There's Hope and Joy on the Way

 Mark 10:46-52

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Bartimaeus is my favourite character in Mark’s Gospel.  Like the woman who snuck up behind Jesus in the midst of a pressing crowd to touch his cloak and be healed of a twelve-year-long menstrual bleed that made her an outcast (she’s my second favourite character), Bartimaeus only shows up once and he steals the show.  He is the epitome of what it is to follow Jesus and what it is to be healed and transformed by Jesus in what one could call the resurrection-formed lifestyle found along the cross-formed way, i.e., what the Apostle Paul calls new life in Christ.  With Bartimaeus we get a picture that there is something utterly, I mean utterly, life changing that arises from encountering Jesus who came to give his life to restore worth and dignity to a humanity who has forfeited the worth and dignity that God created us with as those who bear, who are, his image in the Temple of his creation.    

Last week, we dealt a bit with the meaning of Jesus’ death - why Jesus said he had to die.  He said, “the Son of Man has come not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  If you remember that word ransom does not mean he died to pay off a kidnapper.  Rather, we have no good word in English to translate it.  You just have to know that the word’s Old Testament use was what they called a “life price”, which was a small amount of money paid to the family of someone who had died accidentally by the person who caused the death.  This life price, this sum of money, had a dual purpose.  First, the gift symbolically said that the person whose life was now wasted to death had worth.  Thus, it restored worth to life that was wasted.  Secondly, paying this life price also redeemed or restored worth to the life of the one who caused the death for the penalty for wasting a life to death was to have one’ own life wasted to death.  To waste the life of another is to waste one’s own life.  Jesus’ death was the life price that restores human worth and dignity from how we have wasted our lives and the lives of others through the new life he gives us with the gift of the Holy Spirit who comes to dwell in and among us.

Coming back to Bartimaeus, he stands as the example of everybody who is honest with themselves before God and others.  Looking at his, it means son of Timaeus.  Timaeus is a Greek name that means “honoured one”, “valued one”, or “esteemed one”.  “Bar” means “son of” in Hebrew.  Metaphorically, Bartimaeus is “the son of one who has great worth”.  He stands metaphorically for all humanity. We humans are born with great worth in God’s eyes.  God created us in his image to live together in such a way that humanity looks like the loving communion of God the Father Son and Holy Spirit particularly at the level of family.  (We discussed that a few weeks ago.)  We are created as unique persons who are shaped within our relationships.  We only discover who we truly are when we give ourselves unselfishly and unconditionally to serve and build up others, i.e., give worth and dignity to others.  Imagine how beautiful God’s good Creation would be if we actually did that…but we don’t.  We’re too self-inclined.

 Back to Bartimaeus, Bartimaeus was apparently born sighted but somehow he became blind and this reduced him to being a beggar.  Back then, the general population viewed people with disabilities as being cursed by God or the gods for some hidden sin and were being punished for it in this life.  This stigma of being cursed resulted in becoming outcast.  People would have had very limited contact with you for fear your cursedness might rub off on to them like dirt.  Being outcast meant no job and thus led to begging.  

As a beggar, Bartimaeus would have lived outdoors under whatever shelter he could find and his hygiene would have been horrible.  His clothing would have consisted of a cloak and an undergarment.  To beg, he would have taken off his cloak and spread it on the ground in front of him for people to throw coins on so that they wouldn’t have to touch him.  Use your imagination, Blind Bartimaeus basically sat there alongside the road in his underwear with his only possession, his cloak, spread out before him, begging.  Humiliating, to say the least.  There sat Bartimaeus the son of the honoured one in his underwear blind and begging.  Sounds a lot like humanity if we’re honest…and that’s how he presented himself to Jesus.

Let me back up in Mark’s storyline for a moment.  Bartimaeus reminds me of someone we met a couple of Sundays ago.  Believe it or not, it’s that wealthy man who had everything except a sense of at life-giving relationship with God and so his life was empty.  Jesus and his disciples were setting out on the way when this wealthy man came, impeded him, and knelt before him in a sort of obsequious show of respect that wealthy people did to butter you up when they want something from you that only you could give.  

Everything the name “Timaeus” meant this wealthy man would have fit the bill.  Because of his wealth people would have considered him blessed for his faithfulness.  In the same Karma-like religious mechanism that people considered Bartimaeus cursed for some secret sin that caused his blindness, People would have considered this man blessed for keeping the Law of Moses which he told Jesus he had done since his youth.  He would have been a powerful, and respected, if not feared, man in the community. 

But there was a catch to this wealth.  The word for possessions, which he had lots of, that Mark uses indicates that he had a lot of land.  Having lots of land meant he had a lot of people indebted to him in a sharecropping relationship.  Sharecropping meant he let someone live on a plot of his land as long as they farmed it for his profit.  It amounted to little more than slavery, debt slavery like we get into with credit cards. One bad crop and the wealthy man owned you.  Consequently, he likely owned slaves as well.  Thus, sis wealth, which made him so esteemed would have made a lot of people feel worthless and become actually become economically and societally worthless.    

