Sunday
10/24/21 - Sidney UMC
Sermon Title: “Seeing Vs. Seeing”
Old Testament Scripture: Psalm 34: 1-8, 19-22
New Testament Scripture: Hebrews 7:23-28
Gospel Lesson: Mark 10:46-52
Some people have a problem with seeing,
and yet some other people have a problem with seeing. By this I mean, we can
see with our eyes, but we can also see with our hearts and with our souls. We
can have 20/20 vision, but our hearts and our souls can be blind. Our hearts
and our souls can have 20/20 vision, but we can be blind in our eyes. Can we
see with the eyes in our heads? Can we see with the eyes of our hearts and our
souls?
I remember a number of years ago I did
a weekend of prison ministry at the Cayuga Correctional Facility, in Moravia,
NY. Our Christian leadership team went into the prison on Friday, on Saturday,
and then after church on Sunday. Some of the inmates that I encountered had
incredible faith, and some of them knew the Bible inside and out. Many of these
men were devout and committed followers of Jesus Christ.
When this weekend ended, I returned to the church and
told the church that I had learned that there are some people who are behind bars
physically, but who are spiritually free. Likewise, there people who are physically
free, but who are behind bars spiritually. Being free in Christ is a state of
being with God, not necessarily a location.
In a comparable way, my sermon for
this morning is titled “Seeing Vs. Seeing.” In the same way a person can be
behind bars, but be spiritually free, someone can be blind in their eyes, but
see clearly in their hearts and souls. I do not know as if I have ever personally
met a Christian before who was blind in their eyes, but this would be an
example of seeing with your heart and your soul. For example, if you tell
someone that you love them, what do you mean by this? Do you mean that you love
just what you can see, or do you also love what you cannot see? You may love
the appearance of the person, but hopefully you also love their heart, there
soul, and the way that they are. We can have physical eyesight, and we can have
spiritual eyesight.
I do not know about you, but not being
able to see with our eyes is scary. I remember sometimes in my life that the
power in the house went out during a storm. It was dark, I could not see, I was
stumbling around try to feel my way to where I was going. This was the worst,
and it always seemed to happen when you least expected it to.
I also remember a couple of times when the power went
out, my mom asked me to go into the basement and to check the circuit breaker
box. I mean after all it could be a power outage, a tripped circuit, or a blown
fuse. Once in a while I was the lucky person who got to investigate this.
Well, when you are young though, you may or may not
think that there are monsters in the basement. You have to walk down those creaky
steps in the dark, and it can be scary when you are a kid. When I was about
10-years there would be no way that you would ever be able to get me to sleep
in the basement.
We often use the term in our culture being “Afraid
of the Dark.” Some of us used to be “Afraid of the Dark,” or maybe still are “Afraid
of the Dark.” I was “Afraid of the Dark,” when I was kid. Were you “Afraid of
the Dark”? Are you still “Afraid of the Dark”? Why would someone be “Afraid of
the Dark” though? I mean if the lights were on one minute and then the power
suddenly went out, why would be scared? Has anything really changed in a couple
of seconds? No. So what are we afraid of? We are in our living room watching
television one minute, and then the power just goes out. It got dark and quiet
really quick. Has anything changed though? No. Why can the dark be so scary?
I was “Afraid of the Dark” when I was
a kid because I did not know where I was going. I struggled to get where I was going
and could not see anything around me. I temporarily lost my hope, my direction,
and I felt lost and afraid in the darkness. For in these moments there was no
light to reassure me, and I was not certain that the dark was safe. I mean, I
could not see with my eyes, so how did I know that there was not something
scary out there. Many people act differently when they walk around in the
daylight versus the night. In fact, in some places that I have visited, I was
told to not go out alone at night. Some people do not like to walk around at
night, but only during the day. Anyone here like that? Not being able to see,
being in the dark, is not a feeling that many people like to have.
