The people walking in front rebuked him,
telling him to be silent
When we call out to Jesus others may try to silence us as well. There are many in our society that are OK with a crowd following Jesus, with him being the leader of a religious procession. But when Jesus stops to intervene in specific circumstances, and especially when he desires to give people a new way of thinking and seeing the world around them, it is then that he meets opposition.
The crowd is hostile to those things which stand out too strongly against the status quo. They try to call us to abandon our "particular customs" to become like those around us. It is similar to those in Israel who called for an alliance with the Gentiles. They tried to insinuate that it was the distinctiveness of Israel, the unique way in which they as a people called out to God, that was causing all of the problems, and that if they just concealed the marks of that identity, gave into to the moral depravity around them, and abandoned the holy covenant of God, they would begin to experience a life of ease. Surely this sounds familiar.
When crowds insist that we conceal our distinctiveness in order that the status quo might be kept intact it is the crowds who are truly blind. In the time of the Maccabean revolts they proved this by their unwillingness to even look at any scrolls of the law which they found, burning them instead of learning from them. They were so insecure in this need to protect the status quo that they went so far as killing those who would not hide, who would not simply acquiesce to their plans.
they preferred to die rather than to be defiled with unclean food
or to profane the holy covenant; and they did die.
What do we do when a crowd of people who apparently have their sight surround us, who know we are blind, and tell us to be silent? Do we succumb, unwilling to be an imposition that disrupts and interrupts Jesus on his way? The crowds had made a routine of listening to Jesus and not understanding. But maybe this state of affairs was the way things must remain. Maybe there was nothing more for which it was appropriate to ask. Could it be a blind man who would finally rise above it?
The people walking in front rebuked him,
telling him to be silent,
but he kept calling out all the more,
“Son of David, have pity on me!”
The blind man saw more deeply than the crowds who followed Jesus, seeing only "Jesus of Nazareth" whereas the blind man recognized the "Son of David", that is the Messiah, the promised one. He held onto the hope that Jesus himself desired to shake up the status quo, that he desired more than just fairweather followers who didn't truly know him. He desired to be seen. And this was precisely what the crowd couldn't bear and didn't want to face. By Jesus recognizing this blind man and his faith the blindness of the crowds was made manifest. Their own attitude of a polite religiosity that had no real claim on their hearts was exposed.
Let us not be content to blend into the crowds. When they try to silence us it is often a sign that we are finally on the right track, getting closer to the blessings that Jesus desires to give us.
“What do you want me to do for you?”
He replied, “Lord, please let me see.”
Jesus told him, “Have sight; your faith has saved you.”
The risk for us is that we are more often like the crowd than the blind man. We assume that we see because we have been taught various things or because we keep various rules. Yet it is still more than possible for us to miss the new thing Jesus is doing in our midst if we insist on things like convenience, pleasure, or blending in with the wider circles of society. We can avoid this risk by remembering that we always stand in the position of the blind man. There is always more that we don't see than that we do. While we are in the life the prayer of the blind man can always be our own.
“Lord, please let me see.”
Let us not allow the crowds to silence us. As they see us coming to Jesus in our humility and need we pray that their own hearts be opened to break out of habit and routine to seek the living God in our midst.
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