Mark 10:46-52 • Blind Belief
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Transcript
(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
I love being with you and I know we love being in this place on a Palm Sunday where there is the great remembering of the children who sang Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed be the son of David. Now that was the great chorus, but it had a prelude.
That was the end of the journey. The journey has a beginning. And we're going to look at that beginning as we consider Mark 10 verses 46 through 52 when someone else, a most unlikely person, starts the hosannas by saying, blessed be the son of David. Let's stand and read the account of blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10 verses 46 and following.
And they came to Jericho. And as he, that is Jesus, was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside 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. And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.
But he cried out all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and said, Call him. And they called the blind man, saying to him, Take heart, get up, he's calling to you. And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him. What do you want me to do for you? And the blind man said to him, Rabbi, let me recover my sight.
And Jesus said to him, go your way, your faith has made you well. And he immediately recovered his sight and followed him on the way. Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, thank you for telling us of how sight is not always through the eyes, that you grant spiritual vision, sometimes in the most unlikely places and to the most unlikely persons, so that we who wonder, should we see? Is it right that we be allowed to see? We'd recognize that part of your great grace is putting spiritual vision into action.
In the eyes of the most unlikely people, grant us that we might be led on the way of Christ this day by a blind man whose name is Bartimaeus and whose message is mercy. Grant it we pray in Jesus name, Amen. Please be seated.
Gary Smith in a book on great baseball writing. It gives an unlikely account of the daughter of the owner of a minor league ball stadium. And the story goes this way. The young girl was named Rebecca. Her father owns a minor league ballpark and Rebecca is slowly going blind. The black holes in the center of her vision grow larger and begin to devour the periphery of her eyesight as well.
The TV monitor that magnifies her school text ten times their size is no longer enough. The diagnosis of retinitis pigmentosa is certain, as sad as is her future. One day, her resilient spirit is exhausted. She storms upstairs, she slams the door, looks at the ceiling and screams, Why are you doing this to me?
She collapses onto her bed and tries to comfort herself by thinking of children who have it worse than she. All the kids who've had limbs blown off in Iraq. But somehow that doesn't help. It doesn't work. She feels no better. So she gets up and cranks up the music on her iPod and dances and sings and weeps.
Facts are facts. The days will only grow cloudier. Santa Claus will not walk through her bedroom door and pull up the blinds. So she cues another recording on her player and listens away the rest of the day, knowing And that blind men, like Ray Charles, her favorite singer, have seen something beyond and have somehow dragged the whole world with them into the extraordinary world of the unseen.
The eclipse of her sight, even before it began, was announced by a little girl in a dream to her. The little girl who looked like her but wasn't quite her came up to her in the dream and touched her eyes and said, I'm sorry, but you have a path to take.
It is the reminder that our limitations and deprivations and suffering can sometimes be the path. By which we see extraordinary things beyond the ordinary world that causes others to despair, that causes others to believe that there is only darkness, that somehow you can grant, by the Spirit, vision into an unseen world.
For Christians, it's not a mystery, though sometimes we long for that vision. For we recognize it's often in the darkness when the shadows are the longest and the deepest, that the things of God are the most dear and near and clear. It is after all through the testimony of blind Bartimaeus that we learn something about the extraordinary life of faith that God reveals even beyond sight.
After all, this blind Bartimaeus that we're introduced to is introducing us to an extraordinary sight that he shares. We know what should fill his perceptions. It's verse 46, the crowd and disciples come to Jericho and as Jesus is leaving Jericho with his disciples, a great crowd is with him and Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus was sitting by the roadside.
He should be full of a feeling of his poverty. He is a blind beggar. He has little or nothing. He depends on the mercy of others. It's not just that he lives in poverty, but in loss. The writer tells us carefully, he is the son of Timaeus. As though the readers of that era, and we perhaps should recognize that's somebody of significance.
His father was important. People would recognize him. But here is The son of Timaeus, and he's nothing. He sits by the roadside begging for the goodwill of others. And he's not just insignificant, he apparently is just alone. It's the crowd that gathers around Jesus. But he's just sitting on the outskirts of Jericho.
And he doesn't even greet Jesus as Jesus comes in. It's as Jesus is going out, like the job is done, like the celebration is over. That Bartimaeus is there. It's hopeless. In so many ways, it is only hopeless, and yet, despite what he should fill his perceptions, have fill his perceptions, what he does see is something extraordinary.
It's revealed to us in verse 47, when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, saying, Jesus, son of David, did you catch it? He heard that the man, Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter's son, is in Jericho, but he says, Jesus, son of David, declaring to everyone, He is the long prophesied Messiah.