But, if you ask me, he was blind, spiritually blinded by his wealth and power and prestige and he knew it…and it was bothering him so he went to Jesus hoping Jesus could help him find the spiritual depth to life that he was missing; a living relationship with the living God.  But, he didn’t like the remedy Jesus gave him.  Sell your land and give to the poor.  In today’s terms that would would mean making his wealth accessible to somebody besides himself.  Maybe something like letting the dividends of his asset portfolio go to the people who worked the land for him, you know, the people who actually make the wealth for him.  Anyway, he went away sad and disturbed.  

His blindness came from his wealth and the power and prestige that he gained by it.  He’s blind because this is the way he believes it’s supposed to be.  It’s the way the world works and he’s at the top of it. He cannot imagine a world where abundance can be had by all if the spiritual discipline of sharing in generosity was practiced.  This wealthy, cosmopolitan, trying to be faithful, achieved it all man, upstanding, tip-of-the-top-cream-of-crop, overall good citizen of a man; the only person for whom Mark said Jesus looked at and felt “the Love of God” …he walked away from Jesus blind.  This wealthy man was spiritually “prior-sighted” in that he had a glimpse of who Jesus is otherwise he wouldn’t have wasted his valuable time to seek Jesus out on how to receive a God-filled life.  Things went dark for him when he realized he would need to relinquish his wealth-based status and share the abundance God had entrusted to him with those whom he had made worthless.

In comparing Bartimaeus and this wealthy man I cannot emphasize enough the hope and joy that is present in Bartimaeus’ encounter with Jesus on the way and how it was lacking from the wealthy man’s encounter.  Bartimaeus hears that Jesus is coming up the road.  There’s nothing wrong with his hearing.  He has heard and believed who Jesus is.  His hope to have a restored life is walking up the road right at him.  What does he do? He makes himself annoying by shouting out loudly and repeatedly something quite treasonous against the Roman Empire that could get a Roman garrison to come slaughter this crowd of people following Jesus who are already afraid of what’s going to happen to them in Jerusalem. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”  The people “politely” told him to “Shut the …… up!”  Yet, he continued to cry out all the more and louder. Jesus was his king and he wanted his king to show him favour and act on his behalf…to show him mercy.  The word for mercy in Greek is the word the Greeks used to translate the Hebrew word for loving kindness – Chesed – the loving kindness of God.  The same love with which Jesus looked at the wealthy man and felt.

Jesus summonsed Bartimaeus by means of those who shut him up (there’s a lesson there for the religiously “proper”).  They changed their message from rebuking him to one of encouragement – “Take heart.  Get up.  He’s calling you.”  That’s afar cry from shut up.  Bartimaeus, now remember he’s blind, throws aside his only possession and means to survival.  He sprang up and the word there is the same one used for raised up from the dead.  And, he groped his way to Jesus.  “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked.  We just heard him ask James and John that question when they came seeking to sit on his right and on his left when he takes the world over, the places of most honour and power.  Bartimaeus doesn’t want glory.  He just wants to see again.  And suddenly…he began to see again.  His sight with respect to perceiving who Jesus is and his following through on it left him healed.  The sight he had in his spirit came through to his eyes. His worth and dignity were restored.  But he didn’t “Go!” like Jesus told him to.  He followed Jesus on the way.

The power, the hope, the joy of that moment.  As someone hearing this story millennia later it makes me want to leap with joy.  It is a “Yes” moment.  God broke in and made things to be the way they ought to be.  This is what it is to encounter Jesus, the One who came not to be served, but to serve and who gave his live as the life price to give worth and dignity to the many and yet he lives.  God raised him from the dead and by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit Jesus still encounters us like he did Bartimaeus.  It helps if we look for him in the areas where we feel disillusioned like the wealthy man and/or feel shame like Bartimaeus did.  

In closing, Bartimaeus was sitting alongside “the way” and he wound up following Jesus on “the way”.  Literally, “the way” was the road to Jerusalem.  Yet metaphorically, it was the road that led to Jesus’ giving his life as the life price to give humanity back its worth and dignity.  To us who follow Jesus, it is “the way” of being his disciples who serve rather demand to be served and who also do all we can to help one another discover our restored worth and dignity in Christ.  The wealthy man felt himself too worthy and would not divest himself of his wealth in order to help others have worth and dignity. Bartimaeus, on the other hand, was painfully aware of his state of being a blind beggar (which, metaphorically speaking, is what we all are) and he joyfully accepted the new life of following Jesus along “the way”.  If you are dissatisfied, disillusioned, wondering why it seems that “God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost took the last train for the coast”, feeling like the music has died, Jesus is here and is doing his thing.  To find him, we need to get back on “the way”, get less self-absorbed.  COVID has been good at leading us into the darkness of self-absorption.  Get back on the way of disciplining ourselves in the practice of helping everyone to discover their worth and dignity.  Instead of focusing on increasing our own worth and status in the world or, on the other hand, focusing on feeling like we are worthless and useless and all that; and, instead of hanging God out to dry because we feel God has hung us out to dry, which is what many to most people are doing today – how about we focus on serving and doing all we can to increase the worth and dignity of others.  That’s where we will find Jesus.  That’s the road Jesus is on and there’s hope and joy and healing on it.  Amen.  

