By Rev. Canon David B. Tabo-oy
“What do you want me to do for you?”
Jesus asked him.
“Teacher,” the blind man answered,
“I want to see again.”
V52″Go,” Jesus told him, “your faith has made you well.”
– Mark 10:46-5
he seven verses that contained the gospel lesson for this Sunday is a multi-dimensional story. It can be seen as a story of courage, faith and perseverance, it is a story of transformation – the opportunity to fulfil one’s destiny. It is the story of Intentional Discipleship. It can also be seen as the story of the brokenness of humanity. Let us recall the event that took place in the street of Jericho when Jesus walked this earth more than two millennia ago.
Jesus has just been transfigured in the mountain with a chosen few of his disciple witnessing the spectacle. The divine event affirmed the messiahship of Jesus and has put his earthly ministry to its midpoint and prepared the final leg, his triumphal entry to the city of Jerusalem. This trip was Jesus’ final trip to the city of Jerusalem and to the Temple. It would be his final time to celebrate Passover with His Disciples. The final entry to Jerusalem took place in the following chapter of Mark’s gospel right after the healing of Bartimaeus the blind man – our story this week.
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While Jesus and his comrades depart the town of Jericho heading towards the city of Jerusalem a noisy blind man disturbed the serenity of their journey. He created a commotion by shouting and persistently asking Jesus to have mercy on him. When he got the attention of Jesus he laid down straightforward his plea, “I want to see!” And Jesus told him, “Go, for your faith has healed you.” As bad as blindness is in the 21st century, however, it was so much worse in Jesus’ day. Today a blind person at least has the hope of living a useful life with proper training. Some of the most skilled and creative people in our society are blind. But in first century Palestine blindness meant that you would be subjected to abject poverty. You would be reduced to begging for a living. You lived at the mercy and the generosity of others. Unless your particular kind of blindness was self-correcting, there was no hope whatsoever for a cure. The skills that were necessary were still centuries beyond the medical knowledge of the day. It is of such miraculous healing of a seemingly incurable disability as one of the signs of the coming of the Messiah, “.. the blind should be receiving their sight.”
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Faith brought sight to blind Bartimaeus. He persevered in faith despite the initial opposition he experienced from Jesus’ followers. In Jesus day, blindness was considered a divine curse for sin, but Jesus refuted this notion by both word and deed. We sometimes face opposition in our struggle to see and overcome our character defects. Sometimes those who claim to be God’s people reject us and make us feel unwelcome because we are trapped by our fallen human tendencies. Even when other reject us, we can be sure that Jesus will never turn us away. We should persevere like Bartimaeus did, knowing that Jesus has the power and desire to help us overcome our besetting weaknesses. As we struggle with our weaknesses that lead to our sinfulness, we often look for instant relief or remedies. We wish someone would come and sweep our pain and burdens that come with our struggles. The Judeans were expecting the same kind of deliverance from their Messiah. They wanted glorious political king on a warhorse to ride into Jerusalem and sweep the Romans out of power. Instead, Jesus came riding on a lowly donkey, in peace. God does not offer instant cures; he works on our wholistic healing through a process of personal growth, from the inside out. He helps us recognize our sins and our need for help, and he gives us the strength to take the necessary steps toward transformation. It is here that faith comes into the equation.
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I read of the following story told by an ordained minister. He said, in my church secretary’s office there hangs a modernistic picture composed of a maze of colours and shapes. I realized these sophisticated, modern, and abstract pictures were supposed to contain some profound artistic or philosophical message, but I never was able to figure it out. It just looked like a jumbled mass of confusion. If there was a message there, I was blind to it.
One day while I was standing in the office, waiting for the copier to warm up, one of the congregation’s kindergarten-age boys, Adam, stood beside me and said, “Do you see what I see?”
“Do you see something in that picture? I sure don’t.” Adam looked at me with glee in his eye, “Pastor, can’t you see him? It’s Jesus hanging on the cross.” I stared as hard as I could, until my eyes actually hurt from staring. I wanted to believe Adam and that there actually was the image of Jesus hanging on the cross hidden somewhere in that mass of color and shapes, but I couldn’t see Jesus anywhere. “Adam, I’m sorry but I must be blind. You will have to help me see.”
Directing his finger to a mass of color in the center of the picture, Adam said, “There, Pastor. Do you see what I see? There is Jesus, his face, his arms outstretched on the cross.” And then, like an epiphany, the image began to appear. Yes, there hidden somehow “behind” the colors and the shapes was the barely visible image of Jesus, hanging with arms outstretched on the cross. “It’s amazing, Adam. You have helped one blind pastor to see Jesus. Yes, I can see what you see, Adam.”
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St. Mark reveals to us more than just a picture of a blind man named Bartimaeus. Mark paints for us a picture of everyone who has lived and will live on this side of the Garden of Eden. Humanity in its wretchedness is plagued with blindness – spiritual, emotional, physical and mental. Humanity in its wretchedness finds itself incapable to truly change and transform. Humanity in its wretchedness lives the life of an outcast, an outcast of Paradise and Holiness. Humanity in its wretchedness is the life of a spiritual vagabond; a life that has no hope and that is ultimately going nowhere. We humans over the centuries has done our best to put on a good face. We have tried time and time again to build our own little kingdoms doing our dead level best to build a society that is fair and just. We have done our best to create a world that mimics God’s Garden of Eden. But the truth is we do not have a clue how to build a lasting community in our own strength. We do not have the ability. We have the will but we like the ability. We stare at these truth yet we cannot see for we are blind. How I wish to ever identify with the petition of John Henry Hopkins (c.1865) expressed in the lines of the hymn Veni Creator, “Enable with perpetual light, the dullness of our blinded sight.”:
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The healing experience of Bartimaeus reminds us also of our responsibility to share the gospel to others. While we are responsible to share the good news with others, it is not ours to ensure our listeners to accept our message. We need not feel bad or guilty if people reject our message because our gospel message must be accepted by faith. In the case of Bartimaeus, his reply to Jesus was, “Rabbi, I want to see.” In those few words Bartimaeus expressed not only his need; he also expressed his faith in Jesus. In spite of the barriers the people put in place to prevent him from coming to Jesus, he showed his faith. Mark concludes the story by telling us that immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus immediately along the road.
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John Wesley wrote, “One of the greatest evidences of God’s love to those that love him is to send them afflictions, with the grace to bear them. Even in the greatest afflictions, we ought to testify to God that, in receiving them from his hand, we feel pleasure in the midst of pain, from being afflicted by him who loves us, and whom we love.”
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Let us pray.
Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, you know our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking: Have compassion on our weakness and mercifully give us those things which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask; through the worthiness of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.**
