You Are the Beggar
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
He’s blind. He
is poor as dirt and completely helpless. He’s stuck on the side of a country
road. He doesn’t even have the good sense to do his begging in the middle of
the city, where there are more people. No matter how hard he tries, he can do
nothing for himself. His very life depends on the generosity of strangers. How
degrading is that? Doesn’t he have any self-respect? Maybe if someone just gave
him a good start, he’d be able to do it himself. But he can’t. He keeps trying
and trying and trying, but there is no hope for him on his own. He is stuck
alongside the road with no hope of redemption on his own. All he can do is beg
for the gifts that will come to him. That is his only salvation.
You are that
beggar. You are blind and poor and helpless in God’s sight. You can’t get
yourself out of the trap that has befallen you by sin. Certainly there may be
times when things go better than others. There may even be months or years when
you can forget that you wear the filthy rags of sin. There may be times when
you can ignore your blindness, unable to see what sin has wrought in your life.
The hardest thing in the world for a human being to do is repent and recognize
that you are helpless without God’s love and mercy. But this is the truth: you
are that beggar. Consider Luther’s last words upon his deathbed: “We are all beggars. This is true.”
Repent of your self-made life and your fantasy world where you don’t need God.
Repent, and live.
Now look at that
beggar once again. He hears the voice of his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and
cries out for all he’s worth: “Jesus, Son
of David, have mercy on me!” Ah, that great word of faith: mercy. This
beggar recognizes that he has no hope and no life apart from the mercy of
Christ. That is what drives him. It is in Christ that his very lifeblood can be
found.
The crowds
around the beggar want him to be quiet and go away. The Old Adam within you
wants to be self-reliant, and the world demands rugged individualism. “Don’t
trust in Christ! Trust in yourself! You can do it. You don’t need Him. And even
if you need Him, someone as important as the Son of God doesn’t have time for
your problems.” But the more the world tells this beggar to be quiet, the more
this man of faith cries out: “Son of
David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stood still at the beggar’s cry of
faith, listens as he cries for mercy, and heals him. When this beggar, who has
nothing and offers nothing, cries out for mercy, God gives it to him.
Now look at that
beggar. He once was blind but now can see. He once was dead to the world, but he
is now alive in Christ. And if you look a little closer still, you can see this
beggar eating at the Master’s table, dressed in the finest of clothes, consuming
the finest of food and the richest of wines. This beggar has become a lord. He
has become everything he could not by his own power—all because of the mercy of
the Master.
You are that
beggar. God hears your cry for mercy. He forgives your sin, opens your eyes to
see, and lifts you up to the highest place. It is no accident that we kneel to
receive Christ’s body and blood at His banquet. That is the proper place for
beggars. But God, who is rich in mercy, lifts you up and gives you His greatest
treasure: His own Son, dead and alive again.
Our bags are
packed. The Sundays of Pre-Lent are done. We begin our journey to the cross with
Christ on Ash Wednesday. This blind beggar shows the rest of us beggars that,
when we beg at Christ’s feet, He will always come through for us. Come, you who
are beggars. Come on the journey of salvation. Come to the cross. Come to the
tomb. You will never be the same again. In the name of the Father and of
the Son (+) and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The
peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus always. Amen.
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