It Pays to Be Annoying

 Mark 10:46-52

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I remember the day I got glasses.  I was ten years old, in the fourth grade, and not all that excited about becoming a “four eyes”.  I didn’t know I needed them.  I walked out of the eye doctors and I could see the details of clouds in the sky, leaves on trees, the trees on the mountains.  I could see.  I did not know before that moment what it was to see these things that clearly.  I had no memory of ever being able to see details in things far away.   The world became new to me that day and it though happened 45 years ago, I remember it. 

It might tell you something about the age of the people I hang with, but in the last year and a half three good friends of mine have had cataracts removed.  They were all rather exuberant about the change in their sight: the clarity of vision, the vividness of colour, the restoration of a full life.  To my friends this surgery was nothing short of a miracle.  I remember when having cataracts meant being blind the rest of your life, but now.  Now, when they do the surgery, they can also put little corrective lenses in your eyes so you don’t even need glasses anymore.  It’s a miracle.

My appreciation for sight makes this story of the healing of Bartimaeus one of my favourites.  Apparently, it was one of Mark’s favourites too; of all the people Jesus heals in Mark’s Gospel, Bartimaeus, the Blind Beggar is the only one Mark names.  I didn’t go and look to make sure, but I think Bartimaeus may even be the only person in all four Gospels that Jesus healed who was named. 

Oh, I might also want to mention that healing Bartimaeus was Jesus’ last miracle.   If we consider that in the Gospels miracles are more than just miracles, they mean something bigger, then this miracle is quite significant.  To heal a blind man’s eyes is more than just giving him sight because “seeing” in Mark’s Gospel means to truly understand who Jesus is.  For example, the last time Jesus healed a blind person in Mark it coincided with Peter making his bold confession that Jesus is the Messiah but then Jesus had to rebuke Peter because Peter didn’t understand that the Messiah must suffer at the hands of the religious authorities and die and then be raised.  You may remember having heard the story of that healing.  Jesus had to make two attempts because after the first attempt the man couldn’t see clearly.  People looked like trees walking around so Jesus had to try again.  Peter’s incomplete understanding of Jesus being the Messiah coincided with the blind man’s sight not being fully restored.  So, the healing of Bartimaeus and its culmination in his seeing again and following Jesus and this being Jesus’ last miracle all come together to say what true faith/faithfulness to Jesus is: healing and following.

Well, I could end this bit of pontification there and you all could breathe a sigh of relief and say, “That was painless”, but this story is just too rich in the depth of the meaning of its’ details to just leave it.  So, let’s poke the sleeping dog here a bit.  

When I read these Gospel stories I often try to imagine being there and I put myself in the place of the characters.  Here I try to imagine being Bartimaeus.  He was a blind beggar.  He had nothing to his name but the cloak he had wrapped around himself.  That cloak was more than just a security blanket, as if he were Linus in the Peanuts cartoons.  That cloak was his home, his shade from the sun, his shelter from the rain, his warmth at night.  Back then blind people were seen as cursed by God, so people didn’t give them shelter.  All he could do to live was sit on the side of the road and hope people would throw scraps of food at him or maybe a coin.  I can’t imagine what shape his skin and fingernails and toenails and hair were in; and his teeth.  I don’t even want to imagine what he smelled like.  But, there he sat, a shame-filled eye-and-nose-sore, with hand out probably barely audibly mumbling to everybody who passed by saying “Have mercy on me.  Have mercy on me.  Have mercy on me.” And the most of them, just walked on by.  If that was the sum total of my life, I might find stumbling off a cliff to be preferrable.

Well, this particular day, Blind Bartimaeus was sitting on the side of the road and he can’t see anything.  He can’t see anything!  But they say if you loose one sense the others will compensate.  So, he probably had a sharpened sense of hearing.  He hears a large crowd coming up the road.  He hears the sound of footsteps, too disorderly to be Roman soldiers marching and there’s no clippity-clop of horse hooves.  He hears the loud din of the voices of people nattering on about this and that.  But in the midst of the din, he hears that Jesus of Nazareth is somewhere in that crowd.  That gets his attention.  

Let me take a little aside here on the sense of hearing.  In the Old Testament hearing is the most important of the senses.  To hear doesn’t mean to just hear words.  To hear means to do what you have been asked or told to do and to understand why you’re doing it.  To hear the commandments of God is to understand and do them.  Hearing is faithfulness.  The only creed of faith in ancient Israel involved hearing.  It was “Hear, O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD alone.  You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”  For Bartimaeus to hear that Jesus is in the crowd means that he somehow recognizes that the LORD his God, his only God, whom he is to love with all his heart, soul, and strength, is in that crowd somehow with and as Jesus and he must respond if he wants to be healed.  He is hearing the Word of the LORD amidst the din.

