TO US HE TURNED: REVELATION
“Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!’”
This is a private moment. To the disciples He turned and spoke privately. There are some things not meant for the public arena, some things intended only for those equipped to understand them. To those who had been His companions on the way He turned, to interpret what they were experiencing.
The immediate context is the return of the seventy from their mission. Jesus had sent out a crowd of advance workers. They were to go to each place He intended to go and they were to test the waters. Either they would find a welcome or they would find hostility. But they were to discover what the mood of each place would be.
Jesus’ instructions were clear. If they were to find a town hospitable, then they were to do there what He would have done. They were to preach and teach and perform works of healing – all that Jesus would have done, had He been there Himself.
But if they were to find a town hostile, they were to scamper out of there and leave the place to its own fate. The assessment of the Lord was, “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me … and the one who sent me.” A verdict entirely clear.
So now the seventy are back, and they have come with a glowing report. They can scarcely believe what happened when they went out knocking on doors, representing themselves as servants of Jesus. “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us.” Resistance toppled and hearts were open and even the most intractable of minds listened. “Lord, in your name ….” Power.
Then Jesus in prayer and thanked God for this confirmation of all He had been about. This was the “signed, sealed, and delivered” for all He had been doing. He had been marching relentlessly toward Jerusalem, sensing that there His life would come to its nadir and yet also to its apex. And now, confirmation. There was no stopping now.
And so to His disciples He turned to alert them that what they were about to see was beyond description, but would be an unveiling of all that human beings had wanted to see. What they were about to hear was beyond recording, but would be the good news that all history had longed to hear. To His disciples He turned to alert them that what they soon would see on a hill called Calvary, what they would soon hear from His lips, would be the fulfillment of countless hopes. To them He turned, privately; and to us He turned, to mandate that we come to a place like this, time and again, here to see, here to understand. There is more going on here than the eye can take in, more than the mind can comprehend. So we must come and we must linger. To us He turned, that we might survey the wondrous cross.
“When I Survey”, vs. 1 -- Scripture: Matthew 27:17-30
TO US HE TURNED: BROKENNESS
“Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!’”
Of all the instructions Jesus gave the Seventy, none is more daunting than the instruction to cure the sick. “Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you … cure the sick who are there and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’” Not an easy task.
Now the Seventy were given other instructions too. They were to proclaim peace wherever they went. Not as easy, actually, as it sounds, for bandying about words like “peace” will get you challenged very quickly! If you have no peace to offer, do not announce it.
And they were instructed to seek hospitality. They were not to carry supplies or money, but were to live off the land. That is not easy, either; few of us are comfortable not being in control of our surroundings. But if they were to survive, this is what they must do. Not easy, but necessary, to ask for the means for daily life.
But to cure the sick? To heal the diseased? Untrained, graduates of no medical college, without experience, just ordinary folks out there offering to cure the sick? How difficult is that? How much challenge is involved in that? A great deal.
Maybe the only way it could be done would have been to announce to a broken world that there was one who Himself was broken and wounded for our transgressions. Maybe the only convincing way to persuade the sick to offer themselves for healing would be to show them one who was willing to be bruised for our iniquities. Maybe the only credible witness that an anguished world can trust is the witness of one who is willing to leave the comfort zone and to be where they are.
Father Damien, the missionary to the lepers of Hawaii, served for years among those outcast people, tending their rotting flesh and offering medicine for the soul as well as for the body. It is said that when he began his ministry he would refer to his flock as, “You lepers.” The time came when Father Damien also contracted the disease; then he changed his style of preaching to say, “We lepers.” We are the ones who need to be healed. Not they, but we.
And so to us He turned to tell us that we are blessed to see what others have longed to see – healing for the broken in body, balm for the broken in spirit. We are not to take pride in our wholeness, for it is not our own. We are to boast only in our brokenness, for only by His stripes are we healed.
“When I Survey”, vs. 2
TO US HE TURNED: THE BODY
“Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!’”
