Do You See? Do You Want to See?

We observe two more encounters with Jesus this morning. Matthew places the two encounters together intentionally. The two blind men act as a foil, to accentuate the blindness of the two disciples.

The encounters take place as Jesus is walking toward Jerusalem. He has told the disciples that he will be betrayed there and put to death and on the third day raised to life. As they walk, Jesus teaches. Others are headed to Jerusalem for the Passover, too. The road is crowded.

People are jostling to get close to Jesus, trying to hear, wanting to converse and ask questions, to know more.

All of a sudden, Jesus is stopped in his tracks. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, two of his disciples are standing in front of him in his way, and their mother has fallen on her knees at his feet. She asks a favor.

“What is it you want?” he asks.

Notice how differently the second encounter comes about. Jesus is walking and teaching, and the crowd is struggling to hear him because there are two blind beggars on the side of the road hollering, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us!” Of course, those in the crowd closest to them there along the roadside try to get them to hush. They are making a scene. Here Jesus is trying to teach, people are trying to listen, and they just keep getting louder and louder. Completely undignified. Finally, Jesus has to stop. He calls them over, “What do you want me to do for you?” he asks.

How do you and I come? Are we comfortable enough that we get in his path and fall on our knees in respect expecting him to invite us to stand, or are we humble beggars on the side of the road hoping that somehow he will notice us and have mercy? Either way, Jesus asks “What do you want?”

What a dangerous question! What do you want? It is like being in a fairy tale. What do you want?
Author Marina Warner in her work, Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale, asserts that fairytales “are stories that try to find the truth and give us glimpses of greater things.” For more than 3,000 years people have been telling stories about being granted wishes and the consequences of the wishes that are made. From Arabian nights to tales of woodmen, from France, Sweden, Estonia, Hungary, and England come folktales of wishes granted and gone wrong. We know what happens when we are given the freedom to ask for anything. We don’t know what we want. Not really. We don’t know what will be good for us. Not really.
James and John and their mother have heard Jesus teaching about the kingdom he is establishing. Now, he says that he will be betrayed and put to death. So, they ask to be next in line to the throne. “Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.”

“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus responds, “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” They were blind to the path that Jesus would walk.

As they continued down the path two blind beggars were sitting along the roadside. They had heard that the Son of David was coming, a king in the line of King David. Where there’s royalty, there is money. All day long every day, they begged just to get by. Surely he could spare enough for them to live on a while.

N.T. Wright describes wonderfully what they must have been thinking as they shouted. ‘Have pity on us, son of David, have pity! Mercy for a blind man! Son of David, be kind to us!’ I thought to myself, “Call him a king, that’ll make him feel good, make him want to show how generous he is – the rich like to give money when lots of people are watching…” Maybe he’ll send one of his minions across to us with some coins…listen for the thud as they hit the ground. Then he called to us. Bid us to come to him. The noise of the crowd muted. I thought I had gone deaf for a second. I see with my ears, and suddenly all was silent. I realized all eyes were on us. Then he spoke, “What do you want me to do for you?”

No one had ever asked that. “Well…what d’you think? What does a beggar always want? But…why was he asking? What did he mean? Was he hinting…? But [we’d] look stupid if we asked and he couldn’t, or wouldn’t – and then [we] wouldn’t get the money either…perhaps it would be better to play [it] safe, stick with[what we knew]?”

Those few seconds seemed like hours. I felt it bubbling up in me. ‘Master – open our eyes! Lord, we want our sight.” Jesus touched our eyes. We could see and we followed him.

James and John have been with Jesus almost his entire ministry. They have heard him preach and teach for years. Yet, they are blind to his kingship, and when they are given the opportunity to ask for anything, they ask for hierarchical position. They want to secure their future. Two blind beggars ask all day long every day for enough money to survive, and when Jesus asks them what they want rather than asking for security or riches they ask to see. They want what will transform their lives.

Jesus asks each of us, “What do you want?“ Do you want security or transformation?