Jesus and Interruptions
Have you ever been right in the middle of something important? Had something you really needed to get done, perhaps even something that those you love were counting on you for?
Well, Jesus was on a mission like that in Luke 18. In order to rescue his own, he is headed to Jerusalem to be welcomed like a king but then killed like a criminal. This is game-time, battle prep for the most important purpose of his life on earth, and he’s thinking and talking with his friends about it constantly.
And lo and behold, during this journey to Jerusalem, Jesus is interrupted… halted…delayed. There is a blind man begging by the side of the road, and when he hears Jesus is coming by, he starts shouting at the top of his lungs “Jesus! Son of David have mercy on me!”
Now I know how I typically respond when I’m interrupted in the middle of something I consider really important. *Call declined.* “Yeah, yeah, mm-hmm, be right there.” But what does Jesus do?
Jesus stops. He stops! He’s certainly not expected to in this situation. The crowd standing around the blind man kept telling him to be quiet, to stop bugging the important man. Jesus doesn’t do this for political or PR reasons. He wasn’t running for office… in fact, he knew that he would be killed within a week.
He stops, because he loves this man, and he doesn’t miss an opportunity to glorify God and bring praise to His name. Jesus tells the crowd to bring the man closer, he looks right at him, and asks him what he wants. The man, displaying great faith based simply on what he’s heard of Jesus, asks for his sight to be restored, and Jesus responds, “Recover your sight, your faith has made you well.” Note that Jesus doesn’t need stem cell reconstructive DNA sequencing to fix this man’s sight. He simply speaks because He is God, and He can do that. And immediately, the man recovered his sight and followed Jesus. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God. One very important thing for us to consider today is that God can do amazing things with interruptions.
So the exhortation today is this: Let’s be ready for interruptions that God may place in our plans, and in those moments, ask for God’s help to respond in love like Jesus.