Well, Bartimaeus stops mumbling to the passersby saying, “Have mercy on me” and begins to shout loudly and repeatedly, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”  You’d think you were at a Pentecostal revival.  It’s like Bartimaeus has transformed from just an unobtrusive eye-and-nose-sore sitting on the side of the road mumbling into a particularly gruesome annoyance.  He starts to seem like one of those demon-possessed people in whom the demon knows who Jesus is and shouts it out and Jesus has to tell it to shut up.  So, the people begin to shout back at Bartimaeus saying, “Shut up.”  But not Jesus.  You see, Jesus had heard his prayer.  That loud, annoying, ceaseless “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me” was prayer.

There is a prayer in the Eastern Orthodox tradition called the Jesus Prayer.  It’s a one sentence prayer that they pray similarly to how Roman Catholics will pray the rosary.  It goes: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  They pray that prayer over and over to themselves so that in time, in their inner thoughts they always have the sound, the rhythm, the cadence of that prayer going.  Instead of the 8-track tape of worries that constantly play the same songs of trouble in our minds, they’ve disciplined themselves to pray this prayer without ceasing, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.  Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.  Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”  I have tried several times throughout my life to take this discipline upon myself.  It’s work.  It requires focus and simply remembering to keep at it.  But, of all the spiritual disciples I have attempted to undertake in my life, attempting to pray the Jesus Prayer has been and still is the one I keep coming back to, particularly in times of trouble.  It changes you.  It helps you to be aware of God’s presence with you.  It’s worth the effort.  

A word about mercy here as well (and your Greek lesson for the day), the word for “mercy’ in Greek is the same as the word for olive oil.  Olive oil wasn’t something they simply cooked with.  It can sustain you when you’ve got nothing to eat.  It can soothe skin conditions and heal wounds.  Yes, there was a balm in Gilead.  It was olive oil…with some spices.  To talk of God’s mercy is to frame it within the healing uses of olive oil.  To ask for mercy is to ask for sustenance and for healing.  We have been conditioned by centuries of bad theology rooted in Medieval Roman Catholicism to think of mercy as a courtroom acquittal for our immoral, God offending, Hell-worthy sinning when, in fact, God’s mercy is God’s soul-healing restoration of life poured upon us like a balm of olive oil.  It is the presence of the Holy Spirit who heals us of the disease of sin, it’s compulsions and shames.

Jesus heard Bartimaeus’ prayer for mercy; Bartimaeus’ loud, repetitive, annoying prayer for mercy, for the healing and restoration of his diseased life.  And, Jesus responded by welcoming Bartimaeus into his presence and granting his request.  Jesus didn’t shut him up or call him annoying or worse, point out that Bartimaeus was unworthy.  It strikes me here just how courageously desperate Bartimaeus was, and considering the “repulsiveness” of what he had become he apparently had not lost a sense of his self-worth.   It was still buried within in him hoping for the day. 

Let’s step back and consider his name.  Bartimaeus literally means son of Timaeus.  The Hebrew word for son is “bar”.  I have to think Mark’s redundancy in saying that Bartimaeus was also the son of a man named Timaeus is quite intentional on his part.  The name Timaeus means “priceless one”.  Bartimaeus is the Son of the “priceless one” and is thus invaluable too.  Because he is a blind beggar does not mean he or his family is cursed.  They are priceless to God.  

It just goes to show that if we have a need that only God can meet or even if we’ve got a beef with God because it seems God has been unfair, praying repeatedly and annoyingly to God about it might be a welcome thing to do.  Let us not get into this “I’m too worthless for God to value” line of thinking or “I’m too small of a speck on this little blue dot circling an ordinary star that’s just one of billions of stars in this galaxy that’s just one of hundreds of billions of galaxies in this universe which may be one of an infinite number of universes for God to care about me” stuff or thinking we’ve not lived good enough for God to show any favour with us.”  When it comes to God and prayer, get into the game, step up to the plate and start swinging.  Don’t sit the bench because you don’t think you’re good enough to play or don’t think you know how to play.  Pray!

When Bartimaeus prayed for mercy he had a specific need in mind.  He wanted to see again.  At one point in his life Bartimaeus could see, but something happened and it took his sight away and his life along with it.  He wants his life back.  He wants to be a whole, valued person in the eyes of the community.  He probably had a feeling that God had dealt unfairly with him and he wants the relationship with God restored.  He wants God to be God, fair and just, not God aloof and uncaring.  If you look at the history of prayer in the Bible, study the conversations that the major characters of the Bible have with God, you will find that reminding God to be God, fair and just, occupies a good many of those conversations.  You will also find that God listened and stepped up and started being God, fair and just, rather than God, aloof and uncaring.  So, pray, pray and remind God that it is time to be God, fair and just, time to wake up and get off the pillow in the back of the boat and calm the stormy sea.  Pray loudly, repeatedly, and annoyingly.

