5th May 2010

Mark 10:46-52 – The Healing of Blind Bartimaeus [plus one].

• Again gives in insight into Jesus’ state of mind.
• Firstly on the surface there is a contradiction. This story is told in more than just Mark’s account but also in matthew and Luke. According the Matthew and Mark, Jesus was leaving the city of Jericho. According to Luke, he was entering it.
• Oh no! The Bible is wrong – lets all go become Buddhist.
• Well, not really. The fact is there were two Jericho’s. The Old Testament, ancient city built somewhere around 7000 bc that was no inhabited but pretty much in ruins. The New Jericho, a modern Roman Spa built by Herod.
• It seems Jesus was leaving the old Jericho and approaching the new one which was on the road from the old one to Jerusalem.
• And there’s the key.
• This road was a pilgrim’s way. What is significant about that? It was strewn with beggars. The blind, the lame the mute, etc would gather there to receive alms and help from those travelling on the religiously significant road.
• Yet Jesus passed them all by.
• Jesus was the most powerful passerby of all time.
• Along with most of all of Jesus miracles it was not Jesus who instigated the miracle but the one who received it. While others stayed quiet, Bartimaeus shouted out. It was audacious and brave and brash – but Jesus responded.
• He shouted out something very significant ‘Son of David’ – this was the title of the Messiah.
• A blind man could see what others were blind to… who Jesus is.
• The reason we cannot see Jesus move in our lives it not because we don’t know what he looks like but because we have decided in advance how He looks.
• Paradoxically; To see Jesus in my life I have to first become blind.