When I was 12 years old I moved to Ecuador from NYC. Imagine the adjustment we had to make as a family. Ecuador was so under-developed and I didn't like it. I didn't like it's transportation system, I didn't like the poverty I saw all around me, I didn't like the food and I didn't like learning about the culture or it's customs. But there was one thing that I did love to do and that was visiting my grandmother in a small very primitive town called Puembo.
She lived in a beautiful house but unfortunately, with no plumbing and no electricity and yet she expected (cultural norm) all of her family to spend the weekends there (there was probably around 40 of us). I remember the first time I visited Puembo and needed to use the bathroom. It was probably around 11 in the evening and I just couldn't hold it any longer. I knew I'd have to find my way in the field in between the pigs, the cows, the bulls, the donkeys, the goats, so I asked my grandmother to come with me. It was pitch black. Seriously, I couldn't even see my hand in front of me, but I could smell the animals, and I could hear my footsteps and I could feel my grandmother's breath, and I could even taste the fog of that evening. Boy it was dark. There was a point where I didn't know whether I had my eyes opened or closed. I'd never experienced such darkness.
I've often thought back to that night, wondering if that's what it feels like to be blind. I've thought, if I ever had to lose one of my five senses, which one would it be? I think back to that night and it wouldn't be my sight. I can't imagine not having my sight. I have a deep respect for the blind.
In the Bible there is a story about the life of one particular blind man and I'd like to share that story with you. And I'd like to take a step further and ask that you put yourself, to find yourself in the story.
This passage of Scripture is so exceptional. The story is actually found in three different books in the New Testament...in Matthew, Mark and Luke and each time it's told it has a different flavor and a few different details are told in one book and ommitted in another. It's actually only in the book of Mark that the name of the man we will be talking about is mentioned. His name is Bartimaeus and Bartimaeus was blind. Today we're going to be reading this story as it is told in the book of Luke 18:35-43. Let's read it together.
Blindness and diseases of the eye were common maladies in the ancient world. Eye diseases were mostly caused by flies that landed on a sleeping infant's eyes at night leaving a kind of larva that later created the infection and when severe...blindness set in. It could be that was what had taken place in this man's life. Or maybe he was simply born blind. Whatever the case the point is that his physical impairment had stripped him from the dignity of providing for himself and here we find him begging.
Beggars would often be found at the city gate pleading for people to find compassion in their hearts to toss thema few coins here and there, enough to buy themselves maybe a loaf of bread and perhaps a tea. That was what he did day after day…sit alongside the road begging.
While I lived in Ecuador I watched many blind beggars. When I first arrived in Ecuador the sight was sometimes too much to bear and I'd cry as I the reality of the empoverishment of such people took over my emotions. But to be honest with you, the longer I lived in Ecuador the less I was affected by the scarcity that I witnessed all around me. I become calloused if not blinded by the needs. And I believe that Bartemaeus often encountered people like myself as I was in Ecuador, so concerned with their own issues, so consumed by their own needs and wants, and he was ignored, neglected, oppressed and made to feel so aware of his already perceived insignificance.
One day as Bartemaeus was going through his daily begging routine he hears an unusual shuffling of feet and the voices of a large crowd, a pushing and shoving that he wasn't accostumed to, something rare was happening, he knew it. People who lose one of their senses will tell you that often times their remaining senses become more acute, as mine became for a brief moment in the fields with my grandmother. And it was no different for Bartemaeus. But something was taking place that day, at that moment and it propelled this man who most likely never spoke up, who went about his day as if he were a shadow, a nothing...to dare to make his voice known and he asks, "What's going on?". Just imagine the scene, the commotion and the inability to see what is happening. I'm certain that it took Bartimaeus several minutes, several attempts before anyone bothered to answer his question, and that perhaps out of their own excitement "Jesus of Nazareth is passing by."
Before we move ahead let's take some time to focus on the context of the story. Scripture says, "And it came about as He was approaching Jericho..." Jesus had headed south along the Jordan river until he arrived at Jericho. This was the world's oldest city, located on the north shore of the Dead Sea, 600 feet below sea level. Jericho was already "a little paradise," with its palm trees, rose gardens, its streets lined with sycamores, and gifted with delightful climate. It was an oasis.
And a city a step away from Jerusalem. It was only a 15 mile trek, a 6 hour journey to the city where Jesus was really heading towards…he just was passing by Jericho, but it was Jerusalem where he was headed. Jerusalem the city where he would give his life. He was on his way to the cross.
I don't know about you but if I knew I was on my way to my death and I knew the kind of gruelling death it would be. And I knew that even those closest to me, in this case Jesus' disciples didn't get what I had been talking about when I told them that I needed to continue on this journey to Jerusalem, to be crucified for their sins and that of humanity, and be buried, and then raised on the third day, and they still couldn't get it. I'm not sure...but if that was what was happening to me I would be feeling very alone and I would become very self-focused and very self-absorbed and I would certainly not want any kind of interruptions whether big or small to interfere with my head space and heart space at the moment. Jesus was on a mission…he knew he needed to get to Jerusalem and go through the plan God the Father had determined for him.
But then he hears someone yelling and calling out his name.
'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!' Have mercy on you? I'm heading towards my death, I don't want to have mercy on anyone, would be how I would respond.
