I. The Road Up to Jerusalem 00:01
…Holy, holy, we want to see you this morning. Open the eyes of our heart, heal our blindness, and help us to see you clearly. In Jesus’ name, amen.
So today we’re at a turning point in our Gospel story. If you’ve been following along the past few weeks, we’ve watched Jesus march from the fringes to the center. We’ve seen Jesus moving from the outskirts to Jerusalem, and we know, because we’ve read the story before, that at Jerusalem he dies. He is crucified, brutally murdered, and rejected by the religious rulers. In the midst of this context, Jesus has these interactions on his way up to Jerusalem. Jericho’s like 20 miles from Jerusalem. They’re walking on dirt roads, and it’s 3,500 feet of elevation that they have to cover in that time. So it’s not an easy time. It really is like going up the mountain, this beautiful picture that we’re given of how we can ascend with God into greater and greater glory.
And Jesus is on this journey, and his followers are pretty sure that means they get to rule the world at the end of this. They think it’s a royal procession, up from the outskirts to Jerusalem. They see the calendar; they see Passover’s coming. “What a wonderful time for Jesus to be crowned King of the Jews: on the Passover, when God liberated us from Egypt.” They’re starting to put things together in their mind. They have this image of their conquering Messiah. Then, in Mark 10:32, right in the middle of this walk, Jesus says this:
32 And they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, Mark 10.32
What does he tell them? “I’m about to be betrayed, beaten, and killed. That’s this road. That’s where we’re going.” But the important part I want to highlight here is that it says, “And Jesus was walking ahead of them.” That’s not anywhere else in the Gospel. There is a sense in Jesus that he is urgently running towards what God has for him. There’s this momentum that’s building over the course of this, and they can feel it. That’s what it says: they were amazed and they were afraid. They’re thinking revolution: “Oh, we’re going somewhere now.” And that’s the momentum that brings us to this story. You have to keep that in mind, otherwise some of the pieces of the story might not make sense.
II. Bartimaeus, the Son of Timaeus 02:40
So we’re going to dive in today, and we’re going to look at this. The disciples have this idea. Remember last week? Jesus says, “I’m going to die. I’m going to be beaten and betrayed.” And then they go, “Can I rule and reign in the really high position? I’ll be first in line after you, and I’ll be second in line after you” (Mark 10.35–37). They’re still jockeying for position, for political power. They really don’t get it. And then we come along to this story in Mark 10. We begin in verse 46:
46 And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. Mark 10.46
A couple of things. First of all, there’s a great crowd gathering. The word has gone out: Jesus is going to Jerusalem. And people know the tension. They know that the religious leaders hate him, and a lot of them believe, because of his miracles and the things he said, that he is the conquering Messiah. So he’s gathering this force around him as he goes along. And then this random individual, a blind beggar outside of Jericho, accosts him.
Now, why is it that we know Bartimaeus’ name? It might surprise you, but in the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, none of the people that Jesus healed are named. Not a single one of them. And you think, “Well, what about Jairus?” Well, it wasn’t Jairus who was healed; it was his daughter. “Or what about this person?” Well, it’s their servant. All of these people who get healed are nameless in this. They’re just examples of God’s goodness towards his people. But Bartimaeus gets a call-out. And furthermore, “the son of Timaeus.” It’s probably… we believe Bartimaeus became one of the guys at Mark’s church, that he was pointing to and saying, “Look, that guy was healed in this way.” It’d be like if I were up here saying, “Remember when Nathan Powell was healed of blindness?” or James Madison. You know him, but you also know his father, Timaeus. These are people in the church: “Go ask them about this. This is a real thing that has happened.” We so often think of the Bible as removed from the community in which it developed, but Mark is telling this story to a church just like you guys, trying to understand who Jesus was and how that impacts their life. And so he’s pointing, he’s calling out Bartimaeus: “This is how it happened.” So we see that, and that’s a really interesting point in this story. It was a testimony of their people, of their church.
