Good morning. It’s been an interesting journey through Mark that we have been on this fall. We have encountered a series of episodes that put the disciples in a light that perhaps we’ve not seen before. They keep watching and listening but missing the point. Even though as you know, the disciples had been with Jesus for about three years, they still didn’t see the truth about who he was and where he was leading them. I think we can learn much from their inability to simply catch the vision, because we, too, struggle with all of this. And if we have learned anything it is this: it doesn’t matter if you ask the right questions, just be honest.
This morning we are introduced to someone new who we have not met. We don’t know his story, where he came from, who his family is, nor do we even know his name. We do know his father’s name, Timaeus but slap a “Bar” in front of Timaeus name and you get what is roughly translated “Son of Timaeus.”
Not only that, this guy is not only poor, notice he is begging, but he is also blind. Sort of a double whammy of unfortunates. Certainly not the kind of guy you’d expect to find in the Gospels and certainly, if he does appear, not the sort who cause more than just a side glance from the disciples and Jesus himself.
To get the full impact we must know that for those who were following Jesus either closely or even from afar, being poor and blind were tangible evidence that this son of Timaeus had been doubly cursed by God. For those in the first century, God’s blessings were seen in several ways, not the least of which was good health and a fat bank account. Bartimaeus had neither.
If you have been following along as we have journeyed over the last month or so in Mark, we know that the disciples have lowered the bar significantly for us by consistently missing Jesus’ point. They have been angry that someone has horned in on their action by not having the right credentials but still helping people, they have argued about who Jesus liked more and we even had two of the leaders closest to Jesus asking an inappropriate question about maintaining their significant position once everything was said and done. And there had been the attempt by the scribes to trip Jesus up on a specific moral point, only to hear him turn it back on the questioners and lift up the value of those who everyone thought had no value. Jesus has been busy.
Now Mark just about slam dunks his point. What they (what we) expected from a messiah isn’t what we got. How we expected God to act, isn’t how God reveals God’s-self.
Let me pause here for a second. Do you see the significance in this? Is it possible that we may still be looking for God in all the wrong places? Is it possible that we often miss God moving directly in our lives because our eyes are cast skyward, and God is moving right in front of us or beside us or behind us? Are we stuck, like those in the first century who think that a life full of good health and a healthy retirement account are signs of God’s blessings on us?
It took a blind man to truly be able to see the point. Jesus is about important business, there’s a trip to Jerusalem, a trial, suffering and a cross that causes a shadow to fall across Jesus’ path. He has no time, so it would seem to us, to waste his time on someone who has already been rejected by God… remember the son of Timaeus is blind AND poor. Yet Jesus continues to surprise, supplant and replace our expectations with the truth and reality of God’s love. There seems to be a pattern emerging here.
Let’s get back to the story… As Jesus headed toward what had to be more important people to meet and situations to encounter, he passes by Bartimaeus. In what had to be an awkward moment, this blind man interrupts the whole lot of them by shouting. He loudly calls out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (v. 47). Now we have heard this story a lot over the years and so we can be forgiven if we don’t realize that this is the first time that Jesus is identified as “Son of David.” This should bring us back to Jesus’ Jewish roots and, even if you don’t know much about Hebrew history, this is a significant thing to call someone. If nothing else, it does calls to mind King David who was a mighty military ruler. But notice that this Son of Timaeus seems to have something other than a strong military leader in mind. He cries out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” Bartimaeus seems to see that this Son of David is different and is one who comes with mercy and not wrath as in a strong military leader promising conquest and violence. His is the cry of one who sees the reality of who Jesus is, bring love mercy, forgiveness and ushering in the Realm of God.
Ironically, Bartimaeus, though blind, sees more clearly the truth more clearly the truth about himself. In contrast to James and John, who seek to sit beside Jesus in his “glory” as a way of enhancing the way that others see them — not as former fishermen, but powerful guys who will be sitting at the right and left hand of the King — Bartimaeus sees his own situation clearly. Unlike the “Sons of Thunder,” Bartimaeus recognizes more than just his blindness. He also sees his need for mercy. He isn’t using Jesus to gain something for himself, but he sees himself as a beggar in need of the grace and mercy embodied by Jesus. In a world where people believed that physical challenges were signs of spiritual brokenness, Bartimaeus doesn’t argue for his own righteousness or about the unfairness of it all. He simply wants mercy. Here a prayer I pray a lot: “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!” The drama of this morning’s Gospel heightens as Jesus hears the cry. And stops to listen.
Mark says that Jesus “stood still” before telling the crowd to bring Bartimaeus to him (v. 45). You might think this is just a throw off phrase that Mark inserts, but it’s more than that. Because Jesus stood still, Bartimaeus could find Jesus. He threw off his cloak — the outer garment he likely used for a blanket and as a catch-all for donations he might receive at the city gate — and “sprang up” to come to Jesus (v. 50). Notice Jesus’ question to the blind man. It’s the same question he asked of James and John: “What do you want me to do for you?” (v. 51). The disciples wanted Jesus to make them great, but Bartimaeus only wanted mercy most of all, and to be able to see again. He uses the same word “teacher” to address Jesus that the two disciples had used. I may be wrong, but I think this is important. I don’t think Bartimaeus ever read the scriptures because he had been born blind, yet he gets it. He understood that Jesus was much more than the greatest military leader in Jewish history. But his power was found in mercy. of a merciful Messiah who could open a new world for him.
