Given to Shriven: Quinquagesima

Love divine, all loves excelling,
joy of heaven, to earth come down,
fix in us thy humble dwelling,
all thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesus, thou art all compassion,
pure, unbounded love thou art;
visit us with thy salvation,
enter every trembling heart.

The stage is set. Christ Jesus has set His face towards Jerusalem, where He knows He is journeying towards certain death. Although Jesus plainly tells His disciples that He goes to suffer and die, they cannot see. They stare at the glass, darkly, yet soon shall come face to face with the reality Jesus predicts: God in the flesh hung upon the cross by sinful humanity. It is the only way for our salvation.

We are blind to our need for salvation. Born sinful into this world, we need the diagnosis of the Law to even realize we are great sinners and far from grace. Likewise, even the disciples needed to hear the plain words of Christ, that He goes to Jerusalem not to celebrate the Passover, but to become our Passover. Jesus teaches His twelve from the Holy Scripture, that “all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished (Gospel lesson, Luke 18:31, KJV). However, the disciples do not understand. Do you seek understanding? Search the Scriptures, including the Old Testament, for these are the Scriptures that Christ taught from. Read it with Christ in mind. Read it anew and see how it predicts the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

Our Lord teaches the twelve disciples that within the contents of the Old Testament, they will find predicted what Jesus is about to experience during Holy Week, namely, “he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: and they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again.” (Luke 18:32–33, KJV). We Christians can easily deceive ourselves and think that we know the cost, without actually counting the cost of our own salvation. We think we understand the Scriptures, and yet much of contemporary Christianity has disregarded the Old Testament and become little better than modern gnostics or Marcionites. Or if we do take up our Old Testament, perhaps we are guilty of sanitizing it by skipping what we think is unsightly because we simply forget the true atrocity of our sin. We skip Leviticus and then think we can understand the cross without it. We bore at the details of the temple, and then deceive ourselves when the living temple becomes embodied. The reality is the contemporary Christian even hates admitting the necessity of the cross of Christ and moves as quickly as possible to Easter morning, because the graphic reality that our sin—yes, our sin—drove the Lord Jesus to the cross is too much for us “civilized” moderns to stomach. We rather skip over the brutality of Good Friday to Easter Sunday or sanitize it as part of a sterile atonement theory to our liking. Yet the cross is and always shall be a stumbling block and offense to those who do not realize the blood on our hands is that of the Son of God, and we need to be cleansed by that precious shed blood of the Son of Man.

Alas, the disciples and so many in this day and age are blind to the Scriptures. Blind in their hearts. Blind in their mind’s eye. Blind in their spirits to see what lies ahead. “And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken” (Luke 18:34, KJV).

Come, almighty to deliver,
let us all thy life receive;
suddenly return, and never,
nevermore thy temples leave.
Thee we would be alway blessing,
serve thee as thy hosts above,
pray, and praise thee without ceasing,
glory in thy perfect love.

Enter the blind man. Jesus takes his twelve blind disciples and they pass through Jericho. It is fitting that Jesus returns to Jericho, for He was there many centuries before with Joshua. It was Christ, the eternal Son of God, who directed Joshua how to take the then-Canaanite city. (Joshua 5-6). This time, Christ comes not to judge a pagan city by capturing it, but to free a captive people blind to their own captivity. Christ comes not to conquer Jericho, but to go free a slave of sin and to conquer Satan in Jerusalem.

Approaching Jericho, a blind man enters into our Lord’s view. A multitude is gathering and causing commotion and a stir. The blind man, who sits and begs by the roadside, hears the gathering and asks a profound question—who is traveling by? Oh, how I wish we were so in tune with our Lord, that we inquire where He is, and where He is going so that we too might follow.

Notice that this blind man, in his weakness and deformity, does not fail to rely upon others and ask them for guidance. We are called to be the same guides to the blind, for we too once were blind and required assistance from those who see to announce the good news that this blind man heard that day: “Jesus of Nazareth passeth by” (Luke 18:37, KJV).

With a shout and with a cry, the blind man does something astounding. He sees what the disciples, and the crowd, do not see. He cries out what the crowds will shout on Palm Sunday, “Jesus, thou Son of David,” and adds the blessed and most holy prayer, “have mercy on me.” (Luke 18:38, KJV). This blind man knows what so many others do not – Jesus is King and Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Savior and Jesus is Merciful. The blind man recognizes Jesus, do you? Sons and daughters of the Church, far too many in our communities have eyes that are blind to who our Savior is.

Let us pray, O Church, to have eyes like this beautiful blind man who sees what others do not. Let us no more carry the burden of our own sins down into the Pit and drop them at the foot of the cross. Recognize Christ for who He is, the One who journeys now to the cross to nail your sins to the tree. Lord, help us to fast so that we may have clarity of mind and prayer to see you. May we fast from the distracted life of mobile phone chimes, stop the endless connection to the world, and simply be still, crying out to the Lord, “Have mercy on me a sinner.”

