A farmer
purchases an old, run-down, abandoned farm with plans to turn it into a
thriving enterprise. The fields are grown over with weeds, the farmhouse is
falling apart, and the fences are collapsing all around. During his first day of
work, the town preacher stops by to bless the man's work, saying, "May you
and God work together to make this the farm of your dreams!" A few months
later, the preacher stops by again to call on the farmer. Lo and behold, it's
like a completely different place -- the farm house is completely rebuilt and
in excellent condition, there are plenty of cattle and other livestock happily
munching on feed in well-fenced pens, and the fields are filled with crops
planted in neat rows. "Amazing!" the preacher says. "Look what
God and you have accomplished together!" "Yes, Reverend," says
the farmer, "but remember what the farm was like when God was working it
alone!"
The story of
Bartimaeus is a story about the power of human faith and positive thinking.
Faith shapes how we interact with one another and the world at large. Several
attempts have been made throughout history to narrowly define who belongs in
God's Kingdom. These attempts were also used to keep social outcasts and the
powerless in line. For example, many times when African-American slaves came to
Christ they had to declare that their decision had nothing to do with the
desire to be free from slavery. God places a very high value on the
marginalized people of the world. In the Book of Jeremiah, He promised to
gather them up -and that promise was fulfilled by giving sight to Bartimaeus.
We are called to get to know people and what they REALY want and need so we can
help them solve their underlying problems. We need new eyes to see the
invisible ones as God sees them. Even in physical blindness, Bartimaeus was
able to see what is often not seen by other eyes that function quite normally.
Bartimaeus had listened to the testimony of the sacred Scriptures and to what
they had to say about Jesus and what He would do at Jerusalem to gain
forgiveness and entry into Paradise for all sin-tainted human beings.
The story is
also an explanation of how an interruption conveys a promise, a risk and hope
for the future. Bartimaeus' life was interrupted when his sight was restored.
He went from being a beggar to answering the call to be one of the "people
of the way". We also meet Christ when we tell the Gospel story in which
Jesus teaches, preaches and calls people to discipleship (like Bartimaeus was
called when he was healed). This is a story of seeing with the eyes of
faith-dimly at first and needing correction, but focused on the source of light
and life. Bartimaeus, like other people who sought healing from Jesus, saw
himself in humility as utterly dependent on God, the only hope. Bartimaeus is
an example of the faith that comes from hearing the word of God. Jesus' simple
words, "Your faith has made you well" were simple in nature, but
powerful enough to transform someone who is broken into someone who can do much
for Christ and others.
In coming to
Christ for healing, we should look to Him as the promised Messiah. He
encourages our hope that if we come to Him, He will grant our requests. In
coming to Him, we must cast off the garment of self-sufficiency to free
ourselves from every weight and sin. When He grants our requests, we must
continue to follow Him, to honour Him and receive instructions from Him.
There are
three types of blindness:
1. Physical
2. Spiritual blindness (OR the blindness of disciples)
3. Blindness of our generation to the needs of the world.
1. Physical
2. Spiritual blindness (OR the blindness of disciples)
3. Blindness of our generation to the needs of the world.
Gaining
one's sight seeing again is the way of Jesus. It involves journeying with Him
from Galilee to Jerusalem, the place of death and resurrection, of endings and
beginnings. To see that is to have one's eyes opened. We begin our journey of
faith by coming humbly to Christ and admitting our sinful lives. By doing so,
we are admitting that we are poor in spirit. We want Christ to open our eyes to
him like he opened Bartimaeus' eyes. We need to recharge ourselves with
Christ's light and share that light with others.
Can we se
ourselves in Bartimaeus? Or do we think we are better that he was? We are all
beggars-blind to Christ, economically-challenged, powerless, silenced by our
fears, short on inheritance by our unclean spirit and eventually quieted by
death. Jesus, Son of David, takes care of the silencing powers that deprive us
of our status before God. Placing our faith in Jesus brings both wholeness and
light. It gives us freedom to spring up, follow Christ on the way, and to share
His presence and peace with others. Mark 10 is all about what it means to be in
God's Kingdom. What does it look and feel like to have God's rule in your
interior life, so that your outside actions have roots that can support them?
Our lives
can look clean and neat on the outside, but be a mess on the inside. God wants
to clean us so that our internal lives can be the good soil that allows the
outside to flourish. Some people don't pray because they are afraid God will
change their lives. We go to church because we want God to change our lives.
The courage we have comes from God.
There is an
interesting contrast here between Bartimaeus and the rich young ruler in Mark
10:17-31. The rich young ruler did not want to give up what he had in order to
gain eternal life. Bartimaeus was willing and eager to shed everything to
become spiritually sighted. The rich young ruler, like many people today, was
spiritually blind and stayed that way. Bartimaeus was both physically and
spiritually blind, but he was healed. Jesus' miracles are seen more about
growing in faith than with curing spiritual blindness. He picks us up from
where we have fallen and redirects us along the way. This process can be
described in many ways. We are always moving from spiritual darkness to
spiritual light, from darkness of faith to faithfulness. Arrogance is the root
of our spiritual blindness. We need to cast off the cloak of arrogance and put
on the cloak of humility and faith.
