Jesus, Son of God, Have Mercy On Us!

As many of us have seen on TV or read in the papers, our world is in great spiritual distress.

The ongoing war we fight against Satan and his minions are constantly bombarding our hearts, our minds and even our bodies—our families—our children.

There are no rules of engagement for this war.

Evil does not wait for our children to become twelve years old to begin assailing the walls of our homes.

Evil does not care if we are having a bad day, a death in the family—a loss of a job—it will absolutely keep in its path of destruction destroying every man woman and child in its path.

For instance, a young man 22 years of age decided to grab a gun and begin a killing spree that resulted in the deaths of six people, one of whom was only nine (Tuscon, AZ in January 2011). He did not care for anything or anyone; he only wanted to spread a message— a message of hatred and death.

It is no wonder that in our lives we are depressed and sad. Individuals need medication just to cope with the day.

It takes a powerful and strong Christian to brave the world.

It only makes me wonder why we don’t say more often, what we say after many of the petitions in liturgy and what the blind man said to Jesus as He walked by in Jericho: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

In the gospel lesson about the blind man that sat at the gate in Jericho and shouted for Jesus’ mercy and what did people tell him? “Be silent, don’t bother the master.” This man wanted to speak to Jesus and because those around him felt that he was not important tried to suppress him.

Jesus came to the earth to spread a message of love and change, and what he received in return were the Pharisees and Sadducees, those who were jealous of Him and had no idea of the message that He was giving, trying to suppress Him and get Him to stop teaching.

They said that He did not know what He was saying because He was just a carpenter’s son, He was just a poor working class guy that had no authority.

And, when He proclaimed He was the ‘Son of God’ – blasphemy!

Jesus came with a radical message of praying for our enemies, having mercy on the poor, turning the other cheek, a message that was and is contrary to the world.

What He taught went against the grain, it went against all that Satan had tried so hard to accomplish from the Garden in Eden—to tell the world that God has no authority.

And, the same is happening today in a grander scale.

With the age of technology, Satan’s message is spread faster and more rampant.

We have organizations such as the ACLU telling us what we are to believe in, where we can read our Bibles; they want to take God and His authority out of our country.

With the power of pornography it teaches our children that sex is a tool or a weapon to get what you want and that, men and women have no use other than an image of lust and depravity.

Marriages are disposable, no one tries to work hard at their lives together, and all it takes is one lie to destroy the union that God brought together.

With homosexuality on the rise, Satan has given the world a way to destroy what God has made, in the union of love and having children, to lust and no chance at having children naturally.

Our world is quickly going to a place that is further and further away from the one true source of happiness.

We Christians stand back and allow people to tell us where we can worship, how we are to worship, where we can hang the Ten Commandments and where we can pray.

Our churches have been corrupted by greed and politics and the only thing that anyone can agree on is the color of money.

I say to you my brothers and sisters, why are we not saying it loudly and proclaiming to the world: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!”

And, when they tell us stop using that name—to be silent, you cannot use the name of Jesus here, we should say it even louder: “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on us!”

It is proven statistic that the highest reason for atheism today, is that we proclaim Jesus with our lips, but we deny Him when we are out in the world with our lifestyles.

It is what the unbelieving world find so unbelievable.

I know that so far in this sermon I have brought you only the dark side of things, but do not fear or be afraid my brothers and sisters.

As Jesus was walking by that day, and as the blind man shouted, imagine he had to shout loud enough to speak over the multitude that was surrounding Jesus, that Jesus heard him.

The crowd, I dare say, probably had some of Jesus’ followers, and those individuals who were not sure of who Jesus was, and those who were seeking Him, and for sure those who opposed Jesus and His message waiting for Him to make one false move.

And, over all the commotion Jesus heard the blind man who was not afraid to proclaim Jesus’ name. He was blind, he had heard of the mercy, the message, the healings and the power of Jesus.

He knew that as Jesus walked by that that was his chance to be heard.

So he shouted: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

I now want you recall the St. Paul’s Letter to Timothy, where in Paul writes:

“This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this reason I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show all longsuffering, as a pattern to those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.”

Now, with this in mind Jesus heard the blind man and commanded for him to be brought before Him.

The petition was shouted and our Lord responded by saying to the man: “What do you want of me?” And, through this, the man not only received his sight but glorified Jesus with those who were in the crowd.

Today, Jesus is willing to give us all that we ask, but we must first ask as the blind man asked: “Lord, that I may receive my sight.”

Our vision is clouded and we have become numb to the violence, and sex that we see and read about daily.

Jesus is strong. He tells us that he is with us, that he goes before us in battle to fight for us.

The problem is that we try to go out on our own and fight the world.

We are no where strong enough to face our enemy by ourselves.

But, Jesus made it possible for us to have a life worthy of living.

He gave us an example of a perfect life, a life without sin.

We have many weapons at our disposal: first of all in the church, then the scriptures, our fellow Christian soldiers, and most of all and most importantly Jesus Christ himself defeated the only thing that the enemy had hold over us—death.

We can approach the throne of God and ask with fear and trembling but most importantly we can ask in confidence: “Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on us.”

When Jesus walked the earth centuries ago, He did not care who He offended, He did not beat around the bush when He spread His message of salvation.

He taught boldly everyday during his ministry and lived with those men who He had chosen to continue his mission.

He knew that he was going to die for the message that He conveyed.

Jesus had so much love that he walked with the man who was going to betray him for three years and did not turn away from Judas.

Jesus lived his message, even as he hung on the cross he asked his Father to forgive the men who had crucified him.

In our lives today it may seem like it is one heartache after the other, but our Lord told us not to worry that he would be with us even until the end of the age.

No man, nor beast, not even Satan himself has any power over us.

I truly believe if we were doing our all to be the best Christian’s we could be, we to would be taken and put to death.

We must stand strong and stop letting the wicked and evil men of this earth tell us that Jesus must be silenced, that we are to control ourselves and that we are to be silent.

Let us be as the blind man who shouted with no fear: Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us.

Let us remember that the war has been won, and to pray for the mercy of God during the battles to come.