As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the roadside begging. On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.” He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.’ Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way. (Mark 10.46-52)
By this point in our study of the Gospel of Mark, we know his narrative is carefully scripted. Rarely is anything out of place and almost always Mark’s plan gradually unfolds like a beautiful bloom opening under the scrutiny of the sun. We can safely assume, therefore, that the story of Bartimaeus is carefully constructed and placed precisely where the evangelist wants it to be, allowing it in this way to further accentuate the purpose of the book as a whole.
It benefits us to note a few unique things about the story. First, it is the last healing story in the Gospel of Mark. That part of Jesus’ ministry is done with the healing of the blind man as he makes the final leg of his journey to Jerusalem, the town of Jericho fifteen miles from the heartbeat of Judaism. Also, it is only the second instance in the gospel that Mark gives us a name in a healing story. The first was the story of Jairus’s daughter and now he tells us that this healing is provided to a man named Bartimaeus, although there is still some mystery about him because the name Mark provides us with only means “the son of Timaeus.” Surely, he had a first name.
There are some changes made to the story when Luke and Matthew get ahold of it. Luke has the healing of Bartimaeus take place as Jesus enters Jericho, not as he leaves Jericho as Mark does; and Luke instead has the story of Zacchaeus take place as Jesus leaves the town of Jericho. Matthew changes the story to tell of the healing of two blind men. Neither Luke nor Matthew gives away any names of the blind men that Jesus heals.
Were we to take a closer look at the story as Mark tells it, we could rightly conclude that it contains all the main points that Mark has been trying to tell us for the last nine chapters of his text. We may want to see that Bartimaeus is on the side of the road, a physical allusion to the margins of society where the ostracized and criticized members of society must stay, away from the privileged and the powerful. Jesus’ ministry to this point has been one directed towards the outcasts and the nobodies of the world, healing them and removing from them any demonic forces that might have overtaken their minds or bodies.
And, of course, the matter of blindness has been front and center for the duration, not so much in the blind men that Jesus meets on the way to Jerusalem, but in the blind apostles who have walked alongside him on the way who have the physical ability to see but are blind as bats when it comes to their seeing who and what Jesus really is. They just don’t get it regardless of the number of times Jesus keeps them after class to tutor them, ever hopeful that finally their eyes might be opened. But it just doesn’t happen.
These themes all play out in the story of Bartimaeus, but I like to think that possibly Mark is giving us another call of a disciple here, a good place to insert one, Jesus now only a short distance from Jerusalem where his message and his mission will be tested to the umpteenth degree. If we pay close attention to the text, we find several critical components of the call narrative.
After Bartimaeus cries out to Jesus, the people in the crowd say to the blind man, “Jesus is calling you.” I propose there is a deeper meaning than the surface meaning of the words. The give away is found in the next verse when the evangelist tells us that Bartimaeus “threw aside his cloak,” the word also translated as “cast aside or abandoned.”
Where else have we heard this phrase? We heard it at the call of the first disciples, fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. When Jesus called them, they cast aside or abandoned their nets to follow him. Same word, same act. And while the fishermen abandoned their nets, their source of income, Bartimaeus abandoned his cloak, the source of his income as a beggar. It was the common practice of beggars to lay their cloak on the ground in front of them so that charitable souls could throw a few coins in the cloak as they passed by.
Casting aside his cloak, Bartimaeus is doing the same thing as the fishermen of Galilee did when they cast aside their nets. And the question that Jesus asks the blind man is the same question that he asked James and John earlier in this same chapter. “What do you want me to do for you?” Whereas, James and John answered that they wanted places of honor at the table with Jesus, Bartimaeus asked for sight. “I want to see.”
Of course, the question is the central question that Jesus asks of any follower. What do you want me to do for you? The question contains the motive and the desire that the disciple carries in his heart, his purpose in following Jesus. Bartimaeus’s answer is the right answer for those who want to be full and faithful followers. He wants to see.
The sight he is asking for ends up being more than physical vision. He is granted that gift of sight, but he also receives spiritual insight. And why? Because of his courage and because of his faith. The people around him have counseled him to take courage and to get up and to go to Jesus, which he does, stumbling and finding his way to the healer and to the Teacher.
