In the year 480 B.C., the fearsome Persian army, led by King Xerxes, invaded mainland Greece. Before they could reach Athens, though, 300 brave Spartan soldiers briefly held off the entire Persian army in a heroic last stand at the battle of Thermopylae.

Well, before the battle began, two Spartan soldiers, Aristodemus and Eurytus, came down with severe eye inflammation, rendering them effectively blind. So, because of their disability, King Leonidas ordered them to return home.

Eurytus disobeyed the order, returned to the battle, and died fighting blind alongside his comrades. Aristodemus, on the other hand, went home as ordered, only to find himself condemned as a coward and relentlessly shamed for not overcoming his disability.

Ultimately, Aristodemus went on to die charging solo into the enemy lines at the Battle of Plataea, thus redeeming his honor. But he will forever be known as the blind Spartan who shamefully refused to fight and die at Thermopylae.

Why are we talking about the Spartans? Well, because what we see in this brief episode is something that shows up all the time in ancient sources: the extraordinary shame associated with disabilities.

People with disabilities in the ancient world - just like Aristodemus - were ridiculed, excluded, and cursed by the rest of society.

People with epilepsy were spit on. Slaves with dwarfism were used as entertainment. Babies born with bodily deformities were dumped on garbage heaps.

I say all this, because it’s easy to take the healing miracles of Jesus for granted. But what we really see in these stories is Jesus showering love and compassion on those the world has cast aside.

That is our topic for today, as we explore the story of Jesus healing two men who were blind.

SERIES SETUP

Welcome back to “Follow Me,” our mega sermon series about the gospel of Matthew. This is week 10, and we’re actually almost done with Part I. Week 11 is next Sunday, and then we’ll take a break and come back to Matthew in the Fall.

Throughout this series we’ve seen three key themes show up again and again in this gospel.

Matthew is a Kingdom Manifesto. It’s a declaration of just how “upside-down” and unexpected the kingdom of God really is. With Jesus, the last are first. The poor are blessed. And so on.

The book is also a Discipleship Manual. Matthew is writing intentionally to help his readers learn how to follow Jesus in their own lives.

Finally, Matthew is A Story of Fulfillment. Over and over we see how Jesus fulfills the laws and promises and prophecies of the Old Testament.

Today we’re going to see how those three themes play out in Jesus’ healing miracles. So, grab a Bible and turn with me to Matthew 9:27, Page _______. While you do, I’ll pray for us.

[PRAY]

HEALING

Now, before we read this specific story, I want to set the stage a little bit.

There are a lot of healings in Matthew. There are 13 stories of individuals being healed by Jesus, and 6 places where Matthew describes Jesus healing many.

And while these stories do point to the power of Jesus as the son of God, they also show that Jesus is a realization of Israel’s ancient prophecies. Remember, Matthew is a story of fulfillment. The prophet Isaiah predicted this:

Isaiah 35:5-6

When [God] comes, he will open the eyes of the blind and unplug the ears of the deaf. The lame will leap like a deer, and those who cannot speak will sing for joy!

This is exactly what Jesus tells John the Baptist in Matthew 11 to prove that he is who he says he is.

Matthew 11:4-5

Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen—The blind see, the lame walk, those with leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor.

The point is, from Matthew’s narrative standpoint, these miracles, including the one we’re going to read in a moment, all point to the fulfillment of God’s promises to heal the world.

Now, I want to acknowledge something. In the modern disability community there has developed some discomfort with these healing stories.

And the reason is because they seem to objectify people with disabilities. As if they are not whole people - not real image bearers of God - if their bodies aren’t “normal.” They need to be “fixed” somehow.

This goes against the more modern idea that people with disabilities are actually a beautiful gift to our world, with so much to offer, just as they are.

So what do we do with that conflict?

Well, I recently gave a lecture addressing exactly this issue at the Disability and the Church Conference in Washington D.C.

My topic was disabilities in the ancient world.

I presented a ton of fascinating examples of how disabilities were viewed and treated and how that informs our reading of Jesus’ healing miracles. And I believe that that context really relieves a lot of this tension.

If you’re interested, tomorrow evening I’m going to give an extended version of that talk right here at Grace.

Disabilities in the Ancient World

Monday, June 23 - 6pm

Room E171

If you like going deep into the world behind the text, or you also feel a bit of tension with these healing miracle stories, I encourage you to be there.

But the bottom line for our purposes today is that when Jesus heals people, it isn’t about objectification at all. Quite the opposite. It is compassion and dignity and humanization from start to finish.

