Bartimaeus: From by the wayside to on The Way.

46 Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. 47 When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” 48 Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” 49 Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” 50 Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. 51 “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” 52 “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.

Encounters with Jesus.

Bartimaeus: From by the wayside to on The Way.

Today we’re going to look at :

But before we do that, I want to share with you a bit of personal context as to how I prepared this message.

Passage allocation.

I don't want to do this talk. Healing is uncomfortable for me.

Why Jesus had 4 dads, 13 mums, and 2 surnames.

How we can go from by the wayside to On The Way.

So let’s examine the passage together, look at what it teaches us, and look at what it means for us.

v46 Jesus has been ministering in Judea, and three times He had told His disciples that He was going to be killed. So now He is journeying to Jerusalem, passing through Jericho, and there’s a strong sense that He knows what awaits Him there. There’s a great crowd with them. It’s nearly passover, and we don’t know how many of the crowd were simply travelling to Jerusalem, and how many were gathered around this teacher and miracle worker.

Bartimaeus is sat by the roadside, begging. People who beg don’t tend to hide in alleyways - if you want people to give you money, you need to be where the people are. We don’t know whether this was Bartimaeus’s regular spot, or whether he sat here because he knew a crowd would be travelling the Jerusalem road for passover.

In April every year we have the London marathon. Thousands of people line the streets, and are actually nice to each other. Crowds gather. If you wanted to beg that day, it would make sense to be where the crowds are.

How much more so with a religious festival? We know from the sermon on the mount that people connected their charitable giving to their religion (), and that the most outwardly religious people liked to do this in public. So a religious gathering would be even more of an opportunity to beg.

v47 Bartimaeus hears that it is ‘Jesus of Nazareth passing by, and he starts shouting “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me”.

We need to pause in our story to think about who Jesus is revealed here to be.

I said at the start that Jesus had 2 surnames, 13 mums and 4 dads.

His surnames were Of Nazareth and Christ.

His mother was Mary, but He also referred to the 12 disciples as His mother.

His surnames were Of Nazareth and Christ.

He was called:

Son of Joseph

Son of Man

Son of God

Son of David

OK so the first few there are a joke. Of Nazareth and Christ were not surnames, but important titles that told where Jesus was from, both in an earthly and a heavenly sense. Nazareth was the town He was from, and Christ is a greek word for ‘messiah’, which means God’s anointed one, the promised deliverer. Jesus was comparing the closeness of His relationship with His disciples to that of His relationship with His family when He called them His mother and brothers.

But let’s look at Jesus’s 4 fathers.

Son of Joseph, the carpenter

Jesus never referred to Himself as Joseph’s Son, and we actually don’t know what happened to Joseph since he kind of fades out of the story some time in Jesus’s teens.

The New International Version Chapter 13

54 Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. 55 “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? 56 Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” 57 And they took offense at him.

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”

58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

So Jesus’s earthly parentage was used against Him, by people who couldn’t believe something good could come from a poor family like His.

But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”

Son of Man

58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

The New International Version. (2011). (). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Jesus frequently referred to Himself as the Son of Man.

The Lexham Bible Dictionary Authority and Earthly Ministry

“the Son of Man has the authority on the earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2:10; Matt 9:6; Luke 5:24) and claims that “the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:28; Matt 12:8; Luke 6:5)

Jesus refers to Himself as the Son of Man more than 80 times. So what does He mean? To what is He referring?

To understand this we need to go back to the prophet Daniel

explain who Daniel was

Daniel had a vision of God in heaven. It’s pretty dramatic. It goes like this:

The New International Version Chapter 7

9 “As I looked,

“thrones were set in place,

and the Ancient of Days took his seat.

His clothing was as white as snow;

the hair of his head was white like wool.

His throne was flaming with fire,

and its wheels were all ablaze.

10 A river of fire was flowing,

coming out from before him.

Thousands upon thousands attended him;

ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.

The court was seated,

and the books were opened.

And then, something surprising happens...

The New International Version Chapter 7

13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, o coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

So in claiming to be the Son of Man, is Jesus claiming to be the human-looking figure who is given everlasting dominion by God? Well let’s look at how His early followers understood it. Stephen:

The New International Version Chapter 7

54 When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

57 At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58 dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

Son of Man - the one prophesied by Daniel who would share in the divine glory. A claim so controversial that it would get His followers killed.

