We have just been through an election, and we might well ask of the
winner, are you the one or should we have expected someone else? What did we go
out to the ballot boxes to see? What kind of candidate did we expect on the
ticket? Well, we all know that a candidate won’t get too far in politics unless
they have presence, unless the voters are wowed with promises, glitz and a
social media frenzy to boost their image. In other words, you are not a vote
winner unless you are a winner. Meek and mild-mannered losers need not apply.
Or at least that is the perception generally held by the electorate.
But on the other hand, what is a real people leader like and how do they end up? I can’t think of too many examples. Aung San Su Ki, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi perhaps? You might think of others. And the common thread that runs through these three, if my memory serves, is that none of them became leaders through popular glitz, social media glamor, and playing power politic for their own sakes. All of them have been recognized as leaders because they exercised a servant heart for their people. They worked to set captives free, to raise up the poor, and worked for a just society of the common good. The power politic of their time tried to silence them. The people of their day might well have asked, are you the true leaders we have been looking for, or should we expect someone else?
Likewise, John the Baptist was preaching a charismatic message of the coming of God’s messiah, and he recognized who Jesus was when he baptized him. But when John found himself in prison, he must have thought to himself, what have I been preaching? Have I been totally mistaken? This Jesus I have known is not exactly the charismatic type of messianic leader I expected. He isn’t thumping the Pharisees or driving out the Romans, and there’s no sign of any power politic to restore great Israel as it was under David. So he sends messengers to ask Jesus, what kind of messiah are you? Not exactly what we expected. Perhaps we should look for someone else.
Jesus sends John’s disciples back with a message of hope, affirmation and encouragement. He says, if you want to know what kind of messiah I am, see and hear what I am doing, and call to mind what the scriptures say about it, the prophets like Isaiah and Micah who centuries earlier wrote about one who would come from God and do exactly what you see and hear of me doing now.
What do think about it my good and faithful messenger, who has prepared well the way before me? See, the blind receive sight; the lame walk; the deaf hear; the dead are raised back to life; good news of the nearness of God is proclaimed to the poor. And blessed is anyone who is not scandalized by me, who does not take offence at me because I am ministering to those who contemporary society has rejected as unworthy and unclean. These are the people my Father welcomes into his house, not you Pharisees and Sadducees who condemn the unclean and the unworthy.
I am not a messiah who plays power politic. That is not how the Kingdom of God comes about. My role as messiah is to set captives free, raise up the poor and dejected from the dust to give them hope and a future, knowing that there is a God who is on their side.
Now, there is another level of understanding that Matthew wants to get across to his readers. He’s not just saying that Jesus is here to fulfil what the old prophets wrote about him regarding making people see and hear again. Yes, Jesus could do that in the time when there were no cataract operations, bionic ear implants or heart defibrillators like we have in our time. Jesus’ work was truly miraculous. But there is another even more truly miraculous opening of eyes and ears and raising of the dead that this points to. And it is the reason why Jesus often told those whom he healed not to say anything about it to all and sundry.
The problem was that all and sundry did get to hear about Jesus as a miraculous healer, and as a result he had to confine much of his ministry outside the major towns because the crowds there would seek him out as a miraculous healer. But how many of them wanted HIM? Did they want to enter into a committed covenant relationship with the Son of God for better for worse, for richer for poorer, rather than just for material gain and relief from physical ailment?
We see an example of this in the ten lepers who Jesus healed. Only one of them came back to give thanks. The other nine went on their merry way all clean and healed. But that one came back seeking relationship with the one who could heal, not just his physical ailment, but his relationship with God, one who could make him clean and guilt free before a holy and loving Father God. And he expressed that in gratitude.
There are three verses in chapter one of St Paul’s letter the Ephesians that explains: I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may KNOW HIM BETTER. I pray that the EYES OF YOUR HEART may be enlightened so that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and the incomparable great power for us who believe.
The key point here is opening the eyes of the heart that it may be enlightened. Jesus’ healing of eyes and ears is not just the physical but also of the heart. An enlightened heart that sees and hears God speaking to it, is also a heart that speaks to God in communion with him. An enlightened heart wants Jesus for who he is, not just relief from physical ailments. Jesus always looks for faith first; always looks for the one who desires a relationship with him first. Then he commends that one by saying your faith has healed you, as we often read in the gospels. And it only takes a mustard seed’s worth of faith. God is satisfied with that.
In Hebrew thinking, a person is an integrated whole. Body, mind and spirit are not considered separate categories. The heart is the center of our being, not the brain or the mind as they are in our Greek inherited western thinking. It is the heart that sees (perceives) and hears (understands) and desires communion (speaks). So when Jesus commends those who come to him in faith with an ailment for healing, he is healing their whole person, opening the eyes and ears of their hearts so that they may know the God who has done this for them.
Why do you think Matthew writes of the time when two blind men cried out to Jesus, Lord Son of David have mercy on us? Jesus stopped and ask them, what do you want me to do for you? Their answer? We want our sight. Jesus had compassion on them and they received their sight and they followed him. Matthew is telling his readers that the miracle of sight is more than physical. The men asked for mercy first. They wanted Jesus first, to see him. Then the eyes of their hearts were opened and they received their sight.
That is the gift of discernment and of new life in Christ, the gift of eternal life, the raising of one who was dead to Christ and the things of God. And it is worth everything. Life can begin again. That is the great hope we Christians have. That indeed is wonderful news for those who by faith put their trust in God, and stick to it regardless of what they look like to outsiders and without counting the cost of it.
You see, the Kingdom of God has a heart for God’s people and comes in unexpected ways and from unexpected quarters. Just like Nelson Mandela who had a heart for his people, the downtrodden of South Africa. Who would have thought that when he began a life sentence on Robbin Island, that one day he would be President of South Africa. The ruling National Party would have laughed at that – dream on. But history have proven that hope for the poor and the oppressed did indeed come from an unexpected quarter.
Likewise, Jesus said to the crowd, when you went out to see John the Baptist, what did you expect? The ruling class in fine clothes on a day trip out from their palace? No. You saw a prophet wearing poor clothes and living off the land. And yet he is the one who is my messenger. A prophet of God indeed announcing the advent of the Kingdom of God from an expected quarter. And then there’s the circumstances of the arrival of the messiah himself as a baby lying in a horse trough because all the hotels in town were full. Not exactly what we would consider as appropriate for the Son of God’s arrival into our world. Totally unexpected.
Now the thing is, those whose eyes and ears of the heart are closed to the things of the Kingdom will never discern those things of their own accord. They are firmly focused on worldly standards and values and that’s that. The riches and values of the Kingdom are hidden from them because they have closed hearts, eyes shut and ears stopped. And that is because they don’t want to know. But the one who cries out have mercy on me O God, I want to see you, will be given that wonderful gift of sight and hearing that enables him to recognize the Kingdom of God coming from those unexpected quarters and times and places.
So as we move through this season of Advent and our theme of hope, let’s ask the Lord our God to open hearts and minds, and help us to guard against complacency. Through prayer and praise and study of the scriptures, the eyes and ears and voices of our hearts will stay open and ready to receive whatever good gifts our Father God give us.
So let me finish with the words of our Lord from verse 15 whoever has ears, let him hear.
Philip Starks
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