Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43:19

What Do You Want Me to Do for You?

When Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem where he knew he would be handed over to the authorities and put to death, he stopped just outside of Jericho when a blind man called his name. You may read the story of their encounter in Mark 10: 46 - 52, but I'll summarize it below.

 At first the blind man's friends rebuked him for calling out to Jesus and told him to be silent.

 But the blind man called out "all the more," scripture tells us, and Jesus asked that the man be called forward. The man's friends changed their tune. "Take heart. Get up; he is calling you," they urged.

 The man threw off his cloak, "sprang up and came to Jesus" where Jesus asked him this question:

 "What do you want me to do for you?"

 Maybe your first thought is like mine. . . well, wasn't that obvious, Jesus? All you had to do was look at him to see the problem. But Jesus didn't judge by outward appearance the way we so often think we can do. By not assuming, by asking what the man wanted done for him, Jesus respectfully acknowledged the man's whole person, his inner and outer being.

 And Jesus knew there are worse things than being physically blind. He also knew that acknowledging our need for healing, putting it into words and speaking it out loud, is the first step toward healing.

 "Rabbi, let me recover my sight," the man answered, suggesting that the man had once had his sight, but had somehow lost it.

 "And Jesus said to him, 'Go your way; your faith has made you well.'” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way." (Don't you just love that word "immediately"?)

 Jesus will stop and listen to us, too, when we call his name.

 He asks each one of us, "What do you want me to do for you?"

 Lately, I've realized that I've had a "blindness" of which I wasn't aware. You know how in order to save ink, you can set your printer to grayscale? Well, I've done that with past hurts and disappointments. What I mean by that is that grayscaling has been my coping strategy to deal with painful memories. Whether I brought that pain on myself or it was caused by others, I've grayscaled entire sections of my life and in doing so have reduced them to less than they were.

 "What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asks.

 Rabbi, help me to see the colors again, the beautiful things I also experienced while going through the difficult, painful ones. Help me to see the flowers among the weeds. Help me to recover my sight of the wonderful, glorious things that happened to me during those times, times I've switched to only grayscale in my mind.

 Is it your habit to grayscale things, too? Research shows that we're more likely to remember the negative things that happen to us than we are to remember the positive ones.

 If this is you, throw off your cloak, spring up, and seek the face of Jesus. Tell him what you want him to do for you. Say it out loud so you can hear the words in the air. Speak it so healing may begin to stir the way, even now, the bulbs of daffodils are beginning to stir underground.

 Jesus didn't die on the cross and stay dead. He rose again. Soon, may Jesus be able to say, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.”

Daye Phillippo

March 2021