Take Heart! Get Up! Jesus Is Calling You!

Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
October 24, Year of Our + Lord 2021
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Take Heart!  Get Up!  Jesus Is Calling You!                  
Mark 10:46-52

   Take heart!  Get up!  Jesus is calling you!  All who cry out to Jesus the Son of David for mercy are heard by Him.  And He has perfect mercy, just the right healing touch, for each person.

 

   Take heart!  Get up!  Jesus is calling you!  The call of the crowd to Bartimaeus was repeated to Tyler this morning, as the Church called him to the font, to be healed by Jesus through the washing of the water and the Word.  The Lord has connected His mercy, His kindness and forgiveness to plain water.  Regular water, H₂O, three atoms making up one life-giving molecule.  Common, and yet precious water, combined with the highest and most Holy Word of God, His powerful and wonderful Name.  I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.  God’s mercy flows out, finding the lost, giving eyes of faith to a blind sinner, adopting another orphan soul into the family of God.  The Father declares again, publicly sealing the verdict:  This one is also my beloved son, for Jesus’ sake. 

   Chuck Kaus, 79 years young, recently rediscovered his Baptismal Birthday: October 11, 1942, at Holy Cross Lutheran in the Twin Cities.  When Chuck reached out to the congregation where his older sister thought he had been baptized, Chuck was rewarded with a treasure trove of details, stories that flow to and from that day when he was baptized as a newborn child, born again from above at the first opportunity, another faithful work by the people of God, walking in the Way of Jesus.  You may or may not know the details of your Baptism, but it is just as wonderful, just as glorious.  Because Jesus gets Baptism right, every time. 

    The Baptism of infants makes it most obvious that Baptism is not our work, but God’s.  God’s work, done through the hands and hearts and mouths of His people, to be sure.  Believers know that every human being needs the mercy of God, right from the beginning, and so parents and godparents bring the child.  The preacher plays his part.  The choir sings and the angels rejoice.  Because God is at work, by His Word, in our midst. 

   It looks like Tyler did something this morning, and he did.  Chuck was carried to the font in the arms of his parents, giving no indication that he knew what was happening.  But Tyler got up out of the pew and walked to the font.  Take heart!  Get up!  Jesus is calling you! 

   So, good for Tyler.  And good for all of you, for getting up out of bed and making your way to the Lord’s house this morning.  Jesus warns all of us to not give up meeting together, as is the habit of some, but to continue gathering together, encouraging each other in the faith, all the more as you see the Day of the Lord drawing near. 

    But Bartimaeus didn’t heal his own eyes by walking to Jesus.  Neither did you earn the forgiveness of sins by coming to church this morning.  Tyler did not become a child of God by getting out of the pew and walking up to the font.  The real work, the miracle of regeneration, can only be accomplished by God.  Because we were all dead in our trespasses and sins.  Dead people don’t do anything.  We were all conceived and born sinners, spiritually dead before our first breath, from our very beginning in need of a merciful rebirth from above. 

   Now, we, the reborn people of God, have much to do, as we walk with Jesus on the Way.  But getting onto and staying on the Way both depend on the Work of Salvation.  And Salvation depends on God.  By His merciful power, the Lord credits the righteous sacrifice of Christ on the Cross to the spiritual account of a dying sinner.  Take heart, the Lord has mercy.  Jesus’ life of love; His sin-and-guilt-washing death; and His indestructible resurrection to new life, God credits all these to you, by faith.  He did this at the font, for you, adopting you, forgiving you, giving you new birth, and a new heart.  There He made you the dwelling place of His Holy Spirit, to guide and keep you in the faith, faith in the Cross and Empty Tomb of Jesus, which through Baptism, are now yours. 

   God, and God alone, saves you.  Now, today, again.  Because you are still a sinner, in
need of forgiveness and renewal.  God saves you through the Word of grace, the Gospel, absolving you, forgiving you, setting you free.  Truly forgiven, on earth as it is in heaven, Amen.

   The Lord saves you through the Good News that you eat and drink, the mysterious Supper in which we are invited to dine in repentance, for the forgiveness of all our sins, delivered to us in the Holy Body and Blood of Christ. 

   Take heart!  Get up!  Jesus is calling you!  The Missionary Task of the Church is to call sinners in need of mercy to Jesus, so that Jesus can heal them.  As Pastor Anderson loves to say, we are sent out to fish, with these instructions from Christ:  You catch ’em, and I’ll clean ’em.  The Church is called to cast the net, to seek to draw people within earshot of Jesus, so that by His saving Word He can do the real work. 

   The Church has not always taken up her task with zeal and enthusiasm.  Sometimes the Church’s message about Jesus is wrong-headed.  The crowds outside Jericho, following Jesus, proved to be just as obtuse as the 12 disciples.  Remember what the 12 did when parents were bringing little children to Jesus, that He might bless them?  The disciples rebuked them.  They yelled at the parents, and tried to prevent them from bothering the Master.  “Get your grimy little kids away from here.  Can’t you see that Jesus doesn’t have time for such unimportant things?”   

   But of course Jesus always has time to bless little children.  The Lord’s anger flared, and the 12 received His rebuke.  And then Jesus welcomed the little ones, taking them up in His arms, laying His hands on them and blessing them.  The Lord has mercy, and loves to deliver it.    

