The Caring Christ

Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.

Matthew 20:34

This healing is remarkable because of when it was accomplished in the ministry of Christ.

Jesus was departing Jericho and was on His way to Jerusalem for the final time. Within a week He would be crucified. He had taught on servanthood, had explained again to His disciples His coming death and resurrection, had listened to Mary the mother of James and John make her plea for her sons to be on His right and on His left when He entered His kingdom. Just before Him lay the Triumphal Entry on Palm Sunday, and then the final teachings, His betrayal, arrest, scourging and crucifixion.

Yet He stopped to hear the plea from two blind men to be healed, and did more than hear. He healed them. Matthew told the story matter-of-factly, plain, without embellishment. This was simply Jesus being the compassionate Savior and Healer in the world to people in need.

Christ never lost sight of His mission. He never was so overwhelmed with circumstances that He ceased to be the Redeemer to common people. He came not to perform a role but to be a witness. He was through and through love and compassion incarnate. He was a Man for All Seasons because He was Himself in all circumstances.

It is very easy for us to get caught up in what we consider to be “bigger” things, stressed because of seeming importance of some matters, pushed to hurry through life and ministry in the name of something we consider expedient, and we lose sight of the common that can become holy around us. We concentrate on important adults, for example, without considering that a small child nearby could have greater influence for Christ in the future than all the adults in the room. I mentioned last Sunday in our church conference that while we were discussing important things such as the construction of a new building, we should realize that those future plans — that at present are still theoretical, and may never come to be — should not distract us from loving one another today.

There is nothing wrong with making future plans, with respecting older people, or with regarding with appreciation the leadership of some in the fellowship, but we can never do so with the attitude that this means that the present or that the common person is insignificant. In the economy of grace it was an imprisoned slave in Egypt who rose to be great in the land (Joseph), a castaway baby placed in a basket on the Nile who became the deliverer of Israel (Moses), the least of his family who became the greatest king of Israel (David), a nameless servant girl who told a powerful Assyrian general Naaman of the prophet Elisha who could heal, and that took the despised cross and made it an emblem of hope and salvation to the world.

This is what it means to be a follower of Christ — that we love all in His name, that we seek to be His person in all circumstances, that we consider the importance of each individual — rich, poor, old young, everyone. And though we are commanded to respect those who serve well, to remember their contributions and their sacrifices for Christ, to respect the powers that be as being placed here by God, we also must seek to be God’s person in each situation in life.

If even we are on the way to our own crucifixion, we should express love and grace along the path.