Sunday of the Blind Man (Full Text

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Sunday of the Blind Man
Scripture: Acts 16:16 – 34

Oops!

Sometimes, when things get out of our control they go from bad to worse. As we loose control, the reality may be that we’re digging our own grave.

Most of us are familiar with the story of Abraham and Sarah, who left their homeland to follow God into the Promised Land. You see, God had promised them that he would make them the parents of a great nation. However, there was only one catch: Both Abraham and Sarah were very old. They were so old that it was comical that God even made such a promise.

So, what did Sarah do? She took matters into her own hands. She thought she was doing good. It may be even be that she thought she was helping God out—abiding by his plan—but then things went downhill.

Sarah ended up allowing her slave, Hagar, to bear a baby for her. Yes, this baby was Abraham’s child, and, in Sarah’s mind, she may have believed that this baby was the fulfillment of God’s promise, but things started to get ugly.

Ugh!

Hagar’s pregnancy caused tension and jealousy between her and Sarah. Hagar began to despise Sarah, and Sarah, in turn, treated Hagar harshly, leading to significant strife within the household.

It got so bad that when Hagar ran way before the baby was born, it took an angel to convince her to go back to Abraham and Sarah.

As we all know, God ended up blessing both Hagar’s offspring as well as Sarah’s. But, if Sarah had only trusted God instead of trying to do it her way, she wouldn’t have made a mess of the whole thing.

Though this is an old tale–one as old as time–it shows that we have always had a way of making a mess of things, or finding ourselves in the middle of a messy situation.

Perhaps, you find that you’ve messed up at work, and you think to yourself, “I can’t admit my mistake to my boss, I’ll see if I can fix it if I by tweaking this or that.” However, that tweak may end up making things worse.

Or perhaps, there’s a situation at home. A fight between two family members, perhaps, and you think you can fix it. But, you quickly discover that trying to help just makes things worse.

We find ourselves in a mess quite a bit.

Today, St. Luke tells us about a jailer who was tasked with watching Paul and Silas, who had been thrown into a prison cell. As we heard, there was a great earthquake, and the cell doors were opened and the shackles that held the prisoners were broken.

Now, the jailer had been sleeping on the job—something I don’t recommend doing—and when we awoke, he saw the doors of the cells open. He assumed that all the prisoners had escaped. This wasn’t a good thing. In those days, jailers could be executed for failing at their job. In fact, earlier in Acts, when Peter was divinely freed, Herod had executed that jailer (12:19), and today’s jailer felt that the same thing was going to happen to him.

He had messed up, and, now, he was in pickle, so he decided to do the honorable thing: Fall on his own sword.

Aha!

But, just before he could end it all, Paul interceded: “Don’t harm yourself! We’re all still here!”

This, of course, got the jailer’s attention, but he was still in trouble: He had fallen asleep in the job and almost let the prisoners out. Luke doesn’t say, but even though Paul and Silas had stayed, it’s possible other prisoners had escaped.

The jailer called back to Paul. Most translations have rendered his response as, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” This is an accurate translation, but because we tend to hear “saved” in a theological context—we are, after all, in church—we misunderstand what the jailer is saying.

To translate the context, it would be better to render his words as, “Sirs, will you please tell me how I can get out of this mess?”

Here’s where his eyes were opened. He was, indeed, in a mess, but he was in a much worse mess than he realized. He was, as we spoke about a few weeks ago, sick and imprisoned by death.

Only when Paul started to speak about Jesus Christ did the jailer realize how big a mess he was in, not just in the moment, but spiritually. The Good News is that Jesus Christ heals us and fixes our mess—he fixes the big mess that all of humanity has found itself in. All of us, you and me alike, are imprisoned to sin and death.

The key to being saved, the key to getting out of the big mess, is to use the mess against itself. We see how to do this through the example of Paul and Silas.

Whee!

In the story, Paul and Silas were in a mess themselves. A demon possessed slave girl had been following them around and harassing them a bit. She was crying, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” The irony is that what she said was true. But, the pagan ear would have understood “Most High God” as Zeus. Eventually, Paul get’s annoyed and drives the demon out of the girl.

Typically, biblical exorcisms are celebrated, but, in this case, it meant the girl could no longer do her fortune telling, which, in turn, meant that she could no longer earn money for her owners. So, her owners got Paul and Silas arrested. Our apostle heroes are now in a pickle. But, here’s where scripture turns the tables.

In English, the text says that the jailer “… fastened their feet in the stocks.” But, in Greek, it actually says the jailer “… fastened their feet to the wood” (εἰς τὸ ξύλον). It’s the same word that is often used for the cross.

This gives us the image of Paul and Silas being fastened to the cross, just as Christ was fastened to the cross. In other words, the jailer unites the apostles to their true haven of salvation: the cross of Christ.

And, because the apostles put their trust completely in the crucified Christ, God rescues them from their pickle. An earthquake frees them, just as an earthquake had opened the tomb of Christ (Mt 28:2).

Now that they were freed, they were able to turn their attention to the mess of the jailer. Their message was an invitation for the jailer to also put his trust in the crucified Christ. Trust in the cross. See your suffering as a means of union with Christ and his suffering. Trust that through this suffering comes a rescue that can only be brought about by Christ.

Yeah!

For us today, the message is the same. The invitation is extended through time for us also: Trust in Christ to rescue you from your mess. Trust that the misfortune that’s fallen you will lead to your rescue from sin and death.

In the moment, it isn’t easy, and we may not understand why we have to suffer. But, look at Paul and Silas, if they had not suffered, they would not have had the opportunity to be united to Christ, to the cross. Nor would they have had the opportunity to witness to the jailer.

And, the jailer, if he had not suffered the anxiety of falling asleep and letting the prisoners go, he would not have heard the Good News.

In both cases, suffering opened up new possibilities and introduced them to a means of rescue, a means of salvation, a means of overcoming sin and turning towards Christ.

Now, the question is, how can we see our misfortunes, our messes, as a type of the cross that’s leading us to salvation as well?