Bartimaeus: Former Blindman

After visiting Jericho, on one occasion, Jesus left with his disciples and a large crowd. At one point they passed a beggar, a blind beggar in particular, who was sitting by the side of the road. He must have heard the commotion and overheard that it was the Jesus from Nazareth that had lately become famous for his teaching and healing. The curious thing is, we know his name: Bar-Timaeus, the son of Timaeus, whoever that was. (Mark 10: 46—52). (I’ll return to that later. Just keep in mind that normally blind beggars remain in the background, as just statistics in the healings of thousands. Ponder this: Why do we know his name?)

What does Bartimaeus do? He begins to shout: “Son of David, have mercy (pity) on me.” The crowd tries to shush him up, but he only shouts louder, “Son of David, have pity on me.” And Jesus hears him. “Call him here,” he responds. He wants a word with this detractor. Suddenly the crowd changes its tune. “Courage. Cheer up,” they say where moments earlier they’d tried to silence him. How like a crowd: From “shut up to cheer up” in 30 seconds, the crowd switches its chant. I’m sure that Jesus wasn’t impressed. Jesus wasn’t moved or convinced by a majority opinion: he focused on the blind man. Of all the things I’m sure he found disgusting, “popular opinion” was at the top of his list: it was as stable as a sandcastle against a tsunami. One could never count on a crowd. It could switch its chant in a heartbeat. Later a crowd would switch from a Sunday’s ‘Hosanna’ to a Friday’s ‘Crucify,’ without so much as batting an eye or shedding a tear. From cheering to jeering in five short days. No, you couldn’t count on a crowd.

Fortunately Bartimaeus wasn’t swayed by popular opinion. He only shouted louder. When Jesus calls him he responds. Actively. “So throwing off his cloak, he jumped up and went to Jesus” (Mark 10:50) Bartimaeus seizes his opportunity. It had to be now. He jumps and throws; he springs up and flings away: it was his last chance for the rumor of Jesus’s power had reached his ears.

“What do you want?” Jesus asks. Stop. Wait a minute. Umm, ah, Jesus, isn’t it obvious. That vacant gaze isn’t because he’s been getting stoned. Check out his eye-sockets. Those sickly-pale, festering marbles he’s got staring off into oblivion ain’t your ordinary pearly whites. The dude’s blind. He can’t see. What do you think he wants?

Well, I really think Jesus knew that. I really do. He already knew what a blind man would want, but he asks anyway. Why? Because it’s part of the deal. God likes to be asked. He wants a relationship with us. He’s not a fix-it man. He’s a Father, and Jesus is our Brother. The Lord of Life wants us to ask.

When we voice our wants we reveal our desires, and they indicate the orientation of our core values, our center. “I want to see!” Sight instead of blindness, Light instead of Darkness: now that’s not a bad thing. “I want to see you Lord. If only for a moment so that like Simeon I can proclaim before I die: “For my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the sight of all people.” (Luke 2: 30,31). Sight is central for with it we can walk in the Light. John Newton wrote: “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”
So Bartimaeus got what he asked for, and Jesus called it faith.

Now why do we know his name? I think it is because he responded in faith: He sprang up and flung his cloak away. He left his old self behind and, after receiving his sight, he followed Jesus along the road. The last thing we know about Bartimaeus is that he was following Jesus. And probably was still a member of that fledgling church in Palestine so that he could tell the gospel writer: that was me: Bart. I was blind, and now I see.

Bartimaeus was known by the early Christian community not because there was something particularly memorable about a statistic: another blindman gets healed. No, he was known because “he followed Jesus.” He followed after: Nachfolge. The German word for disciple is literally “he who follows after.” Bartimaeus is remembered because at that moment he became Jesus’s disciple. He belonged to the Lord of Life, the Light of the World, forever.