III. Son of David, Have Mercy on Me 04:51
And then you look at this in verse 47:
47 And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Mark 10.47
This is another first for Mark. Nobody else in Mark’s Gospel calls Jesus the Son of David. Now, we know that this was something that had been in Jewish thought, as they developed their thoughts on the Messiah, the person who had come and saved them. You’ve got to think of Judaism as a really fascinating religion, because it’s always looking ahead to its salvation, to this one figure. And over the centuries all these writings had come up where they were analyzing the prophecies and trying to figure out, “Who is this going to be?” And so one of the titles that would have been used in that would have been the Son of David, because we see God promised David an eternal kingdom, and they’re looking around at their place going, “This doesn’t feel like it. There’s got to be some change somewhere.”
I think sometimes in Christianity, because we know Jesus has come, we know that Jesus has won the battle, we can forget that our religion came out of that Judaic hope of eternal salvation. And we can get so fixated on the here and the now: “If Jesus rules and reigns, why is it hard now?” Well, let’s remember our roots. This is always God taking his people to a place. He encounters us where we’re at. He gives us the kingdom now, and he invites us to hope for the kingdom to come. It’s a religion and a thought process that is always hoping, always believing.
And so we look at this, and we see this blind beggar recognizing Jesus as the Son of David when nobody else has. It’s such an awesome contrast. And this happened. This is a story of a person. And he, in his blindness, on the outskirts of the town, recognizes the reality of his Savior when his Savior comes along. It’s a great moment. And then his response: “Have mercy on me.” It’s such a position of humility. And you look at the religious leaders who want to kill Jesus. It’s such a contrast. It’s like: stop judging everyone around you by the standards of the world, whether they’re good-looking, healthy, capable in the ways that you think, whether they have a lot of money and power and success. It’s like, no. “Open the eyes of my heart.” That’s what matters in this world: whether you can see Jesus, whether you can look to him for your provision, your salvation, mercy. That’s really the central point of what it means to follow him.
IV. The Crowd on Mission 07:58
So how does the crowd respond to this blind beggar? Probably like every one of us would have. Think about this momentum, the crowd: “We’re going to Jerusalem to crown Jesus king. You don’t understand the power this guy has. This is the Messiah. He’s raising people from the dead. He’s healing people. He’s going to go in and conquer the world. We’re on a mission.” And so how does the crowd respond? Verse 48:
48 And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Mark 10.48
So, knowing that the crowd thought this was a royal procession to receive the crown… Jesus is going to receive the crown. And it actually was a royal procession to receive a crown. It just was a crown of thorns, a crown of torture. He was going to be coronated, but he was going to be lifted up on a cross, not a throne. And so they get it, but they missed it just enough to be totally lost in what’s actually going on here. And so they’re like, “We’re going this way. The King doesn’t have time for a blind beggar.” That’s the idea in their head.
And it just challenged me to say: how often are we on mission for Jesus so much so that we forget the person that he’s brought into our path? And it doesn’t always have to be a blind beggar. It could be that coworker who really annoys you and comes into your class and wants to talk to you all the time. Or that other person that comes into your office and says, “Hey, how can I help you? How can I tell you how to do your job better?” Let’s say somebody tries to tell me how to strap down a truck. Guess what? I’ve strapped down a truck a few times. Why don’t you just get away? We get so caught up in our own busyness, our own vision of what we’re doing in our life, that we miss the people in our life. If you’re on Jesus’ mission, his mission is people. He’ll build things. He’ll cause you to go erect great, wonderful cathedrals and build great businesses, or make these wonderful things to serve people. It’s always about the people. So in the midst of the crowd, they lose the idea. They’re on a mission, but they’re not on Jesus’ mission.