THE BLIND MEN

Ok, let’s get into the story. Right before this moment, Jesus has raised a dead girl to life. An astounding miracle. And then we read this.

Matthew 9:27-34

After Jesus left the girl’s home, two blind men followed along behind him, shouting, “Son of David, have mercy on us!” They went right into the house where he was staying, and Jesus asked them, “Do you believe I can make you see?” “Yes, Lord,” they told him, “we do.” Then he touched their eyes and said, “Because of your faith, it will happen.” Then their eyes were opened, and they could see! Jesus sternly warned them, “Don’t tell anyone about this.” But instead, they went out and spread his fame all over the region. When they left, a demon-possessed man who couldn’t speak was brought to Jesus. So Jesus cast out the demon, and then the man began to speak. The crowds were amazed. “Nothing like this has ever happened in Israel!” they exclaimed. But the Pharisees said, “He can cast out demons because he is empowered by the prince of demons.”

Ok, let’s start with this. I said before that people with disabilities - including blindness - faced tremendous shame in the ancient world. Well, we get a glimpse of that here.

Look at verse 28. Matthew goes out of his way to point out that the two blind men “go right in” to the house where Jesus was staying. Why does that detail matter?

Well, I could be wrong, but I think it’s because it’s a place where they don’t belong.

Because in the culture of ancient Israel, disabilities were often seen as punishment from God for sin, thus making people spiritually unclean. And “godly” people don’t want to be around “unclean sinners.”

I’ll give you an example. In the 3rd century B.C. Jewish book of Tobit, the main character gets some sparrow droppings in his eyes (as one does) causing him to go blind.

Obviously Tobit is devastated, but he doesn’t even question why it happened. He knows it’s because he must have committed some grave sin against God.

The book demonstrates something called “contractual theology,” where God dispenses curses or blessings in response to human action. Which is why, for Tobit, his blindness causes him tremendous shame.

Tobit 2:10

For four years I remained unable to see. All my kindred were sorry for me…

Which is why I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to imagine that these two blind men had to work up the courage to push through the crowd who saw them as despicable sinners, just for a chance to be healed by Jesus. To have their shame taken away.

Now, their request in verse 27 is interesting to me. They don’t say, “Please heal us, Jesus.” They say, “Son of David, have mercy on us.” Let’s break that down a bit.

First, “Son of David.” This is a way of acknowledging Jesus’ kingship. That they see him as the Messiah, the heir of King David’s throne.

They are some of the first characters in Matthew to call this out explicitly. It takes 6 more chapters before Peter does it! It’s a big deal that they call him the “Son of David.”

What about “mercy”? Well, asking someone for mercy was a way of throwing yourself at their feet. Pleading for compassion. Putting yourself entirely in their hands.

This speaks a lot of their trust in the character of Jesus to not shame them. To not cast them out of his presence.

In the book of Tobit, when he finally receives his sight again, Tobit says,

Tobit 11:15

Though [God] afflicted me, he has had mercy upon me. Now I see my son!

It’s intriguing to imagine that these blind men had Tobit in mind as they pleaded with Jesus for mercy. “Maybe, like Tobit he will forgive us the grave sins which caused our blindness, and we will be able to see once again…”

FAITH

So is that what happens to them? Look at verse 28. Jesus asks,

Matthew 9:28

“Do you believe I can make you see?”

“Yes, Lord,” they told him, “we do.”

Then he touched their eyes and said, “Because of your faith, it will happen.”

Two details to point out here. First: sin doesn’t come up at all. Instead, what does Jesus call out in them? Their faith!

To Jesus, these men aren’t sinful wretches. They are models of faith in the son of God.

Here’s what’s interesting. A bit later in the passage, Jesus heals a man who couldn’t speak by casting a demon out of him. And what do the Pharisees say?

Verse 34. “He is empowered by the prince of demons.”

So think about what we have here. Two blind men with extraordinary faith in Jesus, who acknowledge him as the rightful king of Israel with the power to heal… and these religious leaders who say he is in league with the Devil.

I acknowledge that today we have generally moved beyond using disability as a metaphor, but that wasn’t a consideration for Matthew. It’s pretty clear the duality he’s setting up here.

These wise, educated, elite Pharisees are blind to Jesus’ true identity, while these two blind men - even before they are healed - are the ones who can really see.

“Because of your faith, it will happen.”