The question
"What do you want" is God's way of asking us if we really want to see
who we are. Will we want Him more than comfort, avoidance of pain, or the
pretence of control? If not, we will remain spiritually blind and begging from
what will never satisfy us. Mercy= undeserved pardon, replacement of judgment
with grace and acceptance. In Biblical terminology, clothes represented casting
off the old so you can get ready for the new. Seeing leads to the
responsibility to repent, to forgive, to follow Jesus, to suffer in new ways,
to have a soft heart, to trust as a child, to clear any priorities other than
God (something the rich young ruler refused to do), and to demonstrate God's
commitment unto death. We are all in some type of need. There are ways and
times for all of us in which we are blind. We have all cried out for help and
mercy in some way.
Bartimaeus
is also an example of the power of prayer. Prayer means coming before God with
empty hands and opening ourselves to His merciful presence and to what He wants
to give us-namely, His mercy. Jesus wants to answer our prayers because He
wants to answer them. In turn, we must let Him look at us and let ourselves be
prayed for by Him. Jesus could not perform miracles unless the people who
received the miracles had faith. Faith means awareness of God and a
relationship with God. We need to be like Bartimaeus. We need to become blind
so that we can see ourselves and those around us as well.
Everyone has
a blind spot; namely, our area of awareness and areas where growth can still
take place. Bartimaeus is an example of how we can get help with our own blind
spots by doing these three things:
1. Listening
2. Taking initiative
3. Being softer
1. Listening
2. Taking initiative
3. Being softer
Bartimaeus
also serves as an example of those who have shut the eyes of their minds to
Christ's calls for repentance.
To move from
suffering to faith, we MUST capitalize on the opportunities God gives us. These
opportunities only become opportunities when we embrace them as opportunities.
Bartimaeus embraced the opportunity to be cured from both physical blindness and
spiritual blindness-the rich young ruler did not. We must also minimize the
negative voices that clatter around us. We must not judge people by what we see
on the outside. We must also exercise the faith that is available to us. If you
ask Jesus for something, you must be prepared to follow Him. The blessings of
the Kingdom are for those who, in faith, persistent faith, cry out to God in
mercy. How many people in the history of the church have so wittingly thrown
off the cloak of their past life to put on the new cloak before they knew what
faith could do for them? Jesus' restoring of Bartimaeus' sight reaffirmed the
salvation implied by the faith which prompted Bartimaeus' request.
Those who
have authority are those whom people have learned to respect and honour because
they have been served by them, in one way or another. This is where authority
lies within the church. Of course Jesus himself is our great example,
especially when he said, "For the Son of Man also came not to be served
but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many ". (Mark 10:45)
The process
of becoming a disciple involves three steps:
1. Admitting
that we don't know the answer to the most profound issues of life, and we must
ask for help.
2. Taking heat
3. Following Jesus
2. Taking heat
3. Following Jesus
The healing
of Bartimaeus was used as a miracle to help the disciples understand their own
blindness and feed the flame of their faith. This mirrors both faith that
breaks through blindness and God's mercy. God places mirrors in our lives so
that we can see ourselves, fan our faith, and share in the fellowship of
Christ's sufferings.
Faith is a
matter of a relationship with God in Christ, so that through faith a believer
is related to the source of life, to the author of life who can restore
wholeness to broken lives and fulfill our hopes of eternal life. This allows us
to begin a life with Him forever, beginning now in the faith relationship. The
story of Bartimaeus is a living memory of an event that deeply impressed the
people who witnessed the miracle. To be on the way with Jesus leads followers
into a deeper understanding of the Way of God. To come to know God is to
"see" things one never "saw" before. Bartimaeus gained
physical sight and spiritual sight.
Where and
how is there blindness in us? What hood do we wear that hides our faces from
each other and from those whom God names as our neighbours? What cloak do we
wear that covers up our own humanity and keeps us from hearing what God desires
for all of us? For us it is not about poverty, race, discrimination,
oppression, starvation or illness of some sort. Instead it might be our
addiction to busyness that blinds us to opportunities to care. It might be the
subtle arrogance that we pull over our heads that leaves little room for new
learning or understanding or seeing life and world from a large perspective. It
might be the affluence that we wrap around our lives that has a tendency to
stifle both genuine gratitude and compassion. We need to ask ourselves these
questions:
1. When and how are we blind like Bartimaeus?
2. What hood do we need to push back from our face in order to see?
3. What cloak do we need to unwrap from around our lives?
4. How might we need to stumble towards God?
In the end,
this story tells us that we are not human until we are human together, and that
blindness is not just about our eyes, but also about our hearts and minds.