David was promised, through his seed, an eternal and universal kingdom. There would be a king who would come to rule over all. And, and Bartimaeus, somehow in his blindness, sees who Jesus really is. Why he sees it, we don't know. Is there something about the blindness itself that helps him understand with greater acuity?
This, this is somebody special, more than a man. I think of the account of Fanny Crosby, whose hymns we still sing, the most prolific hymn writer in English history. She wrote over 8, 000 hymns, many of which we still sing, like, To God Be the Glory. But her situation was that she was blind from a few days after birth.
And when people would question her even far into her adulthood saying was, was God fair? Is this good? Is this, is this God being kind to you? Her response was, the Lord could have done nothing better for me because through my blindness he shut me in with himself. As though somehow she believed that by her blindness she saw Christ more clearly and her song said that there was something that resonated in her heart with, with greater depth and understanding that the sighted people of that era or era since have seen that, that somehow the deprivation made the beauty and the treasure and the goodness of Christ all the more clear and precious to her.
And here is Bartimaeus who has all the deprivation and yet says, but Christ is here. The Lord, the one we've been waiting for, he is here, and beyond that, he has a gift to give. Remember? Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. Two things are immediately happening when, when Bartimaeus says those words. He is declaring his need.
I need somebody to help me. I need somebody's mercy. And right at the same moment with it, he is saying, and Jesus has the supply. I have a need. He's got the supply. And as obvious as that may be, it is always the beginning of the extraordinary life of faith. That, that we begin to see beyond the ordinary deep into our hearts to recognize there is spiritual deprivation there.
We, we are deeply in need and it's a need that we can't fix. Christ has to be the supply. I hope you recognize that, that, that what happens when we see so many wonderful people coming up declaring their testimony is they are not declaring simply that they have arrived. They are declaring to, to friend and family and to world.
We had a need that Christ alone could supply. Sin and shame we recognize would characterize us. We know our hearts and so we declare to the world our need is met by Jesus Christ. It is always the beginning of the walk of faith, the journey that Christ would put us on. Many of you will know the name John Stott, one of the most amazing Christian leaders of the last century.
Even now, when I travel to different parts of the world, particularly when I go to Africa, I will meet hundreds, no, I will meet thousands of people who have been touched by the ministry of John Stott. But, but how did he begin that journey of being used so greatly of God? He expresses what happened in his own conversion.
He says, I was defeated. I knew the kind of person I was and the kind of person I longed to be. Between the reality and the ideal, there was this great gulf. And what brought me to Christ was this sense of defeat, combined with the astonishing news that the historic Christ, the Son of David, offered to meet the very needs of which I was conscious.
I had a need and Christ is able to meet it. He is, he's the son of God. Come to rescue. He will take my sins upon the cross. He will put his righteousness in my unrighteousness place. He is the one who will make it right. And I need that deeply. It didn't solve everything. Enough of you will know the life of John Stott to know he struggled with, with loneliness.
He was single all of his life. He struggled with criticism. He didn't say everything right. He struggled at times just to wonder had he preached well enough because he became responsible for so many. He always felt like the responsibility was going to crush him. And yet what happened is that need stayed so present in his awareness was Christ stayed so special in his heart.
My need is still here. My Savior is still here. And that reality of being able to recognize when God comes near, he is willing to meet our needs is the great blessing of the gospel. It's what we will celebrate this week and what we will celebrate next week is saying to people, we don't have it all straight.
We don't have it all fixed up. I hope you recognize if you don't think you are qualified to be here, it's the very reason you ought to be here. If you think you're qualified, please go home. The people who should be here are the ones who say I have a need that Jesus can supply. If I don't have that need, then you don't need to be here.
We all stand before one another, we sing, we say, This is the mercy of God in my behalf because I desperately need mercy. And if, if God blesses us with people who will be here next weekend on Easter Sunday, hopefully there will be people who don't come and say, I can't be like these people because our constant refrain and testimony will be, we shouldn't be here either.
Our need is too great, but our Savior is greater. And that, that extraordinary vision to see beyond what people expect to see, just the ones who've got it all put together, people who've got it all straight, but to recognize the people who are here. Are those who desperately need to be here because their need will only be supplied by Jesus Christ.
And they have seen that. If you see that, then something begins to happen in you. That's part of the extraordinary life of faith. Not just that you have this vision beyond the ordinary to need being supplied by a supernatural God, but you begin to recognize the God came Jesus, son of David, you're here. He came for us.