TOUCH

That’s the first detail. The second detail is no less profound: Jesus touches their eyes. In a culture where spiritual cleanliness is everything, Jesus touches those who are unclean.

Think about it! He places his hands on the broken. Those “infected” with sin.

Try to imagine for just a moment how shocking all this must have been for Jesus’ disciples. They lived in a world where soldiers like Aristodemus are shamed for having a disability. Where men like Tobit feel humiliated by their blindness.

A world where everyone knows your disability is a punishment from God. Contractual theology.

Into that cultural moment, Jesus completely flips the script. He writes a kingdom manifesto by showing profound compassion and dignity to the broken. By calling out the great faith of those with disabilities.

By acknowledging their humanity. Whenever Jesus speaks to people with disabilities, he looks them in the eye. He calls them things like, “my child,” “daughter,” “son of Abraham.” Again, he touches them.

It’s as if Matthew is telling his readers in bright, neon letters:, you can be confident that God has come to bring healing to this broken world, just as Isaiah prophesied.

Why? Because his words are being fulfilled in Jesus, the kingdom has come, and people with disabilities are at the center of it all. Yet again we see that,

Christ’s kingdom is for those the world has forgotten.

Matthew is a kingdom manifesto. It’s a story of fulfillment. And for those crushed by the brokenness of this world like these two blind men, it is very, very good news.

INVITATIONS

Now, if you want to dig a whole lot deeper into this topic, I encourage you to come to my class tomorrow night.

We’re talking disabilities in Sumerian mythology, Roman philosophy, Egyptian wisdom literature… And of course we’ll talk a lot more about how radical Jesus’ ministry really was in his context.

Disabilities in the Ancient World

Monday, June 23 - 6pm

Room E171

I hope you’ll join us. But for now, let’s talk about what we can take away from this particular passage in our own lives. Remember, Matthew is also a discipleship manual.

So how can this story shape our own faith?

Well, I have three invitations that I think this passage is offering to each of us. And, I almost never do this, but they all start with “R.” The first is the invitation for us, like Jesus, to

Remember those the world has forgotten.

As we just saw, Jesus lived at a time of deep social exclusion and shame for people deemed unfit to be a part of polite society.

That included people with disabilities, but, as Maron showed us last week, that also included tax collectors and “other disreputable sinners.” Jesus remembered them.

So, who are the forgotten of your world? I want you to get names and faces in your mind.

The social outcasts, the neurodivergent, the awkward, the lonely, the ones with a lifestyle you disapprove of… Maybe even someone with a disability. I mean, 2000 years later and we’re still learning how to make room.

Who are the forgotten of your world? What does it look like for you to remember them the way that Jesus did? With compassion, with humanity, with proximity, with love…

I’ll give you a moment - just you and God. What is his invitation to you?

[pause for reflection]

So, remember those the world has forgotten. The second invitation is this: to,

Reject the values of our broken world.

The kingdom of God is “upside-down.” Allegiance to Christ as our king - submission to his power - means a rejection of the powers of this world.

I talk about this all the time, but we know what our world values: Greed. Pride. Hate. Judgementalism. Self-indulgence. Cruelty. Injustice. It’s all that “bad fruit” we talked about several weeks ago.

It is the same set of values today which caused such shame and exclusion in Jesus’ day.

We cannot claim to be disciples of Jesus if we participate in the same value system he spent his whole ministry working to overturn.

Again, I want to give you space to listen to God’s Spirit. Think about your lifestyle. Think about the media you consume. Think about who you spend your time with. Are there any values of our broken world God is inviting you to reject right now?

[pause for reflection]

Remember those the world has forgotten. Reject the values of our broken world. And finally,

Receive the mercy of our savior.

Up to this point I’ve put us in the position of Jesus’ disciples, attempting to do what he did. To love how he loved.

But I want to end by flipping things around and putting us in the position of the two blind men pleading with Jesus for mercy.

Because I know that you, too, have been wounded by this broken world in one way or another. You too have been taken advantage of. Cast aside.

You too have felt the heavy weight of shame because of your sin. Because of your circumstances.

You may not have a physical disability, but we all bear the weight of a broken world.

So I invite you to close your eyes, put yourself in the shoes of these blind men asking for mercy. Working up the courage to push through the shaming crowd to ask Jesus for healing. Put yourself there.

I’m going to paraphrase the words of our savior, speaking this time directly to you.

“Do you believe I can take away your shame?” (X3)

“Because of your faith, it will happen.”

[PRAY]

[set up communion]