Taking a Leap

Luke 18:31-42

Jesus and his best friends are on the road to Jerusalem. There, every awful thing that has been prophesied about the death of the Messiah will come to pass. Jesus warns the disciples clearly- no metaphors, no parables, no vagueness. And they just don't get it. They have no idea what on earth he's talking about. In Luke 18:31-42, the story of the disciples' confusion stops. You assume that maybe they discussed it among themselves and pretty much just let it drop. "Oh well, you know Him- never makes any sense. Certainly this is not something we can understand."

But another story goes on: A blind man hears the commotion of Jesus passing by and asks, rather loudly, rather obnoxiously, what is going on. He cries out to Jesus to have mercy on him. The people around him are annoyed at the disturbance he is creating and ask him to be quiet. He persists in his calling out and it draws Jesus to him, where he gets to ask Jesus directly- face to face- to heal him and give him sight. He asks for the impossible. He takes a leap of faith and believes that Jesus can heal him. And he is given sight- immediately.

How often am I like the disciples, convinced that this is an area too great to be dealt with or understood? That it would be useless to involve God in the hopelessness of understanding this situation or seeing a way through? How often do I fail to ask? If only the disciples would have asked, like the blind man, for sight, Jesus surely would have pursued this troublesome topic with them. Perhaps then they would have been better prepared for the road that lay before them. But they didn't ask. And they weren't given sight.

How much more often I need to be like the blind man. To stand and make noise, create a disturbance before God until he quiets me with sight. How much more do I need to take wild leaps of faith to believe that Christ can- and will- accomplish the impossible in me...if only I ask and believe.