Jesus heals a blind man Mark 10:46-5

Mark 10:46-52 Gospel reading for Sunday 28th October 2012

This event, the healing of Bartimaeus, occurs immediately prior to Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. On the surface it seems to be all rather ho-hum, just another routine healing miracle, but there is something that is easily lost in this story if we are not careful. It is only recently that I have seen another side to this story that I had not noticed in listening to the details probably dozens of times over the years.

So there is more to it than first meets the eye. It is arguably best viewed as an acted parable, through which God continues to show us how His grace really works.

Right to the end, Jesus continues to hammer His agenda of the kingdom being available to all. Jewish culture would have written off this poor unfortunate blind man. In their eyes, Bartimaeus must have done something terribly wrong to have been punished so severely by God and therefore he could not possibly be acceptable in God's sight. We see a hint of this is in verse 48 where the crowd tries  to silence the man.

A critical phrase in the reading comes in verse 52 "your faith has healed you" ... and this is where we need to be careful, for the real message of what Jesus said to Bartimaeus has been to a large extent, literally lost in translation. Jesus uses exactly the same wording here as He did in speaking to the one (Samaritan) leper who returned to thank Jesus. The more accurate translation in both cases is "your faith has saved you". Just like the Samaritan, this obviously sinful blind man, who could not possibly be OK with God, is declared to be saved! How dare Jesus make such a contentious and controversial claim! It is no wonder that He got Himself crucified!

... but that folks is the stark reality and the outrageous nature of the Gospel ... classic saved by grace. The blind man is saved purely and simply through his acknowledgement of who Jesus is. That was totally uncharted territory for the Jews.

Do we keep the Gospel that outrageously simply today, or are there some sub-conscious performance strings attached?

If anyone is looking for some additional threads to further explore, I'll just mention a couple:

1. The name Bartimaeus in Aramaic literally means 'son of' Timaeus, or further loosely translated Son of the precious or worth one. Many commentators point out that this, together with the 'son of David' terminology used in the reading is more than a coincidental connection to the similar phrase used in the next scene as Jesus enters Jerusalem.
2. Jesus asks the question: "What do you want me to do for you"? ... now that's a question loaded with opportunity for personal reflection for us today!

Nev