Winding it down, Bartimaeus stood as representative of the people of God, of Israel.  There was a day when Israel could see.  When it had faith and was faithful and perceived the presence of God in her midst.  But they were blinded by the Roman occupation and the unfairness thereof so much so that they couldn’t see what God was up to in their midst as Jesus.  Having lost their sight, they needed to tune their ears to Jesus, to listen to him and follow.  Calling out to Jesus and following him was where their healing and restoration awaited.  They were still priceless in God’s eyes.

This makes me think of our little Cooperative, our four small, small town/rural congregations.  Have we become blind with discouragement?  We seem just to sit on the side of the road wishing not to offend, mumbling to the community around us “Have mercy on us.  Have mercy on us.  Have mercy.”  Yet, the crowds pass us by really not caring, really not valuing the invaluable role our communities of faith have played in the lives of the generations that preceded them…and it’s unfair.  We four congregations are not worthless, even though our surrounding communities can’t seem to see our worth.  And, there are those in our midst who say we are too old to really do anything about our situation, that it’s up to the younger folks to figure this out.  Well, yes, the younger folks in our midst really do need to step up to the plate.  When we come out of COVID, the vision of our younger church is going to be invaluable.  Though you may feel like you are intruding into the stomping grounds of your parents and grandparents and think you are not worthy to carry the torch, you are priceless too.  You are Bar-Timaeus, the children of the priceless ones.  The Lord needs you.  Come. The church is yours.

Anyway, young or old, we still have one thing we know for sure that we must do.  Pray.  Pray continuously, and loudly “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.  Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.  Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.  Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.  Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.”  We need to remind God that it is time to be God and start calling people to himself through us the Body of Christ where rests the Holy Spirit who will heal them.  I know our predicament seems an impossible thing…But so was Bartimaeus’ blindness…and God healed him.  Amen.

 

Seeing and Salvation

Mark 10:46-52
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Blind Bartimaeus is one of my favourite people in the Bible.  He is one of those insignificant characters in the Gospels who only show up once to show us what faith/faithfulness is.  We’d think that this would be the role the disciples play as the story unfolds, but oddly they only show us an incomplete faithfulness.  To their credit, they heard Jesus’ call and quite remarkably left everything behind to follow him yet they never quite seem to get who he is or what exactly is his mission of bringing in the Kingdom of God or their place in it.  But Bartimaeus, Blind Bartimaeus, the insignificant outcast, the annoying beggar on the side of the road…he gets it – Jesus and Jesus alone can bring “salvation” to him.  So, in desperation he goes all in making an annoying spectacle of himself.  He has faith.  He is faithful.

Well, since it is the case that when “faith” and “Jesus” meet up that “salvation” is the result, maybe we ought to take a moment and talk about what salvation is?  If someone were to ask us, “are you saved?” our first thought is likely going to be that “salvation” means going to heaven when we die due to believing that Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins and we have been good and more or less faithful people.  But, is this definition of salvation really what the Bible says it is.  

Now, I’m going to say something that’s going to throw you back a bit and I encourage you to go and check for yourselves on this: the Bible never speaks of salvation as going to heaven when we die.  From the Old Testament right on through the New, the Bible presents salvation as the result of an act of God done to or for a person or even an entire people that brings to them healing, freedom from oppression, or even freedom from demonic possession in order to restore them to authentic human community.  Salvation is the result an act by God that either gives or restores life as God meant it to be.  

In the big picture, which involves what happens to us after death, salvation is not my soul going to heaven (though for a while we will in some form be with Christ), rather salvation is bodily Resurrection into Creation made new with a new heaven and a new earth. Humanity will be made new, immortal and imperishable and there will no longer be the disease of sin and death.  In that Day God himself will unhidden from us and we won’t hide ourselves fro him.  This big picture of salvation is what God has started in, through, and as Jesus Christ whom we shall see face to face and, this salvation is what God is working in us right now by the power of the Holy Spirit.  He is making us alive now in Christ that we might live in the Day as he lives.  That’s the big picture, but most frequently salvation as we find it in the Bible is a “right now” event in a person’s life in which God delivers us from what ails or oppresses us and he then brings us into the authentic loving community of his people and we know him more than we did before.

Blind Bartimaeus is a prime example of “faith” and “Jesus” meeting up and “salvation” being the result.  Though he was blind, Bartimaeus was “looking” for salvation, a real act of God in the “right now” of his life that would restore him to true life and he knew Jesus would give him that.  Bartimaeus was a blind beggar.  In his day any physical disability was seen as punishment from God for some great, secret sin.  People with disabilities were believed cursed and were ostracized especially by the religious and devout who refused to get involves with people with disabilities because they were afraid the cursedness might rub off on them.   And so, all they could do to live was beg. 

