What a Life! for July 25-29, 2007

When Jesus asks blind Bartimaeus in Mark’s gospel,, “What do you want me to do for you?” we might be thinking, “Well! Isn’t it obvious?” Yet, when someone put a similar question to Ray Charles, he insisted that if God offered him his sight back, he would not take it. Why not? “Because,” he said, “sometimes beautiful people are not packaged very beautifully. But you don’t know this when you are blind. When one of my children crawls into my lap . . . if I could see, I would probably see dirt on his clothes or shoes. I would probably say: ‘Go clean your clothes before you crawl into my lap,’ but I don’t see that child as cleaned up or not cleaned up. I only feel that child as ninety pounds of love.”

Bartimaeus did want to see again, and Jesus said to him, “Your faith has healed you.” It was the man’s faith, which is not merely belief but trust and confidence. Trust is all that the blind man had when he came to Jesus. The presence of Jesus awakened a new possibility in his heart. Bartimaeus trusted it and went for the light he could not see with his eyes.

When one is blind, one has to learn to trust. You not only have to learn to trust your own senses, you have to learn to trust other people. If you think everyone is out to take advantage of you, your outside world becomes extremely small. It is only by trusting that you can survive.

Sometimes our mistrust can cloud our view of reality. One day a woman shopping at a supermarket noticed a man following her wherever she went. As she moved to each aisle, there he was, looking at her, smiling at her. She began to wonder if he were interested in her and why he was being so obvious in letting her see him watch.

He was rather good-looking. However, she was married and not interested, so she would quickly turn away to avoid his stare. At the dairy counter, there he was again. Now it was getting creepy and she was beginning to feel a little uneasy. She quickly moved the cart to the cereal aisle. Suddenly, she felt a tap on her shoulder and she jumped, letting out a slight scream. Turning to look, she saw the man standing right behind her! He looked her straight in the eye and said, “Excuse me, but I believe you have my cart.” Mistrust can lead to misinterpretation.

In the Bible, physical blindness is often an image of spiritual blindness. When we see Jesus curing a blind person, he is also calling that person to see in a much deeper way. After Jesus cured Bartimaeus, the gospel says: “Immediately the man regained his sight and followed Jesus on the way.” Bartimaeus was now a spiritual and faith-filled follower of the Lord.

Seeing clearly is the great task of everyone’s life. How do we know when we are blind? One way we can tell we might be blind is if we find ourselves always critical of everyone we meet. When we as individuals or a nation consider ourselves always right, and everyone else always wrong, then we are blind. Our constant criticism of others shows that we are closed to anything new entering our world – whether it is a new person or a new thought. May we all receive the grace of a new and life-giving vision.

Jesus can change lives. He has the power to fix what is broken and make whole what is incomplete. Let us take the brokenness of our own lives to Jesus and cry out with Bartimaeus, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.”