Son of God

Jesus was called the Son of God by all kinds of people - a Roman centurion, His own disciples, in accusation by the high priest, by demons, and by the devil. It was also spoken over Him by the Father, who said “This is my Son”. Mark’s gospel, where we are today, opens by referring to Jesus as Son of God. We need to understand that Jesus is not the only ‘son of God’ mentioned in the Bible and in contemporary culture. This was a title frequently used for Israel’s kings, for angels, and even for the nation of Israel itself. It was a title used for the Roman emperors.

In the Hebrew Bible, it referred to someone given authority by God. However for Jesus it went beyond authority. Richard Bauckham asserts that there is no evidence that it was common to address God as Father, yet that is how Jesus prayed. The apostle Paul teaches that Jesus’s place as a unique true Son of God is what makes it possible for us to be called children of God. And we know from :

The New International Version Chapter 3

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

And now we come to Son of David.

Earlier in Mark’s gospel, we read:

The New International Version Chapter 1

32 That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. 33 The whole town gathered at the door, 34 and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was

There is a sense that Jesus is holding back revealing His full identity. Bartimaeus is the first person to call Him ‘Son of David’, but then the next thing that happens after this is that Jesus heads into Jerusalem and is welcomed by a large crowd crying:

The New International Version Chapter 11

9 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,

“Hosanna!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” i

10 “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”

“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

They’re connecting Jesus with David’s returning kingdom.

So what does that mean?

Was Jesus a physical descendant of David? Well yes, but it’s doubtful that Bartimaeus knew that. And this wasn’t a normal phrase used for every single first century Jewish man who could trace his family lines back to the king. So what did it mean?

David’s kingdom had been the high point of the nation, and despite being a flawed man, David was still seen as the ideal king. He had been devoted to God alone, unlike the kings that came after him. God had promised him that he would always have a son on the throne, and yet the kingdom split in two, and both halves ended up in exile without a king.

Let’s look at what the prophets said about a descendant of David, in passages which were believed to refer to the messiah.

Here’s what the prophet Ezekiel said:

The New International Version Chapter 34

22 I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another. 23 I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. 24 I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the LORD have spoken.

Ezekiel’s visions occur AFTER David has died. Is God promising to raise up the old king? The interesting thing about this passage is that earlier on, God has said that He Himself would be their shepherd. So God will be their shepherd, and He will place one shepherd over them, David. Hmmm....

The prophet Jeremiah said:

The New International Version Chapter 23

5 “The days are coming,” declares the LORD,

“when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch,

a King who will reign wisely

and do what is just and right in the land.

6 In his days Judah will be saved

and Israel will live in safety.

This is the name by which he will be called:

The LORD Our Righteous Savior.

and then Isaiah, also after David:

The New International Version Chapter 11

11 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;

from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—

the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and of might,

the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—

3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.

Jesse was the father of David, FYI.

So for the family of David we have the image of a miserable tree. It’s a stump, low to the ground. Yet God is promising that from the stump, from the same root system, a fruitful branch will come. Interestingly the word for branch is “natser”. says something a bit odd about what happened not long after Jesus was born:

The New International Version Chapter 2

Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, 23 and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.

Now if you search the prophets, you won’t find a line saying “the messiah will be a Nazarene”. But in the passage from Isaiah the messianic descendent of David is called the natser. The branch.

So why did Bartimaeus call Jesus the Son of David? It might have been a divine revelation. Elsewhere we see that two kinds of beings know who Jesus is. The first is demons - fallen angelic beings. And the second is people of faith who have been given revelation, ranging from Peter to the centurion to the Syro-Phoenician woman.

20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

The New International Version Chapter 10

22 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

23 Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. 24 For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.”

21 At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.

Bartimaeus was saying that Jesus could be the promised One who was to come, sent by God to restore the kingdom and make things new.

So Jesus is the Nazarene, the Christ, the Son of Mary, the Son of Joseph, the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Son of David. And as we work through the gospels and look back at the Hebrew Bible these titles help us to understand His absolute uniqueness. In no-one else are these titles combined.

Going back to our encounter, we see that Bartimaeus is not put off by the ‘many’ that shushed him. He keeps calling “Son of David, have mercy on me”.

Now the word he uses for mercy is the word that we get our English word “alms’ from. Not arms but alms. The original word had a wide range of meaning, but usually when someone begging asked for mercy they were asking for money. Giving money was the prime way to show mercy.

And Jesus stopped.

Jesus called for him.