In the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah prophetically
wrote of the coming Messiah, of Jesus in 9:2:
2 The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined (Isa. 9:2, NRSV).
To be blind is to be in darkness, whether that darkness is
in the vision in your eyes, or the vision in your heart and soul. This morning in
our gospel of Mark reading once again, a man named Bartimaeus son of Timaeus
was a blind beggar. Bartimaeus heard that Jesus of Nazareth was in Jericho where
he was, and so he shouted for Jesus to have mercy on him. Many tried to silence
Bartimaeus, but he cried even louder for Jesus’ mercy (Mk. 10:46-48, NRSV).
Bartimaeus could not see Jesus with his eyes, but he knew Jesus was there.
Bartimaeus heard with his ears that Jesus was present, but I wonder if in his
heart and in his soul, he felt the presence of Jesus? Why did he cry out to
Jesus? Was it just because he was desperate? Was it because he had heard this
Jesus was a healer? Or was it because Bartimaeus knew who Jesus really was?
After Bartimaeus continues to shout to Jesus, Jesus then invites
Bartimaeus to get up and to go to him. After Bartimaeus threw off his cloak and
sprang up, he walked over to Jesus. Jesus then asked Bartimaeus what he wanted
from him. Bartimaeus then said to Jesus, “My teacher, let me see again” (Mk.
10:49-51, NRSV). The gospel of Mark reading for this morning then ends once again
referring to Bartimaeus in 10:52 saying:
52 Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way (Mk. 10:52, NRSV).
I
wonder what it is like to be blind. What is it like to never see light, but to only
have darkness? I have been told that when people are blind that their other
senses become incredibly strengthened to compensate for there lack of vision.
These folks learn to make there way through the world not seeing, having darkness.
That being said though, nobody wants to walk in darkness.
In a
comparable way, what is it like to have spiritual blindness? What is like to
have no faith, no hope, and to have no eternity. To walk in spiritual darkness
is to have no spiritual light, no Jesus, no salvation, no peace, no love, no
eternity.
The morning the Psalmist says in 34:1-2 once again:
1 I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. 2 My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad (Ps. 34:1-2, NRSV).
Can you praise God with the eyes of your heart and your
soul, but yet be blind in your vision? Yes, of course. For those of us that can
see with our eyes though, when we meet Christ we change, and how we see the
world changes. The eyes of our hearts and our souls, therefore, directly affect
the eyes in our heads.
In our reading from the Book of Hebrews for this morning,
the Apostle Paul reminds us of the reality that all pastors and priests will
die on this earth, but that the highest priest, Jesus Christ, is permanent,
eternal, and that he died for our sins. Jesus, unlike any other human who has
walked this earth, did not stay dead, but rose and lives and reigns forever.
Imagine then being in a dark room but being filled with
light. Imagine not being able to see with your eyes but having 20/20 vision
with your heart and your soul. Further, when we look at the world with our
eyes, what we see is always skewed by how we interpret the world. If we see
nothing but misery in our hearts and our souls, are we shocked when see a
miserable world? If we see nothing but darkness in our hearts and our souls,
are shocked when we see darkness through our eyes? I heard the term once that “the
eyes are the windows to the soul.” If this is true, what is in our hearts and our
souls will most certainly affect what we see with our eyes. What do people see
when they look through the windows of your eyes into your soul?
Given this, do we really fully see with the eyes in our
heads, or is what we see with the eyes in our heads greatly affected by the
eyes of our hearts and our souls? I would think that the eyes of our hearts and
our souls greatly impact what we see with the eyes in our heads. In fact, Jesus
healed Bartimaeus this morning, not because he was blind, but because he had
faith. Jesus tells Bartimaeus “Go; your faith has made you well.”
It would seem evident then that the eyes of Bartimaeus’
heart and soul were wide open, and as a result, the vision in Bartimaeus’s eyes
in his head was magnified and completely transformed. If Jesus had restored
Bartimaeus’ physical eyesight, but Bartimaeus had no faith, would he then see
the world the way he did with faith? Maybe Bartimaeus realized that “the eyes
are the window to the soul,” and that when his faith through Jesus Christ restored
his physical vision, what he saw in his soul was then personified with what he
saw with the eyes in his head. So, friends, this morning are we seeing with our
hearts and our souls, and with the eyes in our heads? I am asking this question
to see if we are “Seeing Vs. Seeing.” Amen.
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