Quinquagesima

St. Luke 18:31-43

February 15, 2026

“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem.” The term we is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

It’s like when a sportsball fan says, “We won the game.” The guy saying it didn’t win anything. The team he roots for did. But he associates himself with the team. When the team wins, he wins.

Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man will be accomplished. For He will be delivered to the Gentiles and will be mocked and insulted and spit upon. They will scourge Him and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again.

We go to Jerusalem, but He does the work. This is what the Bible calls justification.

Justification means someone is declared to be righteous, declared to be in the right. Good is credited, sin is canceled, removed, erased. Here’s how God’s Word describes it: “There is no difference [meaning, of different kinds of people]; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith” [Rom 3.22-25]. The mocking, insulting, spitting, scourging, and killing, that’s for us, what we deserve, but He is the One punished, He does the redeeming and propitiating. Faith looks away from self to Jesus and His work.

You need Christ’s work. For you are not what the Epistle describes. You’re not patient and kind, not the way God’s Law expects. No! You’re arrogant and rude. You insist on your own way. You’re irritable and resentful. You haven’t endured all things, but you’ve lost your patience, and you’ve kept track of how people have wronged you.

But Jesus, when He goes to Jerusalem, He does what the Law demands. He does what Love demands. He endures all things. He does not boast. He does not insist on His own way, but He lets the Jews and the Romans have their way with Him.

And in doing all this, He does it for us. That’s why He says, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem.” The work is His, the benefit is ours.

But they don’t get it. “They understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.”

It takes a blind man for them to see. For indeed, the blind man sees. He understands. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

“Shut up!” they sneer. For the people thought guys like him were a nuisance. His blindness? He deserved it!

There’s a similar episode in John, where the disciples come across a man born blind. They ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Bad things are the result of personal sin, that’s what they thought. So if you’re blind, that’s your fault. If you were born that way, it’s perhaps your parents fault. Good things happen to good people, bad things happen to bad people. That’s the way they thought.

So this guy in the Gospel hooting and hollering for mercy – well, he should be quiet. He doesn’t deserve mercy. Loser!

But it’s those who think they are winners who are the true losers. They need no mercy, they think. God helps those who help themselves.

Yet nothing can shut up this blind man. He shouts all the more.

There’s a lesson there. We give up so easily. Pray a bit, read a few chapters of the Bible, throw a couple bucks in the plate, nothing really changes. Why keep going? It’s hopeless.

But where the name of Jesus is named, it is never hopeless. This blind man sees it. He keeps on asking for mercy.

“What do you want Me to do for you?” Jesus asks him. What a question!

He wants his eyes to work. What an audacious request! Opthalmologists are amazing. But their abilities even today are limited.

Only One can restore sight. No prophet in the entire Old Testament does this. You have prophets cleansing leprosy, even raising the dead. But blindness, no one cures. No one except the Creator. This is the messianic sign.

This blind man recognizes Jesus as more than a prophet. Jesus is the Creator, come to restore His creation.

Now how would you answer the question? What do you want Christ to do for you? We have bills to pay, injuries to heal, situations to fix. But if we’re asking to make life a little easier, a little nicer, a little longer, then we are just as clueless as the disciples. For “They understood none of these things; this saying was hidden from them, and they did not know the things which were spoken.”

The seeing blind man understands better than the twelve. Upon receiving his sight, he becomes a disciple of Jesus. He follows Jesus, becomes part of the company going to Jerusalem.

Death is there. Many of the early Christians were put to death. Others were scattered, and had to flee. Being a Christian is difficult. The way is narrow.

But it’s the way that leads to life. That’s the road we are setting out on now, as we enter Lent this Wednesday. It’s the difficult way. We encounter people telling us to shut up. We have crosses of our own to bear. We are weak, and still don’t love like we ought to.

But the Jesus we follow unto death will bring us to the other side. He will not leave you nor forsake you. He hears your cries for mercy. Today He says to you, “What do you want Me to do for you?” Ask Him in faith. Ask Him for faith. Ask Him for forgiveness. Ask Him for a renewed creation. Ask Him to teach you to love. Ask Him for a blessed death. Ask Him for resurrection. He will answer.

Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem with Jesus. He will suffer and be put to death. He will justify us. He will rise again. And so shall we. +INJ+