The shushing crowd change their tune “cheer up!” They tell him to get up quickly.

So he throws his cloak aside. This cloak wasn’t something to be taken for granted. It wasn’t something that every beggar would have. It would have been his tool - the thing people threw money into, and his shelter. But he flings it down and jumps up. There’s such a sense of immediacy here.

And then Jesus does something strange. When a beggar asked for mercy, the righteous would give them money. But Jesus asks him what he wants.

What do you want God, in His mercy, to do for you?

I have known people who are sick weave that into their identity. I’m speaking from personal experience here, and I’m not trying to offend anyone. The serious examples are too personal to share from here so I’ll share a light one instead. I get travel sick. Sometimes even the thought of a long car journey makes me feel horrible. It’s nothing to do with windy roads, it’s the constant acceleration/deceleration, , so I’m especially worried if I know it’ll be a male driver. It’s worse in winter because people have car windows closed and the heating on. If I get into a stationary car and someone turns the heater on I instantly feel sick from the association. All my siblings have it too, and the best ever was a time when we were in a taxi in the middle of Wales and the driver kept having to pull over to let a different one of us sit in the front seat, and one of my brothers threw up into a field of sheep. Once when I was a kid coming back from a school trip to France I threw up more than ten times.

But being car sick has its advantages. Family and friends tend to let me sit in the front, and the front is more comfortable. If there’s a choice between going by train or going by coach, I justify the extra expense of the train because I don’t get sick on trains. If Tim and I rent a car, I get to drive whenever I want, because you never get sick when you’re driving yourself.

So recently I was reading a book about psychosomatic illnesses. And imagine my offence when motion sickness was included in the list! And I read that some people can be cured of motion sickness by having their thinking retrained. And it got me thinking. I used to be a very anxious person, and one of the ways that I was set free from that was by recognising that my worrying gave me certain benefits, and that was why I clung onto it. In the same way, I started thinking about the benefits of travel sickness, and what I would lose if I no longer had it. I’d have to be squished in the back of cars with someone else’s elbow in my thigh. I’d have to put up with certain members of my family driving like loons. I’d have to get the coach!

That’s a really silly, light example of the ways that we can hold on to the things that hold us back.

For Bartimaeus, healing was risky. What would he do for a living once he had his sight? He would no longer be someone that the many would show mercy to. His whole life would be changed. This can apply in other areas than just the physical. Sometimes we hold on to the things that hold us back because we like aspects of it. Don’t hear me saying what I’m not saying. I’m not saying that everyone who is sick, or carries a burden, is in that place because they want to be. Jesus Himself met people who had been desperate for a cure for years. This isn’t a stick to beat others with, but maybe a lens to look at our own lives through. Are we holding on to anything that holds us back?

Bartimaeus doesn’t ask for money, he asks for his sight. And he doesn’t just address Jesus as teacher, he actually uses a term, Rabboni, that is “my teacher” or “my lord”. It’s the same as Mary uses in the garden when she realises that Jesus has been raised from the dead. “My master”.

It’s such a short story. There’s these several lines of build up, and then in two sentences the story ends. Jesus tells him to go, that his faith has healed him. And immediately he sees, and he follows.

He sees, and he follows.

But first, the faith. Is Jesus really saying that healing is earned by faith? Does this mean that if we believe, we will receive. Then why did my husband die when lots of people believed he would be healed? Why is my dad still sick? Why didn’t my migraine go away immediately when I prayed?

I think we have to be really careful not to add things into the text. Jesus is speaking to a specific person here. We know he healed other blind people, and in one of those occasions it took a couple of goes. We know that he encountered situations that required different methods of deliverance. Some people will try to convince you that supernatural healing is like a slot machine. Insert faith, push button, and out rolls the miracle. I don’t think that fits with the stories we read in the New Testament. There’s too much variation.

So what is the role of faith? Before we answer that, I want to look at the kind of healing that happens here. Bartimaeus asks to see. But the word Jesus uses for healing is a wider word than just sight. It’s from the root Sozo, and has connotations of salvation as well as healing. It’s the same word Jesus used with the Syro-Phoenician woman. Some of the people who came to Jesus wanted a physical deliverance, and they got it. But in some stories they get more than they ask for. Think of the paralysed man who is lowered through the roof by his friends, and leaves with his sins forgiven and his stretcher rolled up. Think of the woman who has been bleeding for years, who leaves clean both physically and socially.

