[Isaiah 35:3-7 / 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 / Luke 18:31-43]
“See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.” To this prophesy of our Lord about His impending Passion and Resurrection, St. Luke records of the twelve: “They understood none of these things. The saying was hidden from them. They did not grasp what was said.”
There were, if you will, living in Isaiah 35 - rejoicing in the eyes of the blind being opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame running a deer, and the tongue of the mute singing for joy. They got Isaiah 35. What they didn’t get was the inversion of the numbers. Not 35, but 53. Isaiah 53 they were not understanding: the Servant of the Lord, led as a sheep to the slaughter, the sins of all laid upon him, the chastisement that makes us whole falling on his back, and His certain vindication, seeing the light of life after the suffering of His soul.
We, too, enjoy living in the world of Isaiah 35 where all the wrongs of this world are set right by the presence of the Son of Man. Healings like that of the blind man in today’s Gospel are always causes for joy and celebration. But our Lord Jesus reminds us that life isn’t all about such moments. “We are going up to Jerusalem.” We all have our Jerusalem to face. The moments of mistreatment. The challenges posed by hatred and violence and vindictiveness. The betrayal of a friend. The scorn of our faith. The final horror of death. “We” says our Lord “are going up to Jerusalem.” Not just “I” but “we.”
Ah, but what joy in the “we.” We do not go up to our Jerusalem alone. We go with our Savior. We face the horrors that this world and our life in it can bring with the One who faced them all too - and who came out alive - alive forevermore.
But have you ever pondered WHY it is that our Lord has a life that no death can take from Him ever again? The key is in today’s epistle, where love is not a verb, but a noun. To have everything else, but this love, St. Paul teaches, is to have nothing in the end. But to have this love is to have everything. “Love is patient and kind; Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
And this Love has a name: our Lord Jesus. HE is this love. And He remained this love even while His own people betrayed and handed Him over to the Gentiles. He remained this love when the soldiers mocked Him, beat on Him, and spit on Him. He remained this love when they flogged Him and took off the skin of His back. He remained this love when they condemned Him to die and He was forced to stumble under the weight of His own cross. He remained this love when they lifted the hammer and pounded in the nails through His holy flesh, crying out “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He remained this love when they hoisted Him up on the gallows tree and His blood ran down upon the earth, the blood of God washing away the sin of the world. He was there because He loved. He loved and wanted even those (and we) who so misused Him and treated Him vilely to receive divine pardon, to have their sins covered over in His blood, to be freed from the bondage and the guilt of sin’s dead-end, to live with Him in love forever.
Love isn’t just about Isaiah 35 - the healing of the blind and the deaf and the mute and the lame. Love is about Isaiah 53, about how the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all for our full, final, ultimate healing.
But “we” are going up to Jerusalem. And it is in union with Him, with your Lord whose love no hatred could destroy; whose love proved stronger than all the darkness of the enemy; whose love led Him not only to the Cross for the forgiveness of your sins, but to the glories of Easter morning for the destruction of your death - in union with Him, He calls you to face your Jerusalems as He faced His. With love.
Love that prays for those who persecute you. Love that blesses those who use you. Love that doesn’t know a stranger, but welcomes all - and embraces them, accepts them, without legitimizing or accepting their sin. Love that acts the way St. Paul described at the end of Romans 12: “do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Love that can walk into the darkness of death confident that it will never be able to triumph.
Lent is almost upon us. Ash Wednesday and the Wednesdays following, we’ll be pondering again the miracle of a wounded Savior for a wounded world. Like the blind man with our eyes wide open, we will follow the Lord up the road to Jerusalem, giving glory to God. And all who make that pilgrimage with Him are changed, transformed. All that He has done for us leads us to sing His praises. And as we go up to His Jerusalem with Him, we know that when the time comes for us to go up to our Jerusalem He goes up with us too. That the end is resurrection and life everlasting.
Today in the Eucharist, Love Incarnate, Love Crucified, Love risen in glory, Love reigning in triumph comes to you. He who went up to Jerusalem for you, now would enter you, to be in you love unending. He comes to bring you all the fruits of His self-oblation. He comes into you to fill you with His divine and unending life. No more saying, then, “I can’t” when the call is to love. Inside of you will be Him whose love no hatred, no suffering, no mockery, no scorn could ever destroy; the light no darkness can overcome.
And so to Him be glory with His unoriginate Father and all-holy good and life-giving Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages! Amen.
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