The 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, October 24, 2021

Mark 10:46–52

As Jesus was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the roadside begging. On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.” He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.” Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.

The cure of Bartimaeus occurs in the Gospel of St. Mark just after the Lord and his disciples are said to have visited Jericho on their way to Jerusalem for the last time.  Mark tells us nothing of what the Lord did or said in the ancient city of Jericho, and gives the impression that Jesus did not stay long.  The nearer the Lord came to the time and place of his Passion, the more energetically he moved and acted.  All he could think of was our deliverance from sin and death.  As St. Albert the Great puts it in a sermon on the Lord’s meeting with the woman at the well, he thirsted more for her salvation than she did, at the height of the day, for a drink of cold water.

The blind man Bartimaeus had begged on the road leading out of Jericho for many years.  He depended entirely on alms in order to eat.  He does not beg in the city itself, perhaps because he had not had much success there.  Instead, he depended on merchants and travelers on their way south.  According to ancient accounts, palm trees studded the rugged land around Jericho, which may have provided shade for anyone who was begging.  We can imagine the terrible situation in which this beggar was placed.  He probably was competing with other beggars, whose pitiful cries would have filled the air.  He had to be attentive the whole time he was on the roadside so that he did not get on the road where he might be trampled or shoved away and hurt.  He was helpless.  When he heard the noise of a crowd surging his way, he sensed opportunity even while he braced himself for disappointment.  He must have called out to see what was causing the unusual mass of people, or perhaps he asked it of someone who had mercy on him and gave him a little money.  When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he acted quickly, even recklessly.  He knew this name and he possibly had heard of the Lord’s powers to heal the blind.  “He began to cry out and say, ‘Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.’ ”  The Greek text indicates that his crying out lasted for a time.  The verb translated here as “cry out” actually means something stronger, like “to shriek”.  The blind man did not get up from his place on the ground but kept crying out.  He acted prudently because he had no way of knowing where in the crowd Jesus was.   “Many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.”  The Greek tells us that this was not a case of people simply hushing him, but of them roughly warning him “to keep silent”.  We might wonder what it mattered to them if a beggar cried out like this.  After all, they would soon be out of hearing range of his cries for mercy.  It would seem that other beggars were also in that place, but they did not cry out for Jesus, but for alms from the people.

“Call him.”  The Greek says, literally, “Summon him.”  The Son of David exercises his royal prerogative in summoning a servant.  “Take courage; get up, Jesus is calling you.”  The Greek: “Be of good cheer.  Rise up.  Jesus is summoning you.”  Suddenly the mood of the crowd has changed.  Perhaps these are a more merciful people.  The beggar throws aside his cloak and stumbles towards the Lord, the crowd opening for him and guiding him with their hands.  This is not a summons to judgment, but a gracious summons from his Master.  The Greek word translated as “sprang” has the meaning of “rousing” or “waking”, as though the blind man was getting up from his sleep.  He comes “in the presence” of Jesus, the servant before his King, and the Lord asks him, “What do you wish that I should do?”  The blind man answers right away.  “Rabbi, that I should recover my sight.”  The Greek can also mean, “that I may look up.”  The Lord replies, “Depart, your faith has saved [or, “healed”] you.”  The text says that the blind man immediately recovered his sight — all at once, not by degrees.  And then he followed — or “accompanied” — the Lord to Jerusalem.

We can understand this miracle in terms of the end of a person’s life.  The dying one lies by the side of “the road” of life, unable to take care of himself, unable to see any longer.  He is alone in his darkness.  And then there is commotion heralding an arrival.  It is the Great King.  The one who is dying cries out to him in his need.  At that moment, the guilt of his past life as well as the demons tell him to shut up.  There is no hope for him.  He is theirs.  But the man is filled with hope and faith and cries out with greater strength to the Lord of heaven and earth.  The Lord summons him to his presence.  The man throws away the “cloak” of his flesh, as though roused to the wakefulness of true life by the Lord’s call.  Assisted by the prayers of the angels and saints he makes his way to him.  The Lord asks him what he wishes him to do.  The blind man could ask for anything he wanted, but he asks to see, to “look up” into the Lord’s face of love and glory.  The Lord grants it to him and he receives it immediately.  And then he accompanies the Lord into the Kingdom of heaven, the New Jerusalem.