I am preaching a sermon called “Healing the Desperate” on Sunday. Here’s my text:
Mark 10:46-52 (New Living Translation)
46 Then they reached Jericho, and as Jesus and his disciples left town, a large crowd followed him. A blind beggar named Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus) was sitting beside the road. 47 When Bartimaeus heard that Jesus of Nazareth was nearby, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 “Be quiet!” many of the people yelled at him. But he only shouted louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49 When Jesus heard him, he stopped and said, “Tell him to come here.” So they called the blind man. “Cheer up,” they said. “Come on, he’s calling you!” 50 Bartimaeus threw aside his coat, jumped up, and came to Jesus. 51 “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked. “My rabbi, ” the blind man said, “I want to see!” 52 And Jesus said to him, “Go, for your faith has healed you.” Instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus down the road.
Got any thoughts on this passage? I welcome your input…
I think that this passage really shows how that God blesses faith. You could compare it with Luke 17:6. You could also focus on the crowd yelling at him and him yelling even louder – he sincerely trusted that Jesus, and Jesus alone, could help him. He didn’t want to lose that opportunity. That is what I call faith.
Healing the desperate or healing the determined….or does his desperation lead him to be that determined?…i don’t know, just random thoughts
Excellent thoughts, fellas. This parable really deals with the other side of the coin – not what God does to heal, but what we can do (if anything) to help that process begin. I like the determined idea, Brad – almost like determination is “deperation with a good plan.” And Daniel – you make a great point that Bartimaeus looks past the conventional wisdom of those around him with tunnel vision only for Jesus. Thanks to you both.
Any other thoughts out there?
Sam
“Bartimaeus threw aside his coat, jumped up, and came to Jesus.” That’s my favorite part. His healing became more important to him than his beggar’s coat – the place where he probably collected hand-outs and that most likely still had money in it.
Thanks Jamie – great thoughts as well – it seems that healing becomes more possible when it becomes more important than other factors – money, dignity, reputation, etc.
its not just physical healing but also spiritual healing – David Garland in his NIVAC commentary writes “His answer “Rabbouni, I want to see,” demonstrates enough faith to transform him from a blind man begging along the way (10:46; se 4:4, 15) to a person who sees and follows Jesus on the way (10:52).
Garland also thinks Bart believes Jesus is able to fulfill Isa 35:5 and give sight to the blind and that the whole scen recalls Isa 42:16.
its both a healing and a call to discipleship in this section of Mark – Blind Bart now healed, with his eyes open, decides to follow Jesus as every disciple is called to do (cf 8:34). I like to keep things in context so we don’t miss the larger points to support our own intentions with the text.
You can also zero in on the question Jesus asks Old Blind Bart “What do you want be to do for you?” and explore what we typically want God to do for us (often the wrong things) you can even compare Jesus and Bart with Harod and his daughter in ch 6 – Herod asked a similar question and the daughter give the wrong answer – then there is Pilate and the crowd – he asks the same question and what did the crowd want? their answer was wrong too.
What are some of the right answers we should be giving.
you can also highlight the crowd response in trying to quiet Old Blind Bart – revealing thier lack of compassion – we often to the same thing.
what say you?
Hi Bri (I’ve always wanted to write that…) –
Every commentary (NIBC, Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, etc.) I picked up for this healing referenced the redactive possibility of placing the story before the entrance to Jerusalem simply to reiterate the spiritually blind/physically blind metaphor. Though that’s certainly worth mentioning (I actually tie it to the Luke 4/Isaiah 61 passage), I really wanted to concentrate on the physical possiblity for our church.
I’m not finished with sermon yet, but it’s fairly easy to jump to spiritual blindness simply because people are more comfortable with that. Not so much with physical healing (at least not in my church). We are specifically trying to get them to believe that physical healing is a possibility and that prayer for healing is okay. In the parts I have written so far I actually say that asking “Why believe in physical healing?” is the wrong question. The right one is “Why not believe in physically healing?” We believe God does everything else…
Great point about the narrative “echo” in chapter 6! I had never noticed that before. I’ll investigate further…
What say I? I say “thank you.”
Sam
Sam, I see your point and agree that most evangelical scholars tend to focus less on the healing aspect (the fact that Jesus really did heal and that Old Blind Bart really was healed, really) and more on the call to discipleship, “seeing” in that Bart saw who Jesus really was, etc. I needed that reminder.
I guess I tend to see issues such as healing and things as more along the lines of Systematic Theology (piecing together the whole teaching of the Bible on an issue) more than an issue of exegesis per se – not that one cannot show/prove the issue of real actual divine healing exegetically – it’s just such topics are not always clearly shown in a specific passage(s) (same with the trinity). Does this make sense?
If there was a clear passage with a clear message that healing is for all time and to be sought be all people as needed then there would be little debate over the issue or at least any debates would be more or less pointless.
I suppose you can begin in this passage and go from there as to why healing is possible and how belief in such is a necessary aspect of relating to God. I’ll have to think it over more.
I understand your approach as systematic theology. That’s one of the great things about expository preaching – unwrapping each layer and placing a passage within the full context of the New Testament. And you’re right – none fo the passages leave no stone unturned exegetically. But I have to start somewhere. Same with the Trinity can be seen the same way, but at least we have Jesus actually laying hands on folks in the gospel narratives.
I did exactly what you said in the last paragraph – I only have about twenty five minutes, so I merely explore the possibility of physical healing. If I can help them know that it’s okay to believe in that, I’ve done my job for that day.
yes, you do have to start somewhere and the story of Old Blind Bart is a good place to start – especially with the issue that he soguth God’s healing.
Maybe from there the next sermon can be on another healing event (the Paralytic?) and so on (do sermons on several healing stories in Jesus’ ministry to promote development in people’s understanding of healing?
part of this is me just getting too analytical…
my strengths are also my weaknesses.
The Paralytic would be a great choice to begin a systematic look at healing from all angles, simply for the whole “so that you know I forgive, you are healed” thing. The holistic gospel. Yeah, the idea of doing several healing stories, to me, is best simply becasue there are twenty-six of ‘em. Preaching a significant number of them would create a well-rounded view of God’s intentions through healing as well as encourage people to believe in healing for today.
Sam