And now we come to the crossroads of the story this morning. Jesus said to him: “Go, your faith has made you well” (v. 52). Bartimaeus responds to the command of Jesus not by going on his merry way but, instead, he changes his agenda and makes a life-altering decision. He follows Jesus “on the way” (v. 52). He could have gone home. He could have enrolled in the local community college or trade school in order to acquire skills that would help him live the rest of his life quite a bit better than he had lived it so far. But he seems to ignore Jesus entreaty to go… go wherever you want, but you are healed. Instead, perhaps because he saw clearly who Jesus was, much better than the disciples who had been walking in the dust of their rabbi for some time, he makes a life changing, indeed an eternity changing decision to “follow Jesus on the way.”
Maybe you know this but when the first King David, the one who was known as the greatest King in the history of Israel, entered Jerusalem as a conquering hero, the inhabitants taunted him saying that “the blind and the lame will turn you back” (2 Samuel 5:6). David would take the city and thus have “the blind and the lame” removed before his entry (2 Samuel 5:8-9). The Son of David, in contrast to his ancient relative, removed blindness instead of the blind as he goes up to the city. The story of Bartimaeus is a powerful reminder of the power of God to heal but maybe more importantly it reminds us Jesus can restore the sight of those who have been blinded by power, expectation, despair, or sin. It doesn’t work the way we expect it to work. It is a kind of divine reversal, that power isn’t found in strength but in weakness and salvation comes not through a sort of cataclysmic, pagan Armageddon bringing about the end of the world but through suffering and death on the cross.
We live in a world full of blind people. If we are truly honest with ourselves, we fade in and out of blindness all the time. There is something about God that just seems too much. We want, indeed we feel as if we need to control all of this God-talk. We spend much of our time trying to get a handle on the Gospel. I think that’s why we make it into something it’s not. Life is tough. It’s challenging. There are things that happen to us, sometimes it’s things we do to others and we just want it to all be more manageable. If we do talk about God in polite company, our tendency is to water things down a bit so as to not be offensive. Or, in my mind, what’s even worse is when we make it all into a zero sum game; you know it’s a hassle to follow Jesus but it sure beats going to Hell. So if I must, let me say the right words, pray the right prayers and escape as much of the damage life brings as possible. In other words, we seek to make God into our own image, hoping that somehow it will all be enough.
That’s us in our blindness. You see if we talk too much about the religious people Jesus encountered, we pull up our chair a bit too close to something that just seems to stick in our crawl. You see, we are religious people. We fall into the same category of mistakes as we’ve been reading about over the last month or so. We want our religion to pay off somewhere. I mean, it’d be great if we followed Jesus and our bank account grew and no bad news from the doctor would ever come. That’s what those religious people in Jesus day thought and quite frankly that sounds appealing. Maybe it’s just me, but the religion of the Pharisees, Scribes, Lawyers and even the Sadducees sound enticing. The problem, of course, is that Jesus doesn’t seem to be satisfied with us settling for something so shallow, so empty, so lifeless. Jesus wants for us, the truth. It’s supposed to set us free, right?
So much of the life of faith is spent spinning our wheels and hoping to not get stuck. We want things to turn out the way we want things to work out. But sometimes it just doesn’t. Sometimes jobs are lost, divorces happen, illness overwhelms, and we find ourselves asking, what happened? What sin did we commit or how is God getting even with us? It’s like we signed on for something and somebody either did the bait and switch or just enjoyed watching us fall when the carpet was suddenly pulled out from underneath us.
I get that. That’s why I can preach about it. I am no different than any of you. I want life to be manageable. I want to make it to the end without limping or leaking oil. But that’s not the promise, nor has it ever been.
Yet, there is always good news here. You see, I think part of the problem we all face is that we fear that we will be, in the end or somewhere between now and then, alone, without any experience of love and support. But that is just our blindness hiding us from a light that refuses to be snuffed out. Things don’t always go well but this I do know to be true: that despite the struggles, the losses, indeed even the deaths, God will not abandon us. There are, what St. John of the Cross called Dark Nights of the Soul, where our prayers seem to bounce off the ceiling but when we experience such darkness, we need to readjust our vision. Maybe if we stop looking up and started looking at each other; maybe if we would stop looking at God as some sort of mystical, divine genie, giving us three wishes, we would find the God that truly exists and continues to calls us to love the world as God does. For you see he doesn’t condemn us but seeks to set us free from all that binds us: things like a belief that everything always has to turn out just perfectly. It’s a risk to let go of all of that that has kept us so wound up. But, at the end, even if we’re leaking oil and dealing with all that life might bring, we will come face to face, and see with our own eyes, our God who said, there is nothing that can ever separate you or me from God’s love. And we will know, fully, that’s enough.
In Jesus Name.
Amen.