And what Barnimaeus knows is, if he has a great need, but Christ is near, then he is extremely secure. You know what that means? Not only can he have an extraordinary vision, he can take extraordinary risks. The risks are apparent in what happens in verse 47, though it may elude you. In verse 47, when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, just the ordinary man, He began to cry out and say, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.
What happened next? People began to rebuke him. Don't say that. So what does he say again? Son of David, have mercy on me. He's doing more than exposing his need. He is putting himself at great risk. Remember, this is the week before Easter. He's Good Friday is going to happen in here. There are people who are waiting in Jerusalem to kill because Jesus, they think, claims to be the son of David.
For Bartimaeus, to claim that Jesus is the son of David and not be shushed is to put the whole town, the whole crowd, at risk. And yet he puts himself at risk, even for those whose goodwill he depends upon. Amen. Amen. In order to proclaim Jesus the Son of David. Where's the risk? Maybe it's obvious to you, but it's in two obvious things to a Jew that you may not see anymore.
The risk that's exposed that Bartimaeus is willing to take is evident in the shush and the cloak.
Bartimaeus, be quiet! No. I will speak. Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. The only The most perilous experience I can think of in my life is, is being in western Kenya and in deep jungles and we were three hours by dirt road beyond the last rail station establishing a school for pastors in western Kenya and northern Nigeria.
Remember northern Nigeria right now is where Boko Haram is exhibiting such terror. And we were establishing a school for preachers in that area in a time, even then, that it was quite dangerous. So the vice president of Kenya, as we were establishing that school, decided on the day of dedication that he would come.
And I can remember that we were excited, that sense of, of terror that begins to happen as before, five minutes before the vice president arrives, suddenly the troop trucks begin to rumble through the jungle. And soldiers unload with automatic weapons ready to go. And once they have secured the perimeter, then we hear through the jungle, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
As the vice president's helicopter is coming. And finally, when he lands and all the automatic weapons are there, you think this is nice, but it is really scary. And then the vice president begins to give his speech, and as he was beginning to give his speech, there was a deranged young man who was in the crowd who would not be silent.
The crowd says, shush! He would not shush until finally the troops with the butts of their guns beat him into the jungle to make him go away. He had nothing. And for Bartimaeus to keep talking when he depends upon the goodwill of people to give him whatever few coins or bread crust that he needs to survive, when he's willing to keep declaring Jesus the Son of God, you recognize he is willing to risk everything.
Maybe more so when you recognize what happened a bit later. Do you remember when the crowd says, hey, Jesus says you can come, verse 50, and throwing off his cloak, he sprang up to come to Jesus. He throws off his cloak. Now, again, we just read right past it, but for a beggar on the road, his, his cloak is, is coat and cover and bed and shelter.
It is his everything. He survives by having a cloak that keeps him both warm and sheltered. And he throws it off to say, I gotta see Jesus now. I, I don't know the degree of risk that is, I do recognize when you've got almost nothing to give that away is to give your everything. And he does it, he puts himself at this great risk because it's Jesus, because it's the son of David, because he's near, and he's reminding us, if God himself has come, if, if he is here, then we cannot be more secure.
That's, that's what allows us to take such great risk is because we actually believe that the God who knows our need and is supplied for it is here with us. When you know that, even when you're blind, you can take great risk. Gary Smith's story of the young Rebecca continues. The one place she can see, the one place where Rebecca knows every stairway and door well so well that it's as if she were not blind.
is her father's ballpark. When the river dogs are at home, she sells programs. She keeps the kids smiling while they wait in line by playing with them. She escorts Charlie, the river dog mascot, who can barely see through his costumes headpiece onto the field. It really is the blind leading the blind. She loves being the last human being who still yells charge when she hears the tape recorded bugle.
My real job, she says, is to keep everyone in the ballpark happy, to keep everyone alive, especially when my dad is away. He tells me I am his secret eyes. When he's not here, I got stuff to do. Big stuff. That's why on Big Splash Day, she climbs onto a platform over a water tank, baiting bystanders to pay a buck to get three shots at a bullseye.
And then she taunts them more. Ah, you throw like a girl. What's the matter with you? You blind?
And her father, looking on, says, he never sees her more alive. Why? Because in his ballpark, she is secure. She sees beyond the ordinary. She, she knows she is taken care of and she can live life to the fullest. It's what we as believers understand that because God has come near to those who are in such great need, we know we are secure.
And so we can, we can risk for the sake of the Lord. I, I think of the beauty of this message this week where we have just had the missions conference and we recognize there are missionaries, 85 percent of them, out of this congregation, out of this congregation, people who have made decisions to, to move away from home and family and security and to say, we're in our father's world and, and we know we are held and because we know that we are willing to risk for Him.