Let's go back to Bartimaeus. " have mercy," I have a hard time believing that this man's plea for mercy was a feeble cry for help. In fact, I believe it was loud and insistent, a loud voice in a high volume. He's shouting out, crying out. It must have been so loud, so annoying, so pestersome, a cry so out of the normal that in verse 39 we see that those that were leading the way rebuked him. I imagine them lashing out at him in shouts "shut-up". But Bartimaeus keeps on shouting. He won't be shut up, even though the crowd continues to tell him to stop…he cries out "son of David have mercy on me".
Some people are intimidated and subdued by their own handicaps, their disabilities, their helplessness, their struggle, their suffering, their pain and agony. But not Bartimaeus. Just think about the courage it took to yell out to Jesus and to insist that Jesus listen to him. Remember his circumstance. What motivates this uncontainable, wild cry for mercy?
Let's turn back to Jesus…Again, let's remember he is on a mission, a difficult and heart-wrenching mission, but nevertheless a mission. And suddenly he hears the cries of a man calling out his name. And not anything alike to how he hears others calling him. Other's seem to be satisfied to identify him as Jesus of Nazareth. But this cry he hears at a distance…there is something different about it. The person is addressing him as Jesus the Son of David, and he is hollering out for mercy.
In the history of the Jewish people to call someone "Son of David" was equivalent to calling someone, "Messiah," which meant rescuer, the deliverer of the Jewish people.
The way Bartimaeus addresses to Jesus is startling. When he asks the "Son of David" for mercy, he is expecting far more than money and Jesus knows this. Imagine the scene, Jesus heading towards Jerusalem, his disciples not really getting why the rush, why head to Jerusalem…and out in the distance a man is crying out to him for mercy, a man who seems to get who he really is…the deliverer. You know there are theologions who believe that this story unfolds not as it seems in these few lines, in a few minutes but that Bartimaeus actually spend a whole day seeking Jesus for mercy. And it was only after hours of searching in desperation that Jesus as Scriptures says..."stops and orders the man to be brought to him." Think about that moment. I think Jesus had a smile on his face. I think at that moment the fact he was heading towards Jerusalem became clearer to him…he was going to go through the pain of it all for the Bartimaesus of this world, who call out to him, frantically searching believing Jesus to be deliverer, savior.
Now consider the blind man. Think about him hollering at the top of his lungs and then suddenly two or three men grabbing his arm and saying to him something like… "stop yelling, Jesus is asking us to bring you to him". I think he probably took a big gulp, his breathing stopped just a little, the palms of his hands probably began to sweat a bit, and I think he had this deep sense of anticipation, uncertainty and incomprehensible stillness.
I think that when Jesus saw Bartimaeus he didn't speak so quickly. I think he took a moment to watch him, to study him to read him, I think he loved him.
And then as this beautiful moment unfolds, Jesus asks the most intriguing question using nine simple but profound words. 'What do you want me to do for you?'
I find it fascinating that Jesus would ask Bartimaeus this question. Isn't it obvious. Jesus you must know what he's asking for, don't you? You must...is it not plain and clear to you? Am I missing something?
I gotta tell you, the only explanation I have is that Jesus was prompting Bartemaeus to search his own heart. To go to the very core of his being, to think about what it really has he was looking for even though his circumstances and what he would want Jesus to have mercy over is so obvious.
Have you ever had those moments in your life when things aren't going great and our circumstances, our situations are beyond what we can do to make things better, we're completely out of control. There is no one to turn to and then we hear about Jesus or rememeber Jesus. And as we turn to him we ask for the obvious. Jesus knows we do that but he also knows that all too often it's not the obvious that we are really longing for. But it's usually the obvious that has clouded our vision so much and made us blind to the true yearning of our heartts and souls. It's much easier to ask for the obvious, to quickly asses our personal issues and then ask for mercy. But it is a lot harder to go to the core of our spirit to find what we are truely asking for. It takes courage to go there.
When Jesus asks What do you want me to do for you? I don't believe that Bartimaeus responded immediately. He realized the authority of Jesus question and he knew at the core of his being that Jesus would answer him. He went to his gut and examined what he wanted more than anything else and he requests for it. Again notice the courage. He doesn't ask for a better place to beg from, he doesn't ask that there would be more people with compassion, he doesn't ask for money...all which would have been legitimate requests...in this case, the obvious is really what the blinds man is longing for.
Let me see Lord, says Bartimaeus. What he asks for is nothing less than a miracle. What courage and what faith. What a beautiful confession of his heart, that says "you are Jesus the Son of God and you are the only one that can grant me this miracle and I believe you will do it."
I love this story but I'm also bothered by it because I realize how often I quickly assume Jesus is too busy to hear my plea and I recognize how often I'm so focused on my mission that I become blind to the cries of the Bartimaeuses around me. I'm also bothered because I so often lack the courage to seek Jesus as Bartimaues, believe in who Jesus says he was and is as Bartimauesu believed and finally to cry out to Jesus in expectation as Bartemaeus and listen to Jesus words as he asks me What do you want me to do for you?
There are moments in life when we're called upon to make a decision. The mixture of faith and opportunity is present. And we have a choice to act on it or not..
Bartimaeus says, Jesus is here. He had no clue that it would be the last time that Jesus would ever pass that way because Jesus was on His way up to Jerusalem to give His life. It was the last time. So from the depths of him, Bartimaeus cries out. It's in urgency.
Have you ever felt like Bartemaeus...helpless, with very little hope, at wit's end? Cry out to him and Jesus will stop, ask that you come to him and when you are near he will ask you 'What do you want Me to do for you?"
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