In Mark 10:46-52, Jesus is interrupted on his journey to Jerusalem. But this final moment embodies the discipleship journey itself.
In Bartimaeus, we have the true disciple and a vision of hope
Proper 25B | Mark 10:46-52
If we just cracked open our Bibles to this passage in Mark, I think we’d be excused if we thought this was a run-of-the-mill healing. This guy just got excited about seeing again!
Or if you were someone who ran into Jesus on the road to Jericho and saw this go on, you’d probably say “that is some crazy stuff right there!” Maybe you’d want to learn a little more about this Jesus dude.
But if you’ve been following Jesus like the disciples have, as we have through the gospel of Mark each Sunday, as we have with our very lives, you’d see that this isn’t just any healing. Or any old Jesus story.
If we have eyes to see and ears to hear, we’d know this is the picture of discipleship.
And the writer of Mark is shouting at us: he can help us see!
Jericho
This passage begins with its location: “Jesus and his disciples came to Jericho.” Remember that Jericho is near Jerusalem, so Jesus is getting very close to the end of his journey. But this location means far more.
What is the one thing most of us know about Jericho? Joshua, or Yeshua, and the loud voices bringing the walls down. Yeshua is also Jesus’s name in Hebrew. So we’re given this obvious connection. But not only to compare this Yeshua to that previous Yeshua but to contrast them.
Jesus won’t conquer and pillage this city in the name of God. But he will bring the barriers down and help them see. The kin-dom is already here. Open up. This is Jesus’s work!
We should already be thinking this way—this whole trip from the northern gentile territory down here to Jericho has come with this kind of teaching. That yes, Jesus is sparking a revolution, but not one of violence. A revolution of love.
Jesus is flipping the economy, the power structures, and the expectations of all those who love God.
Jesus is tearing down the walls which divide Jew and Gentile, slave and free and bringing a challenging message. He’s saying God isn’t coming decades from now to save your souls, God is here!
So this vision of the mighty warrior, conquering Jesus, overthrowing the violence of Rome like the new Joshua is directly contrasted by what Jesus actually does when leaving this city.
The Blind Man
So Jesus is on the way out when this man starts shouting at him. A man whose shouts, in the end, will bring these walls down. This man is blind, but he knows who Jesus is. He may have lost his physical sight, but he has profound spiritual sight. And he shouts
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
The only one in the gospel of Mark who calls Jesus “Son of David.” In a way, he’s saying “You are in the Davidic line! You are the true king.” So it’s a lot like calling him the Messiah, conquering king.
And who says this to Jesus, but a man who is blind, left to beg in the streets.
Leonard Vander Zee describes it this way:
“Begging was ubiquitous in Jesus’ day, as it is increasingly in our own. You might say it was the social service model for Israel and the whole ancient world. People who could not make a living because of some disability had to lower themselves by begging for money from passersby. It actually worked quite well, in that it brought together their need for a living and the need for law-abiding Jews to give alms.”
But what did David do when he conquered Jerusalem? Vander Zee points out
“the blind and lame had to get out because they are the ones whom “David hates.””
This man brings out all the tension in the Jesus story; around who he is and what he has come to do. Because he is coming with all these honorifics and expectations—all the ways we would want the very incarnate God to be great and celebrated on earth: king, conqueror, leader! Despiser of weakness and disorder! And he keeps doing the opposite.
We try to glorify Jesus and he keeps serving us instead.
The Beggar
So this man, this blind beggar comes to Jesus, asking for mercy. kyrie eleison. He’s shouting to Jesus like he could bring the walls of the city down again.
Shouting at this man he believes to be the Son of David. This man who has tried over and over to keep it all a secret, but the people can’t help themselves. Who says to be quiet, and yet all they ever do is shout about him!
And the disciples jump in, trying to quiet the man like the one exorcizing demons in Jesus’s name. Jumping in to silence him like this man could ruin the whole plan. Like he’s offering an inconvenient truth. Silencing him like Peter tries to silence Jesus. Mute the blind beggar and get rid of him!
