I Once Was Blind - October 25, 2015

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Mark 10:46-52

"I once was blind but now I see," we sang a few moments ago. So often in the church we equate blindness with a lack of faith and vision with faith. The trouble with that is that many people who experience physical blindness are people of deep faith and lots of people with 20-20 vision have no faith at all. The metaphor can be offensive to some people and yet is so ingrained in us and in the bible that it is hard to work around. "What do you do when you sing 'Amazing Grace" someone asked a visually impaired clergywoman. "I just stand up front and sing, 'I once was blind and still can't see,'" she answered.
The Gospel of Mark has within it two stories in which Jesus heals people who are physically blind. The first one takes place in Bethsaida where people bring a blind man to Jesus. It takes a couple of tries before Jesus fully restores that man's sight, and then Jesus sends him to his home saying, "do not even go into the village."

The second of those healings is today's story of the healing of Bartimaeus, a blind man whose name means "son of Timaeus." He earns his living as a beggar, dependent on the mercy and kindness of others. He lives on the road going from Jericho to Jerusalem. When he hears that Jesus is passing by he cries out, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." The crowd tries to shush him but he will not be silenced, crying out even more loudly, "Son of David, have mercy on me." Jesus stops and calls him, asking what he wants. When Bartimaeus requests, "My teacher, let me see again," Jesus answers, "your faith has made you well," and right away Bartimaeus can see.
Between Bethsaida and Jericho Jesus' disciples, most likely fully sighted, are obtuse. Again and again they miss the point of Jesus' teaching. Three times Jesus warns them that he will suffer and die and repeatedly they look for a Messiah who will be a political victor. Peter rebukes Jesus for even suggesting that he will be killed, they argue about who will be the greatest, and James and John request seats of honor in Jesus' kingdom. They clearly don't get it. Though they can see they lack the faith to really understand who Jesus is.
Also between Bethsaida and Jericho Jesus is the Hidden Messiah. Just as he had told the newly sighted man in Bethsaida to go straight home, so again and again he tries to stay out of view. Peter professed, "You are the Messiah," and Jesus said, "Don't tell anyone." Jesus was transfigured up on a mountain top before Peter, James, and John, and Jesus said, "Shh, don't tell." When they passed through Galilee he did not want anyone to know it.
In all those miles between Bethsaida at the north end of the Sea of Galilee and Jericho, roughly a hundred miles to the south, Jesus hides his Messiahship. As I've mentioned before, it seems likely that he tried to keep it secret at least in part precisely because of the disciple's lack of understanding of just what Messiah meant. They kept looking for a conqueror and Jesus knew he was the Suffering Servant.
"Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me," Bartimaeus called out. Despite his physical blindness, or maybe because of it, Bartimaeus could see what the others could not. Son of David was code for the Messiah. David had been Israel's greatest king. He had ushered in an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity. He was the model of the Messiah and Bartimaeus recognized in Jesus the person for whom all Israel had been longing.
Jesus normally preferred the more modest and somewhat ambiguous title Son of Man. Yet when Bartimaeus called him Son of David Jesus responded. Not long after this healing Jesus climbed the steep grade from Jericho to Jerusalem. As he entered Jerusalem people hailed him, "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!" Perhaps it was at the healing of Bartimaeus that Jesus made his peace with that title.
Still Jesus did not come as the conquering hero. He came as the Suffering Servant and even Bartimaeus, in all his newly restored physical sight and his acute spiritual vision did not fully grasp who Jesus was. Maybe none of us can.
It is interesting to note that unlike the healing of the blind man at Bethsaida whom Jesus told to go straight home, Jesus did not hush Bartimaeus or tell him to go home. As soon as he regained his sight, Bartimaeus followed Jesus on the way: the way up the hill into Jerusalem, the way of triumph as the crowds waved their palm branches and shouted Hosanna to Jesus; perhaps even the way of sorrows as Jesus carried his cross and was nailed to it.
After the nation of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians, King Zedekiah had been forced to watch his sons be executed and then his eyes were put out so the last thing he saw was something gruesome. It might be a fitting irony if one of the first things Bartimaeus saw was equally tragic – the death of Jesus. Perhaps it was then that he fully understood just who Jesus was.
"I once was blind but now I see," or do we too need to sing, "I once was blind and still can't see?" However acute our physical sight may be, the truth is that many of us have limited spiritual vision. We have become accustomed to looking for Jesus in a few standards places – at church, in the "good" people we already know. I certainly hope that Jesus is here! And Jesus often comes to us in unexpected ways. Most people in the first century did not recognize God among them in the wandering teacher who operated outside the rules of the day. I wonder how many times I have failed to see Jesus because he has come to me in the guise of a differently abled person walking down the street with a white cane, rolling in a wheelchair, or slowly moving with braces? I may see such people as objects of pity but the truth is that Jesus may be present in them. In such moments, though I can pass the vision test to get my driver's license, I still can't see.
Or perhaps it is that I look for Jesus as the conquering hero who will cure me of my ailments and I fail to recognize Jesus who heals me in a more complete way so that I learn to live as a whole person who lives with a physical challenge.
Today we come to baptize KGH. We promise to sharpen her spiritual vision as she grows by loving her, forgiving her, and teaching her. As the community of faith we vow today to be the people who bring her to Jesus, like the folks in Bethsaida who brought the blind man to Jesus, and not like the folks in Jericho who tried to keep Bartimaeus from Jesus. We will do so when we encourage her to think deeply and when we respect her questions. We will do so when we surround her with love and forgiveness now as an adorable infant and later when she runs around at coffee hour and bangs on the piano, and still later as a teenager pushing the limits. Let us teach her to see Jesus in her friends and in her enemies; let us teach her to open her eyes to God's presence in surprising ways each and every day; let us teach her to cast off her daily cares and come to Jesus.
With her, let us follow Jesus on the way, trusting that though we are blind and still can't see, Jesus can lead us forward.