When he heard that it was Jesus the
Nazarene, he began to cry out and say, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on
me!" Many were sternly telling him to be quiet… Mark 10:47-48a
This week we are focusing on the
life of Blind Bartimaeus. Although he
had many strikes against him, we can learn a powerful lesson of faith from his
life.
One day Jesus was teaching near
the place Bartimaeus was sitting and begging.
He was surrounded by a multitude of people. Some were curious to hear
the teacher share. Some were his critics who sought to destroy Him. Some were
His beloved disciples. That day the
crowd made three very wrong assessments:
- That
Bartimaeus didn’t matter.
- That
Jesus didn’t care.
- That
they were better.
Are we not prone to walk past
some who we feel are beyond help? We do
the same thing today, we judge people by what we see on the outside.
The response of a desperate man
is to minimize the negative voices that clatter around him. Bartimaeus had not
yet gotten to his feet. Yet he was making himself heard. He was crying
pitifully, chanting at the top of his lungs. He was desperate, frantic. Mark said, "He shouted all the more, Son of
David, have mercy on me."
The people around him surely tried to
shush him—“Bartimaeus, you are making a
scene.” Others chided him or insulted him—“Shut up, beggar!”
If you want to get something
from God; you’ve got to learn how to overcome!
You’ve got to learn how to turn a deaf ear… You can’t get stuck at the
bar of public opinion. Bartimaeus was not going to let a bunch of negative,
critical, heckling bystanders rob him of his dream of sight.
Bartimaeus was pitifully aware of his
condition. Have Mercy on Me! He knew he was blind and in
perpetual darkness. Unlike so many who are in spiritual darkness today, he knew
what his problem was. He also knew how
little value these people around him put on His life. They did not think him worthy of Jesus’ time.
But Jesus took the time on this journey to meet Bartimaeus.
“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be
comforted” (Matthew 5:4). When people truly
understand the darkness of their souls apart from God, they are compelled to
turn to Him in whom they find healing and ultimate comfort. Blind Bartimaeus’ pitiful cry, “Have mercy on me!” came from a profound clarity of self-understanding and it brought
grace. Christ rejoices to meet such clear self-understanding as this.
The darkness of blindness can be
equated to the darkness of our souls apart from God. Bartimaeus’ blindness felt like one dark
prison, he was trapped, and could not, no matter how hard he tried, escape from
this trap. He needed Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of David, to do this. Only the
Messiah could heal his blindness and release him from its dark prison and he
knew it. hence his loud plea.
What sort of blindness; what kind of
dark prisons trap us? What blindness do we need Jesus to heal us of? Our plea,
our prayer, our deepest desire, our words of request to Jesus may be the same
as Bartimaeus’ as we come to the altar for healing
The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the LORD will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Isaiah 60:19
