What do you really want?
The story is told of the man walking along the
river Lark who found a bottle. He opened it and out popped the genii. The genii
said, ‘I demand a public enquiry to investigate why so many geniis get put in
bottles ..’ No. He said, ‘You’ve got three wishes’. So the man said, ‘I want to live on a
tropical island, surrounded by palm trees and sandy beaches’, and pow, in less
than a second he was there. So he said, ‘I want a billion pounds’. And the
genii said, ‘Only a billion?’ and pow, there was a billion. And the man said,
‘For my third wish, I’d like to be irresistible to women’, and pow – he was transformed
into a box of chocolates.
What would you like? What would you really like?
Jesus calls the blind man to come to him and asks
him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’
If you were standing in front of Jesus now, and he
asked you that question, how would you answer?
For some of us, like the blind man, the answer
would be easy. It would be something that we have dreamed of for years, or it
is something that is so heavy on us. I want my daughter to get better; I want a
child; I want my husband to be healed; I really want a job or a different job;
I want the pain to go away; I want our marriage back; I want to meet someone
who I can share my life with; I want to be rich and fulfilled.
You possibly know the film ‘Bruce Almighty’. Bruce
becomes God for a day. At first he thinks it is great having all this power.
And then the prayers come: millions upon millions of requests – from people who
are broken or crushed or desperate. Bruce solves the problem by clicking on
‘reply all’, typing ‘yes’, and hitting ‘send’. Chaos ensues.
We can only concentrate on one person at a time.
If we are waiting to see the doctor we have to wait our turn in a queue. But
the thing about God is that he isn’t just a human person writ large. God is so
big, so beyond our understanding, that he says that he is able to personally
concentrate and focus on you and you and you, and on an infinite number of
people, at the same time. He can do it.
This story is telling us that if we recognise who Jesus
is and call out to him for mercy, and if the obstacles that are in our way are
overcome – when we come to stand in front of him, he will say to us, ‘What
would you like me to do for you?’
1.
We need to recognise who Jesus is
The crowd say to the blind man, ‘Jesus of Nazareth
is passing by’. That is an ordinary title. It’s like saying, Peter from
Drinkstone is coming by.
But the blind man sees in Jesus of Nazareth
something more. He doesn’t cry out, ‘Jesus of Nazareth have mercy on me’. He
cries out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me’.
And that is significant.
The Jews were waiting for a son of David, a
descendant of their great king David who had lived 800 years earlier, who would
come as the Messiah – who would come to be God’s ruler not just of Israel, but
of the world – who would establish God’s kingdom of justice, mercy, right-ness,
peace and joy.
He would, in the words of Isaiah – well, let’s
look at three references:
Isaiah 29:18
In that day the deaf shall hear the words of a book,
and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind shall see.
Isaiah 35:5
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
Isaiah 61:1f
The Spirit of the Lord God is
upon me,
because the Lord has anointed
me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's
favor,
The blind man sees more clearly than many of those
who have visual sight. He sees that this Jesus of Nazareth is none other than
the Son of David who God promised would come as Messiah. And he cries out,
‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me’.
So I ask you, who do you think this Jesus is?
Is he simply Jesus of Nazareth, the founder of a
world religion that has lasted 2000 years, whose teachings we can find in the
bible, but who is now dead – because if that is the case then prayer where we
ask for things is at its best a sort of positive thinking exercise or at worst
an escapist form of wishful thinking.
Or is Jesus more than that?
Because if he is in fact the Messiah who God sent
into this world, who died and rose again, who is alive, and who will one day
return (even though that concept just blows our minds), then crying out to him
for something is not wishful thinking.
The blind man saw who Jesus was and cried out to
him to have mercy on him.
2.
We need to persist in our prayer.
The crowd tell the blind man to shut up. He was an
embarrassment.
He was a social embarrassment:
He was a political embarrassment: when you are
under occupation, and Roman soldiers were just round the corner, you didn’t proclaim
that someone passing by was the Messiah.
It is interesting that it is the people ‘who led
the way’ who told him to be quiet – probably the disciples. No doubt they
wanted to protect Jesus – to keep him kosher. They also probably wanted to keep
Jesus for themselves.