So one more thing I’ll mention about this. Bartimaeus comes with such humility: “Have mercy on me, Son of David.” You can imagine: your car breaks down, you’re late for work, you get passed up for promotion, your check to pay your medical bill bounces, you’re starting to get a cold. And in that moment you’re angry at God: “Why did my car have to break down? Why was I late? Why didn’t I get the promotion that I felt I deserved? Why don’t I have the money to pay this bill?” These are things that we could easily respond to with anger. And imagine someone born blind. He didn’t do anything to deserve that. Everyone in his whole world that he encounters is more privileged than he is, has more power than he does, to use modern language to talk about it. And yet his disposition is one of humility: “God, have mercy on me.”
When you’re facing those frustrating, completely understandable, frustrating things in your life, do you go to God for mercy? Or do you come to God with your list of complaints? Or, I would argue, even worse, do you just go about weary and defeated, like, “I just can’t do this,” and you don’t even think of turning to God? These are the things that can build in our life when we’re encountering the suffering of the world. And Bartimaeus is our guide this morning, because he’s the one who looks to Jesus, calls out for mercy, and in the end (I’m going to spoil it) he follows him. That’s what we’re supposed to do.
V. Jesus Stood Still 12:22
So in the midst of all this, he’s yelling, and the crowd’s like, “Shut up. He doesn’t want to talk to you.” In the midst of that, in verse 49, we get this great line:
49 And Jesus stopped Mark 10.49
I’m going to stop there. “And Jesus stopped,” or, in our translation today, it said, “And Jesus stood still.” In the midst of his urgency for his mission (remember, he’s outpacing the disciples; he is heading to Jerusalem; he is ready to go), in the midst of that, he stands still.
We’re a busy people. Let me just say that. I don’t think that’s a surprise to any of you. You’ve probably heard this, but let me just list some of the things that you’re told to do, and every one of you has been told to do at least ten of these things at some point or another. You’ve got to hustle to get ahead at work. You’ve got to pick up a side gig. You’ve got to eat healthier; you should probably meal prep. You’ve got to work out five days a week. You’ve got to read the Bible every day, pray every day, spend more time with your spouse, more time with your kids, more time with your family. Take some time to be alone, take some time for you. You’ve got to go to more concerts and events, because you only live once, you can only do this right now, and life is passing you by. You’ve got to check out that new restaurant. You’ve got to shop at that new thrift store. You’ve got to visit that hiking trail. You’ve got to start a podcast; you’ve got to get your voice out there. You’ve got to join the booster club at your kids’ school. You’ve got to go to home group. You’ve got to buy this thing, you’ve got to buy that thing, you’ve got to download this app. You’ve got to organize your life, get more sleep, wake up earlier, do more. Just do more. That’s the world to us all the time, all the time. And we feel it, even if you don’t know it. Every time you see one of those videos, you feel it, and you have to guard against it. You can’t just passively walk through this world and be unaffected. In fact, the only people who are passive are those who felt the weight so much that they give up. I’ve been there. I can’t tell you the last time I worked out. I remember it hurt. But these things: you’ve got to do them. They’re so important. You’ve got to do all the things.
I’m here today to tell you: actually, sometimes you just need to stand still. You’ve got to remember, no matter what mission you’re on (I mean, Jesus is on the greatest mission of all time, the one that saved the world), and yet he stood still for that one man, the blind beggar who called out for mercy. I will say, in the midst of your life there are two things that can make you blind, like Bartimaeus, but spiritually: sin and busyness. Sin, obviously, because you get so self-focused in sin; it becomes about you. And busyness, because Jesus ceases to be first in your life. All these other things slowly eat away at Jesus being first.
And I’m not saying any of these things aren’t important. I am saying that Jesus is more important, and being able to stand still and see what’s around you is more important. Stop and see the one in front of you, the person God has called you to love right now. That’s what the Christian walk is about. Yes, it’s about so many things, but if it’s not about loving the people in front of you, then it’s about nothing. If you miss that piece, you’ve lost it all. That’s what Paul says: if I have all these things but have not love, I’m just a clanging cymbal (1 Cor 13.1–3). Your Christian walk is actually not about you. By the way, if you listen to that list, almost all of those are about you making your life better, even the ones that pretend to be about loving other people. “You’ve got to spend more time with your wife and your kids.” Why? So that you can be happier. The way that these things are phrased is so bonkers to me. Ultimately, the Christian walk is about the other. It’s about those people around you, because that’s what Jesus did when he came here. He didn’t spend his ministry saying, “Me, me, me, me, me.” He spent his ministry saying, “I’m going to love even those who you will not love. I’m going to serve even those who you would not serve.”