This Lent, if we dare to fast from the world and journey with Jesus towards the cross, then we will face challenges, adversity, and hostility. Even the poor blind man, condemned to begging on the streets, faced hostility from the crowd as they “rebuked him, that he should hold his peace.” (Luke 18:39, KJV). Yet the hostile crowd could not tamper this blind man’s faith – he wished to see Jesus and see Him he did when his shouts to see Christ only echoed even greater on Jericho’s rebuilt walls. Therefore, when Satan and sin attack and distract you, join your voice with the blind man, who “cried so much the more, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me” (Luke 18:39, KJV, emphasis mine).

When we struggle, Christ is with us. When we face adversity, Christ speaks through us. When we are challenged, Christ goes before us. The blind man’s cries did not go unanswered. Neither do our cries for mercy go unanswered as Jesus journeys towards the cross. “Jesus stood, and commanded him to be brought unto him” (Luke 18:40 KJV). When the blind man was brought to our Lord, he boldly asked to be healed. And Jesus tells him and every one of us born blind in this world, “Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee” (Luke 18:42, KJV). The blind man is given sight, so he may watch as his Savior bears the cross to grant him true healing, perfect redemption, and salvation.

Finish then thy new creation;
pure and spotless let us be;
let us see thy great salvation
perfectly restored in thee:
changed from glory into glory,
till in heaven we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise.

Our salvation and our faith are not for ourselves. Let us respond like the blind man who was healed, and follow after “Him, glorifying God” so that whomever we meet, “all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God” (Luke 18:43, KJV). May the testimony of all of us who were formerly blind give glory to our Father in heaven and bring forth more voices praising God for what He has done in our lives.

Many in the Church already serve the Lord and do so mightily. There are many more who merely attend Sunday services and desert Christ immediately after the dismissal. May we pause this Shrove Sunday and ask our Father to reveal “where am I still blind?” Find where you are still spiritually blind and confess it, and ask the Father of all mercies to bestow spiritual sight in the Name of the Son of David who bled for you.

We enter Shrovetide with an invitation not to give up, but to give into our Lord. For He has bestowed His saints with gifts to be used for our blind neighbors so that they may see Christ with new eyes.

Longtime Christians need to hear these words more so than new believers, for new believers eagerly praise the Lord like the newly healed blind man and are ready to use their gifts for God’s kingdom. Those of us who have several Lent’s under our belt (and increasing waistlines) need to tighten the belt and remember our first love. Christ poured out the gifts of the Spirit upon us, not as laurels to wear but as arrows to use. Therefore, let us reassess our use – or disuse – of our spiritual gifts and pray for the Lord to reignite this Lent a hunger to use ourselves in the Church. St. Paul warns us not to boast in our gifts, for we could speak every tongue in heaven and on earth and have nothing if we lack charity (Epistle Lesson, 1 Corinthians 13:1). Why, we could even “have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2, KJV).

Therefore, let us be shriven this Shrovetide, so that we may be given over unto the Kingdom. Let us purge the need for praise within the Church and from the world, so we may bear nothing greater than charity for all. For our neighbors need our charity, a love that reveals the crucified Christ who bears all charity towards us while we were sinners. Therefore, let us take up the cause of the poor, the needy, the blind who lead the spiritually blind, and may we keep a Holy Lent through giving all for all, just as God shall someday soon be all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28).

Dear Christian, it is simply time for us to grow up and not merely grow older in Christ. It is time to be weaned off spiritual milk and chew the richer and deeper things. The time is near for the fast to begin, a fast that is more than from sweets and meats, and is an eternal fasting from the world so that we may bear the Light of the world in our bodies. “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (1 Corinthians 13:11, KJV). Gird your loins, O Church, and play the man, for the dark hour draws near when Christ is betrayed by a kiss. Do not betray your first love by kissing Him with your lips at the altar rail Sunday morning while betraying Him in your heart as you live as a pagan the rest of the week.

During this age, we “see through a glass, darkly” but in the twinkle of an eye we shall behold “face to face” the One who makes the blind see (1 Corinthians 13:12, KJV). Prepare your hearts, prepare the way of the Lord. At this hour, let your ministry begin by letting yourself decrease, and letting Christ increase in all that you think, you speak, you do, and you say. Fast from idle thoughts and idle words and work on praying without ceasing so there is no time to waste on indulging sin and the flesh. Pray fervently the collect of the day for the strengthening of God’s Holy Ghost to prepare you and protect you from weakness, temptation, and the time of trial ahead:

O Lord, who hast taught us that all our doings without charity are nothing worth: Send thy Holy Ghost and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtues, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before thee. Grant this for thine only Son Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

Above all else, let whatever you do be done unto the Lord and cheerfully so, for our Lord loves a cheerful giver. “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity” (1 Corinthians 13:13, KJV).