We find Bartimaeus sitting there at the roadside begging.  He could hear a crowd was passing by and when he heard that Jesus of Nazareth was par of it he began to cry out as loud as he could, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  The crowd, of course, got annoyed at him and commanded him, “Shut up!”  They were likely thinking “What right did this cursed blind beggar have to address the Messiah?”  But, Bartimaeus had faith, desperate faith.  He couldn’t see Jesus.  He couldn’t just go to him.  The only thing he could do on his part was to keep on shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 

Well, Jesus heard him and stopped the roadshow and gave the command and it wasn’t to shut him up.  Jesus happens to respect desperation.  The command was “Call him!” and out went some good news to Bartimaeus, “Take courage!  Get up!  He is calling you!”  In a foreshadowing image of the Resurrection, Bartimaeus shed his cloak, the clothes of his old beggarly self, and jumped up from his beggar’s grave on the side of the road and…I like to imagine him here as alive in hope, exuding hope, as he sets off groping through the blurry darkness to find Jesus. 

Suddenly Bartimaeus heard a voice, “What do you want me to do?”  The last time Jesus asked that question it was to James and John when several days before they had come to Jesus asking him to do for them whatever they asked him to do.  For some odd reason they thought themselves worthy of sitting at Jesus the Messiah's right and left when he became king.  They were power seeking, trying to use Jesus as the means to fulfill their ambitions for power.  But not Bartimaeus, when Jesus asked him “What do you want me to do?” his request was simply for salvation, an act of God that would restore him to life.  “Let me see again!” he begs. 

Well, giving a blind man his sight back is something only God can do.  To have asked that Bartimaeus must have somehow saw that Jesus isn't simply Israel’s Messiah; he is somehow the Lord God of Israel.  He asked Jesus to do something only his God could do and there was more to it than simply seeing again.  It was more like:  “Give me back my sight so that I can live again.  Give me back my worth in peoples’ eyes.  Give me back my human dignity.  Restore me to community.  Have mercy on me.”  This act of grace is something only God could do. 

Jesus’ answer was brief and to the point, “Go!  Your faith has saved you.”  Immediately, Bartimaeus began to see again.  Bartimaeus was blind yet in faith he saw the faithfulness of God working in and through Jesus the Son of God and he trusted.  He regained his sight.  He regained his life.

There is one last lesson to learn from Bartimaeus.  An analogy is at play here in that “seeing” is life-giving faith and blindness is its opposite, which is hopelessness and fear.  It is likely that Bartimaeus was not blind from birth, but somehow he had lost his sight.  Yet, it was his physical blindness and the societal and spiritual consequences that set the stage Bartimaeus to “see”.  It was his blindness that caused him to look to Jesus.

Things happen in life that challenge our “sight” and make us blind – the death of parents, spouses, or children; marital infidelity and divorce; being rejected by our children; losing jobs; life threatening illness, addictions – these are things that take our lives away and can often wipe us clean of any sense of faith we may have had in God or ourselves.  They fill us with fear and hopelessness.  But the example of Blind Bartimaeus and his annoying and desperate faithfulness is the one we should hold on to.  In times of grief, anger, and shame, crying out to Jesus for salvation in the “right now” is our only hope because…seriously…when the time is right, he answers.  It might take days, months, even years of crying out but he answers and he saves us, he calls us to himself and he gives us “new sight”, a new way of seeing life as being filled with him.  Some of you have been through this “blindness” and know what I am saying is true and have reason to give thanks.  So give thanks, but also tell about it because there are people everywhere around you who need to know that there is hope.  Some of you are “blind” at this very moment.  Cry out.  Jesus does hear and will come to save.  Often, he doesn’t come immediately because he’s using the blindness and the crying out to heal even deeper hurts than the ones we are presently suffering.  Call out to Jesus and it is ok to be as desperately annoying about it as you can be.  Don’t let anyone try to silence you.  In time he will call you and you will be healed.  I’ve been there I know.  Be annoying.  Amen.

Salvation 'Right Now'

Text: Mark 10:46-52

Blind Bartimaeus is one of my favourite people in the Bible.  He is one of those insignificant characters in the Gospels who only show up once to show us what faith is.  We’d think that would be the role of the disciples, but oddly they only show us an incomplete faith.  They hear Jesus’ call and quite remarkably leave everything behind to follow him yet they never quite get who he is or his mission of bringing in the Kingdom of God.  Neither do the religious authorities show us faith.  Though they should be the experts on what faith is, they actually wind up showing us “anti-faith”, a very distant relationship with God that they (we) controlled by rules, rituals, and judging others.  Leaving everything behind and following a vagabond “prophet” had no place in their “religion” because they believed “their” religion was the underpinning of their society.   But here’s Blind Bartimaeus, the insignificant outcast.  He has the audacity to approach Jesus because he knows that Jesus alone can bring “salvation” to him.  He has faith.

