"As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Gospel of Mark
Many years ago in 1748, a man by the name of John Newton, son of a shipmaster and captain of the slave ship "Greyhound", was returning home to England when his ship encountered a severe storm. Newton woke in the middle of the night to find his ship filling with water. With great anxiety, he went into prayer for his ailing ship, and he experienced the beginnings of a radical conversion that would change his life. He wrote a song about his experience, a song we all know.
"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see."
John Newton would later become an Anglican priest to serve and draw others to the transforming power of Grace.
Blindness is a condition of not being able to see things properly. We most often associate it with physical blindness; those circumstances where a person's physical sight is impaired so that they cannot see physical objects around them. But blindness can take many forms as in the case of John Newton. Jesus' most harsh criticism to the Pharisees and Scribes was that they were blind guides, leading others to the same pit of destruction as they found themselves in. They were blind as to the ways of God because they were stuck in their own narrow views that restricted their vision of God and His ways.
Most of us are blind in some way, particularly if we restrict God to our own limited concepts based on our own limited experience. God is mystery, a mystery far beyond any concept or image that we are capable of producing. It's only when we are willing to let go of conceptualizing God, to accept God as mystery, far beyond our ability to comprehend, that we begin to understand the grandeur and awesomeness of this mystery.
Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, was physically blind. As a result of his physical blindness, he was a beggar. But this little Gospel story in Matthew indicates that Bartimaeus could see things that even the disciples of Jesus failed to see. "When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say: Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me."
To call Jesus, Son of David, to give him this title, implied that this blind beggar could actually see clearly who Jesus was. The fact that he was persistent in his begging for mercy, even when discouraged by those around him, showed that he had tremendous insight as to the ways of God that exceeded those around him. He knew that the solution to his dilemma could be found in the person of Jesus.
Do we know as well that the solution to our own struggle, particularly as it relates to blindness, can be found in the person of Jesus? And I don't mean that Jesus will free us from all the struggles that we may experience in life, but He is there to see us through them. He is there to share in our struggle, whatever that may be.
Bartimaeus' sight was restored. His appeal for help revealed his deep faith. It is Bartimaeus' profound trust in Jesus that Mark wants to elicit from us who read this particular Gospel account.
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