I think a helpful way to understand the faith that Jesus is talking about is to use the word ‘trust’. You see in our culture today, we use faith to mean almost a wishful thinking. A refusal to contend with facts, perhaps. The faith that the Bible talks of is not like that. It’s faith in Someone who is faithful.

If I am looking out across a canyon that I need to cross, and I see a rope bridge, I make a decision about whether or not I trust it. If I stand where I started, and give a great speech about how reliable the rope bridge is, or if I sit and meditate on ropes and engineering and engineers, I’m not going to get across the canyon, and nor can I say I really trust that bridge. My trust in the bridge becomes meaningful when I step out onto it. I might step really gingerly, or I might stride out in confidence. Either way, trust, or faith, has evidence.

Faith in God is reliance on God. It’s not intellectual belief, nor is it gritting your teeth and hoping for something. It’s trusting in God. We see Bartimaeus clearly trusting in Jesus here. Firstly in how he addresses Him as Son of David - he knows something of who He is. Secondly, in asking to see.

We see in the New Testament that healing, deliverance and even salvation depend on faith. They’re not earned by faith. I don’t earn the right to cross the rope bridge by trusting it. I don’t make it strong enough by stepping out onto it. But I’m not crossing that canyon without trusting it.

So does that mean that if we don’t see healing, it’s because we haven’t had enough faith? That’s a sermon in itself. In short, no, not necessarily. tells the story of a deliverance miracle. The disciples are trying to help because by now they’ve learned to do some of the stuff that Jesus does, but they can’t this time. They ask Jesus “why couldn’t we do it?” and He replies “this kind can only come out by prayer”. He doesn’t question their faith.

I want to finish by looking at what happens next. What happens with Bartimaeus’s faith? What happens when he has been sozoed?

He followed Jesus along the road.

This encounter started with Bartimaeus sitting, blind, by the side of the road, dependant on the mercy of others for his life. He finishes up following Jesus, physically and spiritually. Most scholars agree that the reason Bartimaeus is named when most of the people Jesus meets aren’t, is that he was part of the early church. Certainly here he is seen following Jesus into Jerusalem. The first disciples didn’t call themselves Christians. They called themselves Jews, and gradually they became known as followers of The Way. It’s the same word as the word used here. Bartimaeus followed Jesus along the Way.

If you have experienced deliverance, sozo, how have you responded? Tim and I once met a lovely couple on holiday, and we ended up spending loads of time with them. They had the same wedding anniversary as us, and they were into the things we are into on holiday, like crazy golf and eating, so we got on really well. One night we stayed up late, and got talking about life, as you do. They told us an amazing story. The woman had spent many years of her life bed-bound with ME. She had been really sporty as a teenager, but at about 16 she’d been hit by this illness, and it had robbed her of almost everything she treasured. It was hard to believe, as the first time we’d laid eyes on here she was 7-months pregnant and on a treadmill going pretty full on. The story was that she had tried all kinds of medical treatments, and nothing had worked. In desperation, she had booked into a Christian healing conference up in Scotland. When she got there she was too exhausted from the travel to even go to any sessions. But one morning one of the team came up to her room and prayed for her, and she was healed. And that was it. Immediate.

So Tim and I were like “oh amazing so are you guys Christians too?”. Nope. Why? No particular reason. I have often told God that if He would just do a single mad miracle in my family, they would all turn to Him. I’m not so sure actually. This lovely couple had witnessed a miracle. If you asked them who healed her, they said Jesus. But it stopped there.

I know someone who believes that God supernaturally delivered them from addiction to drugs. In an instant, and never to relapse. But they’re not following Him.

Here’s an example from Luke’s gospel.

The New International Version Chapter 17

11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy h met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

I was taught this story as a moral tale about how important it is to say thank you. It’s not about that. And do you see the final line - “your faith has made you well”. What about the other nine. They were healed too. What is going on? The faith that Jesus is talking about here is the faith that connects the healing power of Jesus to the grace of God, and responds in worship.

The man with leprosy worshipped.

The woman at the well went and told everyone that she had met the messiah.

Bartimaeus followed.

Application

What is your response to the work of Jesus in your life? Will you follow Him? Follow Him through the praising crowds, and follow Him up the hill with the cross?

Bartimaeus went from by the wayside to on The Way.

If you are by the wayside, I want to encourage you that Jesus will stop for you. If He calls for you, cheer up, get up, and come to Him.