SERMON FOR ORDINARY 30

Jer 31 : 7-9

Heb 7 : 23-28

Mk 10 : 46-52

You may be familiar with the saying; “There are none so blind as those that cannot see.” It draws a distinction between those who have no physical sight and those who are incapable of grasping what to others is obvious.

This distinction is the thread which weaves itself through the readings for today. The passage from Jeremiah refers to God’s promise that he would bring his people out of exile and gather them all together in their home-land. This would be an occasion of great rejoicing and joy. Even those who were considered to be in disfavour with God, the blind and the lame as well as those who were ritually unclean, the pregnant and mothers giving birth, would be gathered into God’s planned future. This future was to be an era which would be based on a new covenant, the foundation of which would not be the 10 Commandments, but the law of love.

Christians believe that this new age came into being through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and the gospel reading, which is the last healing miracle recorded in the gospel of Mark, highlights the nature of God’s new era, called the Kingdom, very well.

Bartimaeus was a blind beggar, who was on the edge of Jewish society. Because of his blindness he did not consider it possible for him to become one of Jesus’ disciples, so he shouted out to Jesus for and assurance of God’s forgiveness. To the crowd he was a nuisance to be dismissed and silenced, but that didn’t put him off. The more the crowd told him to shut up, the louder he shouted. He was not going to be put off by anyone. Bartimaeus addressed Jesus as, “Son of David,” which was a title in later Jewish literature for the Messiah. Apart from unclean spirits and Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi, no-one else in Mark’s gospel describes Jesus with a Messianic title. The point is that it was the power of evil and a blind man on the edge of Jewish society who could see more than the sighted disciples and religious leaders.

Bartimaeus catches Jesus’ attention, so he is asked to come forward. Jesus recognised the blind man’s need more than Bartimaeus himself. Bartimaeus wanted to see, Jesus recognised his need to be a faithful disciple.

The crowd who had considered Bartimaeus to be a nuisance give him hope and assure him that it is indeed he whom Jesus wants to speak to. Bartimaeus threw away his cloak, sprang up and approached Jesus. Beggars used their cloaks as a vehicle to collect alms, as buskers leave a container for gifts in front of themselves. Bartimaeus discarded this security blanket in order to approach Jesus empty handed and unencumbered. Bartimaeus asked for sight so that he might be a disciple.

In the book of Isaiah, sight and blindness are equated with faithfulness and unfaithfulness to God’s covenant. So anyone who “recovers their sight” is moving from ignorance of or disobedience to God’s truth to embracing that truth. Bartimaeus recognised God’s truth in Jesus and wanted to embrace it.

Bartimaeus received what he asked for. He was told that his faith had saved him, and that is a much better translation of the Greek than the translation “has made you well”, for salvation is much more than being cured of a sickness or ailment. He had faith in the power of Jesus. He recognised Jesus as the Messiah, approached him without his security blanket, and followed him along the Way. That is, he followed him along the road that led to Jerusalem and crucifixion, but also the way of discipleship.

Here we have a man who physically could not see, but who was more spiritually visual than Jesus’ opponents, members of the crowd and his own disciples whose understanding of who Jesus was, was rather limited. Bartimaeus is a figure of hope, showing us that those who really want to see God’s truth are able to see it through Jesus. He was able to see that Jesus could act on behalf of men in relation to God. This is how the epistle to the Hebrews sees the work of Jesus in describing him as a high priest. In doing so, like all high priests of whom Aaron was the first, Jesus was appointed by God to make an offering for the sins of the people, which we know to be the sacrifice of himself on the Cross. The epistle picks up the title which Bartimaeus gave to Jesus when he addressed him as ‘Son of David’. The epistle is making it quite clear that that Jesus, the high priest is God’s Son and like the high priest Melchizidek is a priest for all time.

In each of our Eucharistic celebrations we re-present that same sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins and for our salvation and that of the whole world.

In response we are called to a life of discipleship in which we follow Jesus along his way and offer ourselves in his service so that the truth of God that Jesus revealed to us may be made visible to others.

+Harry Entwistle