“See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals.” Never mind the Boy Scout motto, “Be prepared”. I am telling you, just go out there and do this. Never mind the Coast Guard theme, “Semper Paratus.” My command to you is to fall back on the kindness of strangers.
How strange a thing is this! If Jesus is going to send seventy people out to do His work, surely He should provide for them, or at least permit them to provide for themselves! How presumptuous for Him to suppose that they will be able to locate somebody, every night, willing to give them a place to sleep and food for their hunger! But this is His wish; and when they come back, they do not complain that they were hungry or thirsty or cold. They tell Him that the very demons seemed to collapse before them. They have learned that living out of the hospitality of others is not only possible; it is a necessity.
When I was a boy, I was told repeatedly to eat my asparagus, which I loathed, or my tomatoes, which I barely tolerated, because there were poor starving children in Europe who would love to have them. I never did figure out how my eating that vile stuff would help those children, but I’m glad I did as I was told, because I grew up to marry one of those starving children of Europe! We are a part of one another, whether we see it or not.
This is about the body. Not the individual body, but about the body of Christ. It is about learning that as we break bread together, we share in the One Body. This is about knowing that all of life is gift, and that sisters and brothers are called to offer and to receive what others have to give. The Lord would say that it is more blessed to give than to receive; but notice that it is blessed to receive. It is just MORE blessed to give than to receive. Yet some of us have too much trouble with the receiving part. We do not like to acknowledge our neediness.
You see, some of us do not discern, even yet, what the body of Christ is. We think we can come and go at will and can treat casually what it means to be a part of Him. We suppose that church membership is a mere formality. We think that worship is about what we call “inspiration.” We have not learned that to be indifferent to the gift of community, embodied here at this Table, is to tear the Body of Christ and wound Him all over again. As we break this bread, remember the pain He feels when we fail to acknowledge the Body.
Breaking the Bread
TO US HE TURNED: POURED OUT
“Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!’”
The mission of the Seventy was not all good news. It was also the announcement of justice. They were to find hospitable towns, and there to stay and bring peace and healing. But they were also to find hostile towns, and there they should not stay, but were to shake off the dust of their feet in protest against such places.
There are some who refuse even the best the Lord has to give, and it is no good either to fret over that or to cheapen the Gospel to entice them. Sometimes all we can do is to warn them of terrible things to come. But what few ever see is that even for those who reject Him, the Lord Christ suffers and bleeds.
To the disciples Jesus turned to say privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see”, for so much of the world had seen only injustice, oppression, hatred. They had seen blood spilled on many a battlefield, always in the name of conquest. They had seen lives spent like so many near-worthless pennies, compelled by ravaging kings to destroy other nations. No one can calculate how much blood had been spilled for all the wrong causes.
But now, at long last, there would be something different. Now there would be, wonder of wonders, One who would freely spill His own blood. It was not that He was a victim, taken to do to Him what He would not have permitted. It was that He would discern the will of the Father and would freely go with them to Calvary. It was that He would do this not for His own glory, not to be a martyr, not to claim fame. He would do this for these disciples, He would do this for the world, He would do this for us.
“ … rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”
Disciples, do you see? This is what the world has never seen before, one whose love penetrates so far that His blood will be shed at will, out of love. Blessed are the eyes that see this! Disciples, do you hear? This is what has never been spoken of before, that the judgment we deserve is taken into the very heart of the judge himself. Blessed are the ears that hear this! It is as though we were in court, convicted of a crime, and the judge were to come down from the bench and serve our sentence! Oh, strange new world! And we are born to see it!
“Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”
To us He turned, to show us the scars in His head, His hands, His feet, the wounds in His side, that we may respond as those who are ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven. As those who are made whole and thus become wounded healers. Pouring the Cup “When I Survey”, vs. 3
The Distribution of the Elements
Benediction, "When I Survey", vs. 4