The followers may be able to see with their eyes, but their souls are struck blind.
But Jesus turns them around. Their job is not to silence him, but call to him. Jesus is calling the man through them. These hands and feet of Christ are also his voice box. They return his shouting, calling!
And the man springs up, running, full of the zeal of true hope. He runs past the stilted perplexed disciples racked by their confusion.
And Jesus merely asks what the man would want.
“My teacher, let me see again.”
He calls Jesus Rabbouni, the same affectionate article Mary uses at the resurrection.
Rabbouni let me see again!
He once could see. But now he discovers he can already see.
This is a story of discipleship
This is the last story before Jerusalem, the final lesson before it all comes rushing forward. But it comes as an interruption, a calling out in the midst of the journey. Jesus has a job to do. He is headed to Jerusalem when this man shouts at him.
A man reversing the Jericho story — he shouts at Yeshua. And the wall of protection fall; the barricades blinding us break at his voice. His faith made him well, not Jesus’s.
This man tore down what broke the world, not Jesus exclusively, and not the disciples earnestly fumbling toward discipleship. This one man, a footnote on the road to Jerusalem. He embodies the entire journey in a matter of verses.
The Name
A stranger, a beggar, a man separated from the community, a nobody who has a name. The people who Jesus heals along the way aren’t named. So this isn’t a healing. And it isn’t even simply a restoring to the community. It’s a calling to discipleship.
And unlike the fishermen who keep trying to achieve perfection, argue over greatness, or demand the glory seats, this blind beggar, a man named Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, all he’s asking for is mercy.
So much like our prayer:
Lord have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.
And the man doesn’t run away at the challenge or crack under the pressure of following Jesus in front of crowds of people, he leaps up and runs to Jesus.
It doesn’t say what it looked like, how the blind man could run through the crowd, if he stumbled or struggled. The story doesn’t reveal his challenges or doubts or any stumbling blocks set before him. Only that he leaped and ran and came to Jesus like this would be his everything. Like this is more than just getting his sight back. More than what he wants. More than seeing again.
He already sees.
Lord have mercy.
Chapter after chapter, the story in Mark builds on the call to discipleship. The challenge and sacrifice involved with following Jesus, learning from him, and serving with him.
And we’ve finally seen the true picture of discipleship. Because more often than not, we’re like Peter, stumbling through, a bit confused and yet a little too confident.
But this story is the real culmination of all that. Bartimaeus is the blind man who can see Jesus better than anyone. Running past the obstacles like they aren’t there. Called, he responds. He leaps.
To receive this in the week we fear pipe bombs and the murder of God’s children in a Louisville store and a Pittsburgh synagogue. And from the safety of our home and church, we beg Lord have mercy.
Through the Clouds
The clouded truth confuses us and troubles our hearts. The evil we resist, but the love we struggle to spread.
And yet this week brought clarity, too. A young man with no resting place for 20 years was finally put into his final home at the Washington National Cathedral with thousands bearing witness.
Matthew Shepard loved the church but could not truly rest in peace. His parents feared his grave would be desecrated like his body was twenty years ago. The victim of the kind of violence we’re still seeing. Our neighbors are still committing.
But in the fog of controversy, political factioneering, and indescribable hate, the love of Christ rises like incense. A cloud of love, smoking up the greatest of our worship homes. A sign of the true peace Jesus reveals to us through us.
Through the confusion, we process, ever forward, to honor the Christ in one another. And we keep following Jesus, rejecting the forces of evil, the stumbling blocks of fear and anger, and denying the seduction to power. Instead, we offer one another the grace of Jesus, serving in love, proclaiming the gospel with hope, and honoring each other with mercy.
And like this incredible disciple, Bartimaeus, we beg for mercy.
We leap at Jesus’s call.
And we let our faith return our very ability to see the truth, how things really are. And how God dreams them to be.