Note: You can watch this teaching on CrossWalk’s YouTube channel.
Mark 10:46-52 (NRSV)
They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.
We’re going to hang out with these verses for a few weeks. There is just too much here to fit into one Sunday!
Bartimaeus. When we lose our sight, we don’t just lose our sight. Our vision fades to black, but over time our memory does as well. We struggle to remember the shapes of things, colors, textures. Blindness is deeper than a literal vision problem – it affects how we see. We don’t know when Tim and his wife’s son became blind – birth or some form of infection or accident – but we do know that the result went way beyond his physical condition. When people today suffer a physical birth defect or mental health condition, really big questions often emerge: why did this happen? Was God involved in this? Did God willfully choose this, or allow it? Or if it was an accident or virus of some sort, the same questions would come up. Even today, with our much more enlightened scientific understanding, the questions loom, sometimes never articulated yet always there. And even today we struggle with answering the question from a theological space – we often find ourselves more primitive in our thoughts than we’d care to admit. Yet they are there. In Jesus’ time, all of this was exponentially more pronounced. Either way, blindness was viewed as a curse from God, a punishment for sin on the part of the blinded one, or even his parents or grandparents. Living in this reality is hard to appreciate fully. For Tim and his wife, there surely had to be no shortage of shame that they had to endure. Of course, for Bart, it was inescapable. He was a living cautionary tale, a reminder that God’s wrath is ready to unload at any moment. What does this do to a person’s sense of self? How does it affect hope and resiliency? To be looked at and told – day after day – that your life is evidence of God’s uncaring – and yet you require the help of these sometimes-unwittingly-cruel people for your very survival. Unbearable. Can you imagine the level of despair? What did it require of him to even raise his voice to ask for help? What courage to make it an urgent request? What strength to yell loud enough to get over the crowd all the way to Jesus’ ears? What risk to ask for such specific healing – he could have simply asked for a handout.
We’re going to take a deeper look at Bart and ourselves next week. But for now, here are some questions to consider: What has been your “blindness” to endure which caused self-doubt, a crisis of faith, and perhaps was even made worse by cultural voices? How did your “blindness” mess with your self-esteem and confidence? How about your outlook on life? Your hope? Your view of God? Your view of how God relates to you? What is holding you back from voices your desire for healing to God? What levels of impact do you think Jesus’ healing had on Bart?
Jericho Crowd. The regular folks of Jericho were no doubt well acquainted with Bart and those like him who begged for their survival. While Bart’s very existence suggests that they cared at least as much as necessary for his sustenance is hopeful – they didn’t kill their wounded. Yet we get a sense from their recorded response that they were weary of the problems Bart represented. What a burden he was on their fine community. What a blight to our city’s entrance – can’t we move them to a dark corner near the city dump where nobody has to deal with them? Perhaps we could create a neighborhood just for them – not in anyone’s backyard, mind you, since that would ruin property values and certainly would drive up crime! What a pain these people are! God doesn’t even favor them – why should we? Strange things happen when we let our thoughts run away from us, especially if those thoughts favor our preconceived biases. This was not the first time that community members hushed Bart – I think we can be sure of that. Undoubtedly, Bart felt their stares of indignation as much as he heard them. He knew his station in life. Yet, he had heard enough about Jesus from those who traveled through as well as from Jesus’ prior visits that it would be worth a try. How much worse could it get for him, anyway? What did he have to lose?
We’re going to go deeper on the blindness of the crowd in a couple of weeks. But for now, what are your thoughts related to these questions? Who are the blind beggars in our midst who are always seemingly in need of help for survival, who are sort of taking up space, maybe even to the point of embarrassment? How do we witness cultural voices that dehumanize these folks by identifying them more by their label than their personhood? Why do we humans do that? What impact do you think Jesus’ healing had on their vision? How long do you think the healing stuck?
Jesus, Christ. Jesus and the disciples certainly must have hung out a few days in Jericho before heading to Jerusalem. Maybe they wanted to hit the Dead Sea Spa for a salt scrub before the “Triumphal Entry”? There are some deeper theological reasons why we see Jesus visiting Jericho before heading to Jerusalem that we will touch on another day. Apparently, Bart never made it onto Jesus’ radar while he was visiting. This was the last shot (truly). Jesus, once he heard Bart call out, stopped in his tracks. He was not indignant. He simply asked for the blind man to be brought before him. What a God truth is present here! God is always available, always patient, always willing to hear us out. And another: Jesus asked him what he wanted. How true this is of God! Thank God that God doesn’t order up everything there is about me that needs help! I wouldn’t recognize myself! Of course, God is most recognizably able to work with us in those spaces in which we welcome God to work. Bart could have asked for food, or money, or a new iPhone. Instead, he took the risk and asked for the whopper: I want to see. This is bigger than a physical healing. There is deep spiritual healing at work here, too. Recall that blindness was closely associated with sin and judgment. At Jesus’ word, the blindness was gone. And, as far as that immediate audience was concerned, so was the unforgiven sin and the judgment of God. How many people had their eyes opened that day? How many people experienced correction and were more able to see God? How many understood grace at a whole new level? How many no longer associated such maladies as curses from God?
The Disciples. Jesus’ closest followers had a front row seat when this went down. They no doubt saw the fearful humility on Bart’s face, the disdain in the eyes of the crowd, and the compassion pouring out of Jesus’ very being. They saw Bart’s face turn to joy upon seeing (and seeing deeply). They saw shock on the faces in the crowd. They saw heaven on Jesus’ face as love entered the space. They obviously remembered the story since we’re still talking about it. I bet they talked about it, too, especially when they were faced with similar situations. They would remember that Jesus took time to be with people – especially those who were rarely afforded an audience. They would remember the attitude of the crowd and the courage it required of Jesus to be the presence of God under such strain. This story informed their story, and the story of God they were devoted to share. They would see similar faces – both of those in great pain as well as those who inflicted great pain. They would remember Jesus, and they would imitate him. They imitated Jesus so well that the message stuck enough to take hold and grow in the most unlikely places. They imitated Jesus so well that in the end, those in power treated them just like Jesus: most of them were martyred. Their dedication made an enormous difference in the world of those they healed, the broader world in which they lived, and, as the story is remembered, our world as well.
We will go deeper into what Jesus and the disciples did in a few weeks. For now, how do you respond to the following questions? Are you a disciple of Jesus? What might their example mean for current day disciples? Who are the Barts who need healing in our midst? What should we expect as we call for all Barts to draw near? At CrossWalk, we have a saying: Go Be Jesus. What might this mean for today’s individual disciples? What might it mean for the CrossWalk community?