VI. Take Heart; Get Up; He Is Calling You 16:28
And so Jesus stopped. Let’s just read the rest of this verse:
49 And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” Mark 10.49
That’s maybe one of my favorite phrases in all of Scripture. You’ve got to have that on your alarm clock, so that at 4 in the morning, when you’re getting up to go to work, you look at that and it says, “Get up. Take heart. He is calling you.” It’s true. Every day Jesus is calling each of you: out of your blindness into light, out of your brokenness into wholeness, out of yourself and into love, out of your selfish ambition, out of your own concerns, into love and trust. I really am going to put that on my nightstand, by the way. I won’t be able to read it, because I can’t wake up the baby, but I’ll see it’s there, and I’ll remember. You can’t turn the lights on, but just remind yourself.
Another translation says, “Be of good cheer.” We often are wonderful at being martyrs. You wake up and you feel it, and you’re like, “Ugh, I’m going to go and sacrifice my comfort for the sake of my family.” And then you’re miserable all day, and you feel good about being miserable. You get to the end of the day: “Man, it was such a hard day. Oh, it was so terrible. Nobody else could do it like I could do it.” You get this thing in your head where your misery is actually fueling your service. It’s meant to be the other way around. Be of good cheer. Jesus is calling you to this. We are meant to be a joyful people. If you go to a church and everybody’s miserable, they’ve got it wrong. There are moments for lamentation. There are moments for great distress, absolutely. But God came that you might have life, and life abundant (John 10.10).
VII. Throwing Off His Cloak 18:34
Okay. Jesus stops. They say, “Get up. He’s calling you.” And I love this, verse 50:
50 And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Mark 10.50
Once again, these are things that you don’t see elsewhere in Scripture, that phrase: “he sprang up.” There’s a joy here. It reminds you of when Jesus heals the lame man and he gets up and dances, because he’s praising the Lord. And he [Bartimaeus] hasn’t even been healed yet. This is pre-miracle. He’s that excited. That’s faith: when you get up with good cheer, you take heart, and you are dancing before you even receive the blessing. He’s ready to go. You can feel that excitement.
It’s just so hard to imagine what it would be like to be blind, but to be blind in ancient Palestine, where the only reason you’re alive is because in the law of Moses it says you’re supposed to feed those people, those outsiders. You shouldn’t let them die. But he’s not in a home. He’s not with his family. He’s not reading; Braille wasn’t even invented. He doesn’t know what’s going on in the world except that people are feeding him, and what he hears. His life is not easy. And he comes up with this faith in the midst of that, and he throws off his cloak.
Well, what does that represent? Throw off the old man. Throw off the weight of sin which clings so closely (Heb 12.1), and come to Jesus, so that he can clothe you in righteousness. It’s such a contrast with the rich young ruler. You remember that story? The guy who had it all and who did it all. He did the whole law and he had all the things, and Jesus said, “You’re lacking one thing. Just sell it all, give it to the poor, and follow me.” And he went away sad, because he had many riches (Mark 10.17–22). Instead we see the blind beggar, who has nothing except the dirty old cloak. He throws it on the ground, and he comes with nothing to Jesus.
And the contrast is supposed to be very important when you think about who Jesus calls. Because by the disciples’ estimation, they really missed out when they didn’t get the rich young ruler on their side: “He’s a mover and a shaker. He’s got stuff. He has influence. If he was on our side, how much better would our takeover be? And you’re calling this blind beggar to join our team? Well, at least he probably won’t supersede me in the kingdom.” Maybe they’re comforting themselves: “Blind beggar’s not going to be much.” And yet Jesus keeps telling them, actually, it’s the least in the kingdom who supersede even John the Baptist, the greatest of all the prophets (Matt 11.11). That’s incredible.