    In today’s Gospel, just as the disciples had done to the parents, the crowd did to the blind beggar Bartimaeus.  He is a grown man, but almost as helpless as a child, in some ways more so.  But Bartimaeus has a voice, and faith.  He believes Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah, and he believes Jesus can help him.  So he cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” 

   And the crowd following Jesus, what is their response?  They rebuke the blind beggar.  “Shush, be quiet, Bartimaeus! Don’t bother the Master; can’t you see He has no time to pay attention to you?” 

   But Jesus has time.  Jesus makes time.  Jesus doesn’t seem to get angry with the crowd.  He simply stops, and says, “Call him.”  So now the corrected crowd exclaims to Bartimaeus, “Take heart!  Get up!  Jesus is calling you!”

   Lord have mercy.  You may have noticed over the years that the Church says and sings that phrase, a lot.  The liturgies of Christianity are filled with “Kyrie Eleison,” which is Greek for “Lord have mercy.” 

          Blind Bartimaeus could see that Jesus was the coming Messiah, the new King of the Jews, and so as the Lord passed by, he called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” 

          The Canaanite woman, seeking mercy for her daughter, believed firmly that Jesus is Lord, the Son of David, and that He has crumbs of mercy for all nations.  Lord have mercy on me. 

          Lepers, souls suffering from rotting skin, also knew that in the Man Jesus, the Lord was pouring out cleansing mercy and healing on the world.  Lord Jesus, have mercy on us. 

          Tax collectors and prostitutes saw in Jesus a merciful welcome they had never known. 

          From Genesis to Revelation, and especially in the four Gospels, hurting, outcast, sinful, dying people cry out for mercy to Jesus, trusting that He will respond.  And He did.

   The Church over the course of 2,000 years has spoken and sung Kyrie Eleison countless times.  Because we know that we are those same hurting, outcast, sinful, dying people.  To be in the Way of Jesus is to live in the joy of knowing that we, ... that I was lost, but now am found.  Blind, but now I see. Condemned, but now forgiven.  An orphan, but now a beloved child.  Dead in my trespasses and sins, but now made alive together in Christ Jesus. 

   And yet we know that in this life, even though we have received mercy and are children of God, we are also still sinners.  So of course we still cry out, again and again, “Lord, have mercy.”           

And He does. Every time.         

Then restored, like Bartimaeus, we follow in the Way of Jesus. 

    Which is not for the faint of heart.  Read on in Mark chapter 11, and consider the road on which Bartimaeus followed Jesus.  Life in the Way started out great for our newly seeing brother.  Leaping and singing for joy, Bartimaeus followed Jesus, who was walking from Jericho to Jerusalem, for the last time.  Hosanna to the Son of David, cried the crowd, as Jesus rode a donkey into the city, copying David’s son Solomon, anointed to be the New King of Israel. 

    But the celebration sours, and quickly.  The New King is not received with joy.  And Jesus’ teaching turns so dark.  A woman pours out expensive perfume on the Son of David, a prophetess in action, for Jesus tells us she was preparing His body for the tomb. 

   Then comes the bitter debate with the Pharisees and Priests, plotting and scheming.  Frightening teaching about the End Times.  A strange final Passover with His friends, transformed into a mysterious and awesome meal.   The Way of Jesus begins to get lonelier and lonelier.  Sweating blood, praying by Himself.  The enemy frightens off His friends, until finally, He is all alone.  Betrayed by one of the 12.  Abandoned, even by Peter and the others.  Lord have mercy, the enemy comes and arrests Him, and He is taken away.  What is going on? 

    The Lord is having mercy.  The Lord is revealing the true source of mercy, the true font of forgiveness.  The Lord has mercy, not on Jesus, but rather on you.  On that night, and the day following, the Father did not have mercy on Jesus.  Jesus for the joy set before Him accepted the opposite of mercy, suffering and dying in your place.  So that your merciful calling and adoption be guaranteed.  So that your healing be complete.  The Son of God mercifully sacrificed Himself so that your forgiveness would be limitless.  So that your eternity be filled with joy. 

     It is finished.  The strife is over, the victory is won.  Mercy has been perfected, by your Savior, for you.  God’s Son has died and risen, once for all: for all sins and for every sinner.  And so with this rich gift to share, Jesus continues to call each one of you.  In your Baptism he publicly declared that you are His.  Through the years of your connection to His Church, He has again and again called you back from your mistakes and falls, calling you to get up, and come to Him for restoration.  He is always calling you to come and receive His mercy, calling you to follow in His Way, and to do the good works He has prepared in advance for you to walk in. 

   Central to the works He would have you and me do together is to call others to Him.  We are not called to excuse sin.  But we are also not called to rebuke sinners.  Rather, as we daily need mercy for ourselves, we also call the sinners around us, those in the pews and those in the world, inviting them to come and hear Jesus, our merciful Savior, and theirs.    

   The Way of Jesus, the Way of walking in repentance and faith, is not always an easy path.  But it is full of joy, the joy of receiving mercy, and sharing it with others.  The joy of seeing blind hearts recognize the mercy of God for them, in this crucified and risen man, Jesus Christ. Take heart!  Get up!  Jesus is calling you!  Amen.