of sinners and die? No, they couldn’t see the purpose. Nor could they see the need.

That’s a problem for us, too. Because we usually just don’t see ourselves as being that bad, being so lost, so corrupt, so sinful that God’s Son would have to be tortured and humiliated and killed in order to bring us back into God’s favor. But turn again to that description of love that St. Paul gave in the Epistle, and measure yourself up against each phrase. “Love is kind.” Do you really think that describes you all day long, every day? “Love suffers long,” that it, it gladly puts up with other people’s failures for a long time, without becoming angry or frustrated or bitter. “Love is not puffed up, doesn’t parade itself.” Do you never yearn for the credit and the thanks you think you deserve from other people? Satan would convince you, either that you aren’t so bad, or that God has no right to expect anything more of you, or that you are able to redeem yourself. But the truth is, from God’s perspective, your one hope, your only hope of redemption was the bitter suffering and death of His Son. And that’s exactly the price He paid for you.

Now, Jesus’ disciples didn’t yet see that. But what they did see, even through all the fog, was Jesus, the same Jesus who had never lied to them, never misled them, never disappointed them. They didn’t see how deep their need was, they didn’t see His path of suffering, death, and resurrection. But they still saw Him, enough to keep following, without stopping to wonder even for a moment if it would be worth it. They knew it would be, even though they couldn’t yet see how. And that’s the message for us. Keep following Jesus. Keep listening, even when you don’t see everything yet from God’s perspective. Eventually, the light will become brighter.

That’s exactly what we see in the second half of our Gospel. There we meet a man who couldn’t see at all with his eyes, and yet he saw things much more clearly than the crowds around him.

The blind beggar heard the commotion as a large procession of people was now following Jesus to Jerusalem. The excitement was palpable. They knew this journey to Jerusalem would be momentous, although they had no idea why. The beggar heard the commotion and asked what was going on, so they told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by!” So he started crying out, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! “Son of David” was a title of the promised Christ, who would be the offspring of David. How did the beggar know that Jesus was the Christ? Most of those following in the procession didn’t know it. You remember, Jesus had asked His disciples a few months earlier who the people said He was, and only the twelve recognized Him as the Christ. But here the blind beggar, with a much better perspective, with far better sight than the crowds had. God, through His word, had already opened the beggar’s understanding to see Jesus as the Christ, who is merciful and has mercy on the poor in spirit.

The crowds, on the other hand, not only failed to see Jesus as the merciful Christ. They failed to see the beggar as their neighbor, as a human being who had value, as a man who mattered. They failed to see him as the shining example of faith that he was. He kept crying out to Jesus, and they warned him that he should be quiet. They saw a noisy beggar who was getting in their way, a noisy beggar who was a nuisance to them, whom Jesus would surely not care about. They were so blind, weren’t they? All puffed up, parading themselves, behaving rudely. Not the definition of love at all, is it?

But the beggar kept crying out in faith, and Jesus stood still and commanded him to be brought to Him. And when he had come near, He asked him, saying, “What do you want Me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, that I may receive my sight.” Then Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has saved you.” So now, the beggar sees Jesus, not only with his heart and soul, but also with his eyes. Which sight was more important? Wasn’t it the sight of faith? Wasn’t it the hope that the beggar never lost that Jesus would be merciful?

And then, after seeing Jesus display His love toward the beggar, the crowds recovered their sight as well. They saw the result of his persistent faith. They saw that his hope in Jesus was not disappointed. And then they, too, “rejoiced in the truth.” All the people saw it and gave praise to God. Their sight was restored: their faith increased, their hope reinforced, their love for God and for the beggar renewed.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three, Paul wrote. We recently defined these three “theological virtues,” as they’re called, in class. Faith is the sure trust and confidence in the true God: that He exists, that He is good, and that His word is always true. We saw such a faith in the beggar, didn’t we? Hope is the eager expectation of some good thing God has promised in the future. The beggar hoped in God’s mercy and wasn’t disappointed. Love is self-sacrificial devotion to another, with genuine concern for the other’s well-being. We saw such a love perfectly in Jesus in today’s Gospel.

So now, with vision that has been corrected today by the Holy Spirit through His word, use the coming Lenten season to grow in faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these, Paul says, is love. Why? Because faith is for this life, where we live by faith and not by sight; we’ll have that perfect sight at the resurrection. Hope is for this life, because all our hopes will be fulfilled in the next. But love will endure forever. Heaven will be characterized by perfect love. So be renewed in these three essential Christian virtues by spending extra time with God’s word, both at home and here at church. Use this time to rehearse, to practice, to grow into people who are ever more characterized by faith, hope, and love. And as you do, your neighbor will be helped, and so will you, because as you grow in faith, hope, and love, you’ll find your own perspective being shaped into God’s perspective, and you’ll see things better and better. Amen.