And yet we read “blind Bartimaeus” like, “Yeah, that’s what Jesus does. He just goes around healing people.” No, there’s so much more to the story. It’s our story. Every one of us can fall into the trap of thinking we’re the rich young ruler: “We’ve done everything right, and we have all the things we need.” No. We’re all the blind beggar. Nothing you’ve done counts. It’s only what he does. Like Paul says, all of my good works (and he was the Pharisee of Pharisees) are as filthy rags. Kind of like that cloak the beggar just threw off and ran to Jesus with. He wasn’t worried about justifying his own existence. He just wanted mercy. He just wanted Jesus.
VIII. What Do You Want Me to Do for You? 21:47
And we see that, because of what happens next, in verse 51:
51 And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” Mark 10.51
Which is always the funniest of all questions. This guy is blind. He comes up to you. Obviously he wants to see. But you know what? It’s another test. Does he have faith to ask for his sight? Because what if he just said, “Jesus, have mercy on me. I’m hungry. Tell some of these people around you to give me food”? It would have been a miracle of provision, but it wouldn’t have been the miracle God wanted for him. It wouldn’t have been everything he yearned for and desired. But instead, so unlike disingenuous… or he’s ingenuous, however that works. Either way, he just says what he wants:
51 And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.” Mark 10.51
I’m going to emphasize here: the word Rabbi here is a superlative. It’s a superlative where he’s saying “the most high teacher,” and you shouldn’t say that about anybody but God. Only God is the most high teacher. And Jesus in the past has challenged people: “Only God is good.” And you look at this, and the blind beggar not only calls him the Son of David, he calls him the most high teacher. He’s literally proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, before anybody else is doing it. And in that moment he says, “Let me recover my sight.”
What I want to point out is that in his prayer is the faith that Jesus talks about, that makes him well. I think sometimes our prayers are a little backwards: “Jesus, if it be your will, could you please maybe do this thing for me?” while hedging our bets: “He probably won’t.” Instead, let’s say, “Jesus, Son of God, you promised that anything we ask will be given to us, that our Father has all power, all riches; every good thing comes from above. Would you do this for me? This is what I want.” God wants to relate to you that way, because that’s real, and he can work with real. Open up your desires to God. See him for the powerful, amazing God that he is, and ask him for what is deep in your heart, because he wants you to have all goodness. Now, maybe what you’re asking for isn’t what he wants. But until you ask, you will never learn that. You’ll never be redirected.
IX. Your Faith Has Made You Well 25:00
I’m not going to spend a ton of time talking about prayer. My catechism people know that we took like an hour to talk through this subject. But think about it. Yes, there are prayers that we pray where it doesn’t look like God answers them right now. Don’t stop praying. What does the blind beggar do? He starts asking for mercy. Everybody says, “Shut up. He’s too busy to talk to you.” He still asks for mercy, until Jesus stops. I imagine that Jesus walks past him, and he’s yelling at him, and Jesus just keeps walking. And then finally he keeps going, after the crowd says, “Look, obviously he doesn’t want to talk to you.” Then he calls again, and Jesus stops, and the whole of his life changes because he asked again. Either way, I really like Bartimaeus. Copy him. He really sees the goodness of God in a way that other people don’t seem to see, and he’s willing to ask again and again, in spite of everything. And in the end, he receives his sight. Verse 52:
52 And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way. Mark 10.52
And guess what? He ends up in Mark’s church, or somewhere; we don’t really know. But he ends up being somebody you know, because he asked again, because he had faith, because even though he was blind, he saw Jesus. And so that’s why that song was so awesome this morning: “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord.” We are all the blind beggars who come to Jesus with nothing, asking him to let us see. That’s the start. Amen.