Mark 10.46-52 – 24 October 2021
Neil Millar
Ever since I first heard this story it’s been a favourite for me. Even though this is all we hear of him, I particularly warm to Bartimaeus as a character – his pluck and resilience, his daring ‘give it a go’ approach to life. In fact, judging by the number of songs written about him (literally hundreds in Apple iTunes), it seems that Bartimaeus has affected a lot people over the years. I’ll play one later but for now, let’s have a closer look at this last healing miracle recorded in Mark’s gospel.
The township of Jericho is located about 20 kms (roughly a day’s walk) from Jerusalem. Jesus and his disciples are heading out of town on the last leg of their pilgrimage to the ‘holy’ city, and for Jesus, it is a deeply poignant moment. On three occasions in recent chapters, he has warned his disciples of what lies ahead. He is under no illusion about what awaits him in Jerusalem but the disciples, it seems, still don’t get it. Even so, there’s a buzz in the air and a large crowd is with them. Bartimaeus was begging by the side of the road, hoping for a few copper coins from pilgrims on their way to worship at the feast of Passover. This was a choice spot to beg from spiritually inspired travellers, and his presence there would not have been unusual. When Bartimaeus hears that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by, he begins to call out: ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’
Now, the astute among Mark’s readers will recognise that, ‘Son of David’ is a messianic title. In this gospel, Bartimaeus is the first person to use this title and get away with it. Up until this point, Jesus has sought to silence those who revealed his identity. Remember the demons he rebuked, for example: ‘See that you tell no one’, he’d say. But here, so close to Jerusalem, on the cusp of his so-called ‘triumphal’ entry, something has shifted.
Having said that, there is still some silencing here – or at least an attempt. When Bartimaeus called out, ‘many sternly ordered him to be quiet’. I wonder why? Were they annoyed by the noise; embarrassed by his intrusion? Bartimaeus wasn’t the first person to have to overcome discouragement in approaching Jesus. Think of those four men lowering their paralysed friend through the roof of a house, the woman with the haemorrhage (Mk 5), the Syrophoenician woman (Mk 7), and those little children to whom the disciples spoke ‘sternly’ (Mk 10) – all encountered resistance.
But, like them, blind Bartimaeus will not be dissuaded. The more the crowd rebukes him, the louder he cries: ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ It’s as if he’s got nothing to lose. He’s been dismissed and marginalised all his life; viewed as an interruption; forced to the edge – out of town. And, now, along that edge, Jesus is passing. It’s a moment, a chance (perhaps his only chance) and he’s not going to let it slip away. ‘He cried out even more loudly’, it says … and Jesus stopped … ‘stood still’ … He’s clearly heard Bartimaeus pleading, but the sense I get is that he’s also recognised this man – his plight, his poverty of spirit; his … ‘faith’ … his willingness really to engage and to trust him.
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.’ I’m struck that right in the middle of a story about a man seeing is this threefold mention of him being called; summoned.
Bartimaeus is up in a flash; needs no second invitation. ‘And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus’, it says. Such economy of words and yet so revealing. In the previous passage we read of James and John, two supposedly key disciples, jostling to secure their future, pressing Jesus for power and privilege. In contrast, this blind beggar lets go of everything just to get to him – first his dignity (calling out), and then his most precious item, his cloak. In the Torah, it was forbidden to take a person’s cloak as a pledge. For a poor man like Bartimaeus, the cloak was his only protection against the freezing cold of a desert night and the blistering summer sun. It’s also the garment he would have spread on the ground to catch the attention and gifts of would-be donors. Literally and symbolically, it was his security blanket, his life line. Yet, when Jesus called, without hesitation, he threw it off and sprang up to meet him. Unlike others, burdened by conditions and seeking guarantees (James and John, the rich young ruler…), Bartimaeus’ response is whole-hearted, unconditional, undefended.
And, in response, Jesus too is unconditional: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ ‘My teacher, let me see again’. And Jesus says: ‘Go’. ‘Go; your faith has made you well.’ And that’s it; the briefest of interactions. No if’s, no buts, no fuss.
And ‘immediately’, says Mark, (using his favourite word for signifying God at work); ‘Immediately, he regained his sight and followed him on the way’. And, off they go, to Jerusalem: The Lord and his new disciple. And the whole drama playing out in less than five minutes. It’s an astonishingly succinct and powerful exchange.
So, where does it leave us? A couple of closing reflections.
First, a comment about the place and importance of ‘faith’ in people’s response to Jesus. On a number of occasions in this gospel, Jesus affirms a link between healing and faith. This has led to an expectation in some that if we just ask with enough faith, our every request will be granted; and conversely, if our request isn’t granted, it’s because we didn’t have enough faith. There are stories of seemingly miraculous cure in response to prayer. But we all know stories of disappointment. What can make of this? What is the link between faith and healing, between faith and getting what we want?
When Jesus speaks of the healing that issues from faith in this gospel he uses the word ‘sozo’, which, in Greek, has to do with overall wellbeing and liberation. To be healed in this sense is not firstly a medical matter; it’s to do with wholeness, being reconciled and set free from that which is limiting or diminishing us. And faith, the process of entrusting ourselves to this possibility. In Mark’s gospel, and in our lives too, the response of faith (our ongoing entrusting of ourselves to Christ) opens us, makes us receptive to God’s well-making mercy. This may, on occasion, involve a specific cure from illness, or dramatic change of circumstances. But even when this isn’t the form our healing takes, faith holds that we are being reconciled and made whole – you can die, healed. The writer to the Hebrews calls this living by faith – i.e., living day by day in ‘the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not yet seen’ (Heb. 11.1).
The other thing to say about the Bartimaeus story, is that it raises the question of who is blind and who sees; and how am I blind? Who or what don’t I see? Reflecting on this last night at Benedictus, one woman commented ‘I’ve never been physically blind, but I’ve walked in blindness on many occasions in my life’. And she said, ‘it’s when I cried out for help, that I began to see what I needed to see’. Another woman spoke of the security guard at her workplace in London, who told her he found the job really hard, because no one ‘saw’ him. He was from Sierra Leone, a black man, and all the people inside the building were white. How am I blind? Who and what in the world don’t I see? At the beginning of this story, Bartimaeus was physically blind – but he was the one who recognised Jesus. And that recognition and his whole-hearted response of faith, led to even more seeing.
There’s an invitation here for us, I think – expressed in these words from the beautiful hymn, ‘Let there be light’.
Savior, you came to give
Those who in darkness live
Healing and sight,
Health to the troubled mind,
Sight to the inly blind:
Now to all humankind
Let there be light!
Bartimaeus by John Newton
Mercy, O thou Son of David!
Thus blind Bartimaeus prayed;
Others by thy word are saved,
Now to me afford thine aid:
Many for his crying chid him,
But he called the louder still;
Till the gracious Saviour bid him
Come, and ask me what you will.
Money was not what he wanted,
Though by begging used to live;
But he asked, and Jesus granted
Alms, which none but he could give:
Lord remove this grievous blindness,
Let my eyes behold the day;
Strait he saw, and won by kindness,
Followed Jesus in the way.
O! methinks I hear him praising,
Publishing to all around;
Friends, is not my case amazing?
What a Saviour I have found:
O! that all the blind but knew him,
And would be advised by me!
Surely, would they hasten to him,
He would cause them all to see.
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