So they tell him to be quiet!
And those of us who would call ourselves
Christians need to be very careful that our desire for correctness, for doing
things the right way, for order or simply our own self-interest, does not end
up pushing people away from Jesus.
But equally, if you do really begin to see who
Jesus is, and if you are desperate for him, you won’t be put off. On the day of
judgement when you stand in front of him, and he says, ‘Why didn’t you come to
me?’ and you say, ‘Well your followers told me to shut up, or they were
unfriendly, or someone who claimed to follow you really hurt me, or their church
services were just unreal’, it won’t be any excuse.
This blind man will stand up in judgement against
you.
He had a single focus. He was going to get to
Jesus.
They tell him to shut up; he cries out louder.
And Jesus hears, and orders them to bring the man
to him.
So please don’t be put off. Don’t be put off by
others; and don’t be put off if nothing happens immediately. I guess part of
the issue is whether we take Jesus seriously? Do we take him sufficiently
seriously so that we will persist in calling out to him, even if nothing
happens at first, or if opposition comes?
3.
Should we expect Jesus to give us what we want?
And the answer is both ‘no’ and ‘yes’.
There are moments when we do see some astonishing
answers to prayer, when we get glimpses of the coming kingdom of God. There are
wonderful moments when blind people see and deaf people hear.
But Jesus will not always give us what we want.
There have been many blind men and women, who have
longed to be able to see, who have come to Jesus and who have not been healed.
There have been many people who have come to Jesus
and have asked for the gift of children, for marriages to be restored, or people
to be healed, and they have not received what they wanted.
But actually I think our problem is that we ask
too little.
What do you really want?
What do you really want for yourself and for those
who God has put you in relationship with? What do you want for them now? What
do you want for them in 10 years time, in 30 years time, in 60 years time, in
100 years time?
May I suggest that what you really want for
yourself and for those you love is hope now, an end to death and a joy that
lasts for eternity?
The ancient writers spoke about three levels of
existence: being, well-being and eternal well-being. In our prayers for
ourselves we tend to focus on being: Father, help them get better. Or
well-being: ‘I really want that better job, or bigger house, or a life partner,
or for my child to do well at school and university.’
But we are all going to die. It is all temporary.
There would come a point again in the life of this
blind man, when his eyesight would fade, and he would die.
Of course we should ask Jesus for those things
that we most desire at any particular moment. He may, or he may not give us
what we want.
But could I suggest that a better prayer to pray
when we stand in front of Jesus, and he asks us, ‘What do you want me to do for
you?’ is to say, ‘I want eternal joy, and would you give me a glimpse, a
taster, of that eternal joy now’.
If we really do come to him – and not to some
little god who is the figment of our imagination – then Jesus can and will say ‘yes’
to that request.
He is the Messiah: he came to establish God’s
eternal reign of justice and mercy and peace and joy. It cost him everything to
do that – it cost him his life. But he gave his life because he longs for you
and for me to be citizens of his kingdom.
Paul prays that the Christians in the town of
Ephesus will come to know the love of God, and will come to be filled with the
love of God. And he continues, ‘Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more
than all we ask or imagine .. to him be glory’. (Ephesians 3:20)
The blind man asked to receive his sight. He
received his sight. But, if you notice, he received so much more: He becomes a
follower of Jesus. We’re told that in verse 43. And he praises God; he receives
the gift of joy.
We looked at those passages in Isaiah which speak
of what will happen when Messiah comes. They continue:
Isaiah 29:19
The meek shall obtain fresh joy
in the Lord,
and the poor among mankind shall rejoice
in the Holy One of Israel.
Isaiah 35:6
then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing
for joy.
Isaiah 61:3
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of
gladness instead of mourning,
the
garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
The Messiah comes to bring praise and joy.
Real joy comes when we forget ourselves and are
lost in the wonder of another.
Joy comes when Murray hits that final winning
shot.
Eternal joy comes when we are lost in wonder of
the one who loves us, who died for us, who has conquered death and who, if we
come to him, will never let us go.
Could I suggest that in your prayers, you think of
that question which Jesus asks, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ Do mention
before him the immediate things, but then, think deeper. Because he is also
asking, ‘What do you really want me to do for you?’
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