He already exemplifies by his response that he has the mettle of a disciple by his courage. It is the same call that Jesus gave the frightened disciples on the raging waters when he walked towards them, telling them, “Take courage, do not be afraid.” Courage is part and parcel of the call. Only the truly courageous can answer the call. Many, such as the rich man, lacked the courage and failed to follow Jesus when he received the call.
We hear Jesus compliment the blind man for his faith, saying to him, “Go your way, your faith has saved you.” Faith, like courage, is a must-have for the follower of Jesus, and Bartimaeus has it, addressing Jesus as the Son of David, the only time Mark uses the title in his gospel. A blind man speaks the words, addressing Jesus as a descendant of David, no doubt using the phrase as a messianic title since it was believed that the long-expected anointed one would be a descendent of David. He sees what others cannot or would not see.
Were that not enough to convince us that this is a call narrative, Mark erases any further doubt by concluding the story in the same way that he concluded the story of the fishermen at the Sea of Galilee who were called to follow Jesus. Mark writes, “Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.” In the earlier call, the fishermen immediately cast aside their nets and followed Jesus.
Of course, “the way” is a code word that we have seen Mark use regularly, meaning far more than just a road. When Mark uses it, he is talking about the way to Jerusalem, the destination for his narrative. But we have learned that Jerusalem is a spiritual journey, not only a physical journey, because Jesus will fulfill his mission on the cross in Jerusalem.
It is for this same reason that the earliest disciples were called “followers of the way,” a reference to the spiritual journey that all disciples make when they walk behind Jesus, the Teacher and the one who has walked the path before them, a path that leads the follower down the roads of life while at the same time leading them on a spiritual path that brings them ever closer to Jesus the Crucified Lord.
We would be negligent if we were to overlook one other component of this story that Mark apparently wants to emphasize. And that is how Bartimaeus is a foil to the disciples who have followed Jesus up to this point. A foil, as we know, serves as a contrast to another character or characters in a story, offering us traits or qualities that are the opposite of the main character.
Mark, clearly disappointed in the Twelve, presents Bartimaeus as a foil to the first disciples, a thick-headed and clueless bunch who just can’t put all the pieces together however much Jesus points to all the pieces of the puzzle. The blind man, in contrast, gets it, seeing what the Twelve haven’t seen for the whole while they have been on the way with Jesus.
In this way, Bartimaeus becomes the exemplar of the full and faithful disciple, the one who receives praise from Jesus, whereas the Twelve have received castigation from him. He offers to the Marcan reader a contrast, someone to be imitated, unlike the Twelve who are going to prove to be a disappointment to the bitter end of the gospel.
It is fascinating, really, to hear Mark tell us that Bartimaeus “followed Jesus on the way,” meaning he followed him all the way to the cross, unlike the others who fell along the wayside here and there, lacking the courage and the faith that Bartimaeus apparently had. For this reason, he is often called “the last disciple.” The final irony in the story, a narrative choked full of ironies, is that Bartimaeus is never heard of again.
As the last disciple that Jesus called in the gospel, he serves as a summons to subsequent followers of Jesus through the ages to be as courageous and as faithful as he was, seeing Jesus as the Son of David, and willing to cast aside everything to follow him on the way, even if the way led to Jerusalem, a place of suffering and persecution for Jesus and for those who choose to accept and to live his words and his ways in this wicked world.
If we are intent on following Jesus on the way, then our prayer as we walk along the way has to be the same prayer that fell from the lips of the blind man. Continually, as the road stretches before us, we have to beseech the Lord Jesus to hear our prayer as he did that of Bartimaeus. “Teacher, I want to see.” That prayer will be enough to keep our eyes open to the ways of Jesus and to remove the blindness that afflicts those who refuse to accept the message and the mission of the Lord Jesus.
But be forewarned. The prayer should be uttered only by the courageous and by the faithful, those who are willing to risk everything to follow Jesus on the way, those willing to die on a cross in Jerusalem. If we are not willing to cast aside everything to continue the mission of Jesus, then we are better off not saying the prayer, bringing condemnation down our heads for our half-heartedness and our near-sightedness.
So, the question before us today is a simple one, even if the answer is a difficult one. “Do we really want to see?”
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 