Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3491
“Jesus answered and said unto Aim, What do you want Me to do for you?” Mark 10:51.
THE story of this miracle is wonderfully attractive. It has always been a favorite theme with preachers. From the days of the Apostles and the fathers of the Church they have delighted to dwell upon any single item of it as it is described by the three Evangelists who record it. We have frequently spoken of the incident as a whole—let us, therefore, now confine our attention to the question which Jesus asked of the blind man, “What do you want Me to do for you?” He asks the same question at this good hour—He asks it of blind men and, I think, He asks it of partly blind men, too. There are some of us whose eyes are opened, but whose vision is obscure—we cannot see afar off. Our blessed Lord and Master says to us, as well as to the blind ones, “What do you want Me to do for you?”
Let us consider this question attentively, first on our Savior’spart—the disposition it shows. And then on our own part—the appeal to which we should respond.
I. THE QUESTION, AS PUT BY OUR SAVIOR, is expressive of much tenderness. There is a beautiful delicacy in its manner. The absence of any distinct allusion to the privation the poor man suffered from, is kind. I have noticed, in many cases, that to afflicted persons, any allusion to their infirmities is very distasteful. You could hardly do anything that would be more ungracious to a blind person than to be perpetually reminding him of his blindness, or to a person who was lame than constantly referring to his misfortune. Such people are hopeful that, bearing the evil patiently, themselves, it will not be detected by others and they are anxious to avoid the pity which is grievous when it becomes obtrusive. Now our Savior did not say to this man, “Alas, poor Creature, what a sad state you are in!” There was not a word concerning the man’s blindness to wound his sensibility. He was a beggar, to boot, and his dependence on alms for his subsistence would be, of itself, humiliating enough without referring to that poverty which, if keenly felt, is apt to crush a man’s spirit and shear him of self-respect. There is not a word about poverty here. Christ did not say, “How long have you been sitting by the wayside begging? How much have you obtained from the cold hand of charity during the last few days?” You would not know that the man was a beggar and blind by the question which the Savior addressed to him. “What do you want Me to do for you?”—that might have been spoken to a prince or to a king as gracefully as it was spoken to the poor blind beggar of Jericho!
I do not know whether you see much to admire and appreciate in this tenderness. I think it needs a man of fine feeling and generous sympathy to fully estimate it. Very characteristic was it of the way in which Christ deals with souls, as other instances show. The parable of the prodigal son is a correct picture of our Heavenly Father’s dealings with His returning sons. In that parable we are told of the youth’s nakedness, poverty, hunger and so on, but the father never mentions any one of these things—but he fell upon his son’s unwashed neck and kissed his yet filthy face—and received him to his arms, all ragged as he still was! To anyone else he would have been a loathsome object, and yet to his father’s heart he was still lovely, for he was his own dear child! He perceived the jewel, though it was lying on a dunghill. He did not say, “My dear Son, how sad a thing it is that you should have left my roof! How could you be so foolish as to spend your living with harlots? Alas, my dear Son, to what a degradation have you been brought in feeding swine.” No, there must be no sort of allusion at all to the plight in which the prodigal youth returned. He was acknowledged and welcomed just as he was—in his sinnership.
Neither does the Gospel of Jesus Christ come to you with taunts and upbraiding, continually reminding you of your sin. That is the work of the Law of God. The Law is like a sharp needle. It must go through the fabric and draw after it
the silver thread of the Gospel. The Gospel’s message is not so much about your sin as it is about the remedy for it! And when it comes to deal with your sin, it deals less with it as a crime than as a disease. It looks upon it as an affliction. It takes the most merciful view that is possible—and how little does it say to you even of disease? It gives you many invitations, “Ho, every one that thirsts.” Nothing about sin there. “Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden.” Nothing about sin there. You remember that hymn of Rowland Hill’s, which says—
“Come filthy, come naked, come just as you are.”? I am not quite certain that that is precisely the style of the Gospel invitation, for that seems to say, “Come unto Me, all you who will. Whoever will, let him come and drink of the Water of Life freely.” There is as little allusion made by the Gospel, itself, to the sin of the sinner as possible. Of course, the sinner must be called a sinner, and the Gospel never says, “Peace, peace,” where there is no peace—and at the same time it does not expose the disease without prescribing the remedy. The Gospel does not appeal to us so much in tones of thunder to acquaint us with our peril as it admonishes us to fly without delay to a place of safety! The Gospel does not speak from Sinai, but from Calvary! From Sinai you hear the voice of rigid justice—from Calvary you hear the voice of tender mercy and gracious pardon.