Do you ever think about what salvation is?  If someone were to ask us, “are you saved?” our first thoughts are about going to heaven when we die.  We tend to think of salvation as simply going to heaven when we die because of believing Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins.  But, this definition of salvation is rather truncated in comparison to what the Bible says it is.  I encourage you to go and check for yourselves on this: the Bible never speaks of salvation in that way in.  Rather, from the Old Testament to the New the Bible presents salvation as an act of God that brings to a person or people healing, freedom from oppression, or freedom from demonic possession in order to restore them to authentic human community.  Salvation is an act that either gives or restores life.  In its biggest sense, salvation is bodily Resurrection into a New Creation and a New Humanity where there is no longer sin and death and this is what God has started in, through, and as Jesus Christ and is working in us right now by the power of the Holy Spirit.  That’s the big picture, but most frequently salvation as we find it in the Bible is a “right now” event in a person’s life in which God delivers us from what ails us or oppresses us and he then brings us into the authentic loving community of his people.

Blind Bartimaeus is a prime example of salvation.  Though he was blind he was “looking” for salvation, a real act of God in the “right now” of his life that would restore him to true life.  He was a blind beggar.  In his day any physical disability was seen as punishment from God for some great, secret sin.  People with disabilities were believed cursed and were ostracized.  All they could do to live was beg. 

Bartimaeus sat there at the roadside and when he heard Jesus of Nazareth was passing by he began to cry out as loud as he could, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  The crowds, annoyed by him, commanded him, “Shut up!”  What right did this cursed blind beggar have to address the Messiah?  But, Bartimaeus had faith.  He could not see Jesus.  He couldn’t just go to him.  The only thing he could do on his part was to keep shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  Jesus heard him and stopped the roadshow and gave the command, “Call him!” and out went the good news to Bartimaeus, “Take courage!  Get up!  He is calling you!”  In an image of Resurrection, Bartimaeus shed his cloak, the clothes of his old beggarly self, and jumped up from his roadside grave alive in hope and sets off groping in his blurry darkness to find Jesus. 

Suddenly Bartimaeus heard a voice, “What do you want me to do?”  The last time Jesus said that it was to John and James, who several days before had come to Jesus asking him to do whatever they asked of him.  Prideful and self-assured of their own worth they thought themselves worthy of sitting at Jesus the Messiah's right and left when he became king.  They were power seeking, trying to use Jesus as the means to fulfill their own ambitions.  But, Bartimaeus his request was for salvation, an act of God that would restore him to life.  “Let me see again!” he said.  Now, this is something only God could do.  Bartimaeus sees that Jesus isn't simply Israel’s Messiah; he is somehow the Lord God of Israel.  “Give me back my sight so that I can live again.  Give me back my worth in peoples’ eyes.  Give me back my human dignity.  Restore me to community.  Have mercy on me.”  This is something only God can do. 

Jesus’ answer was brief and to the point, “Go!  Your faith has saved you.”  Immediately, Bartimaeus began to see again.  Bartimaeus was blind yet in faith he saw the faithfulness of God working in Jesus the Son of God and he trusted it.  Indeed, he regained his sight.  He regained his life.  Bartimaeus the blind man saw that Jesus was indeed the Son of God and clearly understood Jesus’ ministry of salvation. 

It is likely that Bartimaeus was not blind from birth, but somehow in life he stopped seeing.  If we want to play out this analogy of “seeing” being life-giving faith arising in the midst of blindness, we could say that for whatever reason Bartimaeus had to lose his life, his sight, so that he could discover faith and truly come to know God through Jesus in order to have true life.  Things happen in life that challenge our “sight” – the death of parents, spouses, or children; marital infidelity and divorce; being rejected by our children; losing jobs; life threatening illness, addictions – these are things that take our lives away and often wipe us clean of any sense of faith we may have had in life or God or ourselves.  But the example of Bartimaeus, of his faith is the one we should hold on to.  In times of grief, anger, and shame, crying out to Jesus for salvation in the “right now” is our only hope because…seriously…when the time is right, he answers.  It might take days, months, even years of crying out but he answers and he saves us, he calls us to himself and he gives us “new sight”, a new way of seeing life as being filled with him.  Some of you have been through this blindness and know what I am saying is true and have reason to give thanks.  So give thanks, but also tell about it because there are people everywhere around you who need to know that there is hope.  Some of you are blind at this very moment.  Cry out.  Jesus does hear and will come to save.  Often, he doesn’t come immediately because he’s using the blindness and the crying out to heal even deeper hurts than the ones we are presently suffering.  Call out to Jesus.  Don’t let anyone try to silence you.  In time he will call you and you will be healed.  I’ve been there I know.  Amen.

Seeing through the Eyes of Faith

Text: Mark 10:46-52

Blind Bartimaeus is one of my favourite people in the Bible.  He is one of those insignificant characters in the Gospels who only show up once to show us true faith.  We’d think that would be the role assigned the disciples, but oddly the disciples only show us an incomplete faith.  They hear Jesus’ call and quite remarkably leave everything behind to follow him yet they never quite get who he is or his mission of the ministry of the Kingdom of God.  Neither do the religious authorities.  Though they should know what faith is, they actually wind up showing us anti-faith, a very distant relationship with God that they (we) control by rules, rituals, and judging others.  Leaving everything behind and following has no place in their religion.   But here is Blind Bartimaeus, an insignificant outcast, and he has the audacity to approach Jesus simply because he knows that Jesus alone can bring salvation to his life.

