Mark 10:46-52
We have spoken a fair bit over the past month about how we receive the Kingdom of God, and our gospel today has to do with how we should come to Jesus, and what we should expect to receive from him, when we receive the Kingdom of God.
First, a bit of context. Jesus is nearly in Jerusalem for the last time, only 25 kms away in Jericho. There is a huge crowd following Jesus, all jostling to touch him or his clothes.
As if that crowd wasn’t big enough, the way was packed with people all trying to get to Jerusalem for the Passover. It is really busy! The entire band of disciples, are trying to work security around Jesus.
It is noisy, chaotic, dusty and hot and Jesus is on his way out of Jericho, and a lone, blind beggar is sitting in the dust trying to be heard by Jesus. People are telling this vagrant, homeless beggar to be quiet. He just cried out all the more.
So what do we have to learn from how Bartimaeus approached Jesus? What can we learn about how we too could approach God.
There are a few things, but the first for me is Bartimaeus’ persistence. We too need to persist. It is part of the way the Holy Spirit equips the church of Jesus, and is a major theme in Paul’s letters.
God wants us to grow and mature in our faith. We don’t persevere because he is an unwilling and stingy god and needs to worn down. He is neither perverse nor forgetful. We persevere because we feel ourselves growing closer to Christ Jesus as our spiritual character develops.
It is easy to think of prayer like a Lotto ticket. Maybe I’ll get lucky, but probably not.
We want to receive something from God, so we will pray about it maybe once, and when we don’t receive it immediately, stop believing in prayer or stop believing altogether.
Let’s look to Bartimaeus here. When the crowd tells him to be quiet, .48 says , “But he shouted even more loudly, “‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’” Jesus was no Lotto ticket for Bartimaeus; he was persistent until it happened.
And the Bible is full of characters who kept persevering in their pursuit of God: Abraham, Moses, Elijah, the prophets, John the Baptist, the parable of the persistent widow, our man Bartimaeus, and many more.
Another way to put it, is that persistence develops the character that gives confidence to pray more and more outrageous prayers.
Second point to not is that Bartimaeus responded immediately to Jesus’ call. I think our response to God’s call to us in specific things must be immediate too. God calls us in his perfect timing, always just on time, never late, but certainly never early.
I get pastoral calls that need to be acted on and a wise priest once said to me, act on those calls immediately. That person may not be there if you delay. This applies to the call God has on all our lives also.
Look for the prompt! There is always a prompt he gives us at a certain time, and that is always the time the door is open most widely for his will to be done.
In today’s gospel, Jesus said to his disciples, “Call him here (v.49a).” The disciples respond immediately with these wonderful words; “’Take heart; get up, he is calling you’ (v.49b). Bartimaeus responds immediately, “So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus (v.50).”
What wonderful verses to memorise!
Thirdly, it’s good, I think, to know exactly what we want from God. I touched on this the other week but in a different context. If I asked you (which I won’t!), “What has God done for you this week?”, would you be able to give a reply?
Or, if I asked you, “Which of your prayers has God answered this week?”, would you be able to list them? I think we tend to pray pretty abstract prayers, rather than tangible, measurable prayers.
On a Monday I might pray, ‘Father, give me a good week.’ But what does that mean? How do we measure that? When it gets to Friday, some things will have gone well, and some things won’t.
What does ‘a good week’ look like? So it is impossible to know whether or not God has answered that prayer.
But more tangible prayers are more meaningful. ‘Lord God, I have a difficult conversation today and I’m nervous and worried about it, please give me the confidence and the words to say”
Tangible prayers, more specific prayers, are a great encouragement to us because we more easily recognise God’s acting in our lives. These healing miracles and parables in the gospels are given to us to show who Jesus Christ is and what he does.
When he asks Bartimaeus is v.51 “What do you want me to do for you?” We can trust the gospels to show that that is exactly what the Lord asks us as well.
What a model of a tangible, measurable request the blind beggar gives! “Teacher, I want to see again”. He was going to leave Jesus’ presence either still blind or seeing again. And he knew that Jesus had answered his request when he was healed.
As a result, we read in verse 52, “He followed Jesus on the road”.
If we want to receive from God, we must be persistent, we must respond with immediacy, we must be specific in our requests.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, and it’s something I mention a lot. We don’t need to wait until we are sorted in our faith to receive from God! It’s very easy to think something like: ‘I’ve been so slack in my prayers lately; God won’t hear me if I pray something for myself.’
Or, I miss Church so often God won’t know who I am and won’t grant my request because I’m not holy enough!’ Or God is far too busy to be worrying about my personal issues that are meaningless in the face of the state of the world.
All of these things are wrong and not the truth.
The truth is that God doesn’t wait until we are sorted in our faith before responding to our prayers. God looks deep into our hearts, and he knows us very well indeed. Nothing we do shocks or surprises him.
We begin with faith the size of the mustard seed, sure. But the point of that whole parable is that that seed grows into a big tree providing for God’s creatures. The point of the mustard is that it matures.
If our heart is right, God’s amazing love, grace and mercy will flood us before we even make our request if our heart is right. God himself has put that request on our hearts to ask of him!
Blind Bartimaeus knew that too. He called out to Jesus, “Son of David…” That was an old Jewish title reserved for the one who would lead Israel to national greatness. So it was partially true of Jesus – but not the whole truth, or even close to it. Bartimaeus had an inadequate idea of Jesus – but that didn’t matter. Because Bartimaeus’ faith was enough for Jesus to act on.
It is enough for us as well. Jesus asks only that we persevere, that we respond to him when we hear him call and that we ask his involvement in our lives in a direct and tangible way.
If we join Bartimaeus in approaching Christ like that then, like him, we will receive healing and peace and grace, and our lives will be transformed. Jesus said to Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?”
He asks us the same question this morning. What do you want Jesus to do for you today? Let me pray ...