Marlo Schalesky is the author of 11 books (both fiction and non-fiction), including Reaching for Wonder: Encountering Christ When Life Hurts.
Bartimaeus may just be my favourite character. There’s something about his tenacity, his audacity and his fierce vivacity. He lived in darkness, and yet he saw more clearly than any of his seeing contemporaries. He saw more clearly than You and I. This blind beggar sitting in the dirt alongside the road to Jerusalem knew what he wanted, and he could not, would not, be dissuaded from it.
What if I had his vision? What if, in my darkness, I had his tenacity, audacity and vivacity? What if all I wanted was to see? Is that too much to ask?
Even as I write these words, I’m filled with crazy hope and wild wonder. What if, when I am sitting in the dirt, in the dark, I let none of these things stop me from calling out to the one who has called to me from a long time ago? What if I don’t care what others think but instead cry out all the louder? What if I believe that this Jesus is who He says He is? What if I throw off absolutely everything, that would hinder me, and run in my blindness to him? What are the things that I need to discard? What if I could speak those four simple words, “I want to see”?
Bartimaeus doesn’t care a whit about criticism, rebuke or reprimands. And so he is free to seek only Jesus. And me?
In Mark's Gospel Jesus’s encounter with Bartimaeus is the last such healing and disciple-making that we will see before Jesus is arrested and killed in Jerusalem. Jesus and his disciples are travelling with a crowd on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem.
On that road to death sits Bartimaeus, a blind beggar who still dares to hope. He will be the last one to ask for healing. He will be the last one to become a follower of Jesus before the Master is hung on a Roman cross.
The last one who finally, after all this time, gets it right. Or is it that he had already got it right long before the Master called to Him.
As soon as Bartimaeus hears that Jesus is among the crowd walking by him, he shouts out. He hopes he reaches, he dares to call for the one thing he believes this little man can give: He asks for something he doesn’t deserve, but knows he needs.. Mercy.. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” What if … what if, in our prayers we only asked for mercy and healing.
Everyone around Bartimaeus rebukes him. They know he doesn’t deserve it either. After all, He is just a blind beggar sitting along the roadside, scratching around in the dirt. They tell him to be quiet, to be invisible, to disappear.
So, when you’re afraid you’ve missed him. When you’re sitting in your darkness, terrorised by the fear that you missed God, take heart. When all you seem to have done is just scratch around in the dirt, be encouraged! He’s calling to you..has already been calling to you for a long time.
But this man, sitting in his world of blackness, believes more strongly in who Jesus is than he worries about what others think of him. He doesn’t care about that at all.
In fact, in the face of discouragement, he cries out all the louder: “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
For Bartimaeus, Jesus is not just a wandering rabbi. He’s not just a healer or a teacher. He is the one who was promised to open the eyes of the blind and free those sitting in darkness. He is the promise of God to his people. He is the promise of God to Bartimaeus. And Bartimaeus dares to believe it, all of it.
Here there is no “if you want” or “if you are able.” No, Bartimaeus goes all in. He holds nothing back. He stakes everything on the belief that this Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of David who will fulfil all God has said, and will fulfil it for him. That is an audacious outrageous faith.
And then the voices change. Instead of “sit down and shut up,” they start saying, “Take heart! Be encouraged! Buck up! He’s calling you.”
In your darkness, in your blindness, The Master is calling you, has been calling you. And He’s calling you in a way you can hear. The Master doesn’t motion to the blind man. He calls to him. He uses a sense Bartimaeus can receive. The Master reaches us in ways he knows that we can understand. In flesh and blood, in bread and wine in light and darkness in the dust of our humanity.
So when you’re afraid you’ve missed him. When you’re sitting in your darkness and blindness, scratching around in the dirt, terrorised by the fear that God has come and gone and you didn’t recognise him, that you missed Him …take heart! Be encouraged! He’s calling to you. He’s calling to you in a way you can hear. And you can do as Bartimaeus did—you can jump up, run to him and see.