I, I think of the, the parents who are willing to take amazing steps to adopt children who are deeply in need because they are saying, why wouldn't we risk when we know we are secure for the sake of others who are in need? I, I, I think of the, the educators and, and the business people in our ranks who are willing to declare that their ethics and their compassion and their integrity and their business practices result from believing in Christ Jesus.
That, that they have a vision beyond the ordinary, that they believe that the God of the universe is with them and holding them and helping them. So that even when they may be bypassed for promotions, or, or, or may put their selves at risk by saying, I have to do things that honor God, they do it. They live the extraordinary life of risk saying, my God is here, I live for Him, and I do it because I believe that the one who came for my need is my God, my Savior, and He's I live in his world, why wouldn't I risk for him?
And the willingness to live that extraordinary life comes because we recognize who Christ is and what he has done for us. It's actually putting us on an extraordinary path. A path such as the world almost cannot imagine. When I know that, that my need and my confession of Christ makes me secure so that I can take risk for Him, I begin to have hope where the world has no hope.
I begin to see things the world cannot possibly see. My vision is expanded beyond what the world has the possibility to see. And we understand that just in the way that Jesus and Bartimaeus interact in verse 52. Do you remember what happens? After Bartimaeus has said, Rabbi, let me recover my sight, 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. Now, think of what just happened. Jesus said, you're well, go your way. Which way does he go? Well, he follows Jesus on Jesus way. Well, why would he do that? The hint may be in those words, Rabbi, let me recover my sight.
When Jesus said, what do you want me to do for you? Well, that's kind of obvious. No, what do you want me to do for you? Bartimaeus says, let me recover my sight. He doesn't say, I wish I could have my sight. It's a declaration of permission. Lord. Let me recover. As though he believes Jesus has the power. You give permission.
You have it. It's almost as though, you know, he's the catcher speaking to the pitcher saying, Burn it in here. Let her, let her go. I know you can do this. And because he knows Jesus has that power. Jesus said not only has your faith made you well, But now, Bartimaeus, believing that he has been made well, is willing to follow Jesus wherever he goes.
Where is he going? We know. If you back into the same chapter to verses 33 and 34, Jesus himself will describe it. In Mark 10, verses 33, Jesus is speaking to his own disciples and he says, See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man Will be delivered over to the chief priest and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles and they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him.
If Bartimaeus follows Jesus with new sight, what will he see? Great suffering, great pain, and that's not the end of it. We learn more of the story if you'll turn just a page or two over to chapter 14 as Mark continues to tell us more of what happens in Jesus life. You may remember that there's a final meal and a final kiss where Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss.
And there in the garden as the soldiers come, all the other disciples fade into the darkness. What happens then? Verse 50 of Mark 14, And they all left him and fled. But then this, verse 51 of Mark 14, And a young man followed him with nothing but a linen cloth about his body. And they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and ran away naked.
Isn't that strange? That's strange. I mean, right in this great account of Passion Week, right in this great account of the crowds that then turn to betrayers, right in the great account of the, of the crucifixion and the resurrection, is this little account that there was a young man, with no cloak, who's still following Jesus, when all the other disciples have disappeared.
And when they tried to seize him, he ran away naked. He has really nothing now. Now, I cannot assure you this is Bartimaeus. It sure sounds like it. Something else sounds like it, too. This description in Mark 14 where it says, verse 51, A young man followed him. That, that phrase, a young man, is very rare in the New Testament.
That, that description, a young man of this Greek term actually occurs only one other time in the whole book of Mark. You want to see it? Go a few more chapters. Go to Mark 16. Mark 16, and now you may recall what has happened. Jesus has been put in a grave. And a stone has been rolled over the grave. And the women are going that next morning to now say, we want to anoint his body so it doesn't stink.
Prepare it for this proper burial. Who is going to roll the stone away?
Verse 4, and looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back. He was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side dressed in a white robe and they were alarmed. Who was sitting on the right side? A what? A young man. Same word. Only other place in the book of Mark.
Now listen, you and I know that most of the time we think of that young man as being the description of an angel dressed in white. But it doesn't say that exactly. I'm not gonna tell you that I have with any certainty knowledge that this is Bartimaeus, but I kind of like to think it might be. Just imagine, a few days before he was blind, and even though he could not see, he says, Jesus is the son of David.