Since salvation is tied to faith, let me step aside here for a moment and define salvation.  We have inherited a rather downsized definition of salvation in comparison to what it actually is in the Bible.  We think of salvation as simply going to heaven when we die because of believing Jesus died for our sins.  Oddly, salvation is never spoken of in that way in the Bible.  Rather, it is an act of God that brings to a person or people healing, freedom from oppression, or freedom from demonic possession in order to restore them to authentic human community.  It is an act that either gives or restores life.  Salvation in its biggest sense is bodily resurrection into a new creation and a new humanity where there is no longer sin and death.  But most frequently salvation as we find it in the is a present event in which God delivers us from what ails us and brings us into the authentic loving community of his people.

Blind Bartimaeus is a prime example of salvation.  Though he was blind he was looking for salvation, a real act of God in the right now of his life to restore him to true life.  He was a blind beggar.  In his day any physical disability was seen as punishment from God for some great, secret offence.  People with disabilities were ostracized.  They were the bottom rung of the social ladder.  All they could do to live was beg.  It should be a lesson to us that Jesus, the Messiah, whom the crowds were expecting soon to be king, would turn aside to speak to one such as Bartimaeus.  But he did, for Bartimaeus had something called faith. 

Bartimaeus sat there at the road side and when he heard Jesus of Nazareth was passing he began to cry out as loud as he could, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  The crowds, annoyed by him, commanded him, “Be silent!”  What right did this cursed blind beggar have to address the Messiah?  But, Bartimaeus had faith.  He could not see Jesus.  He couldn’t just go to him.  He could only keep shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!  Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  Jesus hears him and stops his triumphal entry and gives the command, “Call him!” and out goes the good news to Bartimaeus, “Take courage!  Rise!  He is calling you!”  Bartimaeus sheds his cloak, the clothes of his old beggarly self, and jumps up from his roadside grave alive in hope and sets off groping in his blurry darkness to find Jesus. 

Suddenly Bartimaeus hears a voice, “What do you want me to do?”  The last time Jesus said that it was to John and James, who several days before had come to Jesus asking him to do whatever they asked of him.  Prideful, self-assured of their own worth, they thought themselves worthy of sitting at Jesus the Messiah's right and left when he became king.  They were power seeking, trying to use Jesus as the means to fulfill their own ambitions.  But, Bartimaeus his request was for salvation, an act of God that would restore him to life.  “Let me see again!”  He's asking for something God alone could do.  So, he realizes that Jesus isn't simply the Messiah of Israel; he is somehow the Lord God of Israel.   His request was one he could only make to God himself.  “Give me back my sight so that I can live again.  Give me back my worth in peoples’ eyes.  Give me back my human dignity.  Restore me to community.  Have mercy on me.”

Jesus’ answer was brief and to the point, “Go!  Your faith has saved you.”  Immediately, Bartimaeus began to see again.  The theologian Karl Barth defines faith like this: “This then is faith: the fidelity of men encountering the faithfulness of God.  Now, when this occurs, the KRISIS introduced by the resurrection of Jesus is set in motion, His appointment as Son of God is made manifest, and the servant of God has reason to give thanks” (Barth, Karl; Commentary on Romans, p. 32).  Bartimaeus was blind yet in faith he saw the faithfulness of God in Jesus the Son of God and he trusted it.  Indeed, he regained his sight.  He regained his life.  Bartimaeus the blind man saw that Jesus was indeed the Son of God and clearly understood his ministry of salvation. 

Bartimaeus was not blind from birth.  Somehow in life he stopped seeing.  If we want to play out this analogy seeing as living and faith arising in the midst of blindness we could say that for what ever the reason he had to lose his life, his sight, so that he could discover faith and truly come to know God through Jesus in order to have true life.  Things happen in life that challenge our sight – the death of parents, spouses, or children; marital infidelity and divorce; being rejected by our children; losing jobs; life threatening illness – these are things that take our lives away and often wipe us clean of sense of faith we may have had in life or God or ourselves.  But the example of Bartimaeus, of his faith is the one we should hold on to.  In times of grief, anger, and shame crying out to Jesus for salvation is our only hope for truly, when the time is right, he answers.  It might take days, months, even years of crying out but he answers and saves us, he calls us to himself and gives us new sight, a new way of seeing life as being filled with him.  Some of you have been through this blindness and know this to be true and have reason to give thanks.  So give thanks and tell about it.  Some of you are blind at this very moment.  Cry out.  Jesus does hear and will come to save.  Often, he doesn’t come immediately because he’s using the blindness and the crying out to heal even deeper hurts than the ones we are presently suffering.  Call out to Jesus.  Don’t let anyone try to silence you.  In time he will call you and you will be healed.  I’ve been there I know.  Amen.