And apparently he's willing to follow after Jesus, where he sees Jesus. The most heinous acts of spiritual betrayal the world has known as the Son of God is betrayed by others. He sees it all. He sees with his new vision absolute horror and destitution of spirit. And then, who knows, is he the one who keeps following Jesus so that he's the first in the tomb.
And when they come, he says, he's not here.
The grave is empty. Wouldn't it be neat if that were Bartimaeus? That he'd seen it all, that he'd really lived that extraordinary life to recognize in the midst of great deprivation and great suffering and great betrayal and great hurt that there was hope. He had a sense of seeing before others could see.
What if he actually saw the greatest hope the world could know and was the first to see it? Wouldn't that be special? I cannot tell you that that's what happened. I can tell you this. There is no question that Bartimaeus, when the rest of the crowd did not see it, said, this is the Son of God. And by that, I recognize that Bartimaeus is being used in the scriptures as a blind man to lead the blind to see Jesus.
In 1658, Peter Bruegel, the elder, painted one of the most amazing paintings of the Renaissance. It was a sad theme. It was a line of blind men, one holding to another, holding to another, holding to another, the way it happened in the ancient world. The painting is so precise in detail that doctors can look at the painting even today and diagnose the different diseases that were causing blindness in the different men.
But more amazing is that Bruegel when he, he paints the painting, paints the parable. Can the blind lead the blind? Where if one falls into a pit, do not the others fall into the pit. The very first ones in the line in that painting of the blind leading the blind are falling into a pit. What, what a terrible thing.
But because they are falling, the line is broken. And because the line is broken, you can see through the line of blind men, and Bruegel has painted beyond the steeple of a church. As if to say, even now the blind, in their brokenness, are revealing their hope. Why are you here? I hope we are not saying to the world, because we've got it all put together, because, because we understand more than other people, because somehow we've got our lives strained.
I hope you recognize that it is in our brokenness, in our confession of our need, that we actually point people to say, please don't think that being like me is your hope. Trusting in Christ beyond me is my hope. I'm, if you follow me, I'm just the blind, gonna lead you into a pit. It's, it's, it's my brokenness, my hurt.
But listen, I've seen something beyond my blindness. And if you will look and see my hope, then it can be your hope too. In that sense, the blind can lead the blind. And it's not just in a painting. Some of you will know the name, James Stuart Bell, Christian writer. His works just have the ability to touch the heart.
And he tells the reason. What pulled him out of drugs and disbelief was the testimony of a high school friend who coming down from an LSD high was somehow ministered to by the Spirit and began to believe that his hope was in Jesus Christ. The friend, the Jesus freak, was not credible to Bell in many ways, but he writes this, in following weeks.
I fell into a dark hole. I questioned my self worth. I felt that life was meaningless, that relationships were shallow. I despaired of kicking drugs and worried about my future. I sat alone in the darkness of 2 a. m. on the library steps of my university. The dose of LSD that I had taken hours before was wearing off.
And I crashed into a deep dark emptiness feeling alone in the cosmos. And then I remembered what my Jesus freak friend had told me that the Holy Spirit had entered him given him vision of the forgiveness that was in Christ Jesus and told him that he could have a new life. Well that was the blind leading the blind.
One drug induced haze going to another drug induced haze. But somehow that, that ordinary being penetrated by an extraordinary work of the Spirit. So that ultimately what happened was that Bell began to believe that God was in fact able to meet his need. He wrote this, I ask Jesus to lift the weight of my sinful, self absorbed life and enter my heart forever.
And you think, well, he wasn't worthy of that. He didn't deserve that. Drugs and disbelief. Why should he be allowed to ask Jesus to help him? Because you're qualified by knowing you're unqualified. Because it's, it's your need that is your declaration of Christ, I've got to have you because nothing else here is working.
Of course we don't have it all straight. How can we have it all straight when we're asking for God to come and straighten it up? And so he's crying out and saying, God, enter my heart. It was, as he said, a fountain of living water rose up from deep inside, pushing out all the junk that had built up within.
Here's what he was saying, I was blind, but now I see. I was deprived, but Christ came and met my need. I acknowledged I needed mercy. And the Messiah, the King of the universe, the Son of David. I want you to have a very special prayer this next week, would you do this? You and I know that people we love will be here next Sunday in large numbers.
And we want to pray something. Lord, through us, through our blindness and brokenness, help them see that salvation is not in who we are, but in who Christ is. Break us and through the brokenness, show the hope. Let them know it's not in us, but in the God we trust. Say to somebody this week, Jesus had mercy on me.
And invite them here. Invite them here. That the blind might lead the blind to the hope that is in Jesus.