The Lord’s Day Evening
May 29, 2005
Mark 10:46-52
“Lord, Have Mercy”
Dr. Derek W. H. Thomas
Now turn with me to Mark’s Gospel, and chapter ten, and
beginning at verse 46. It is the story of “Blind Bartimaeus”.
Now, this is a story that occurs in all three
of the Synoptic Gospels. It occurs not just here in Mark, but also in Luke, and
also in Matthew. And it’s one of those stories in the Gospels that has been,
and continues to be, the source of some difficulty as far as harmonizing all
three of these accounts. The story here as we find it (and we’ll read it in a
moment in the Gospel of Mark) has Jesus leaving Jericho when He comes across
Bartimaeus. In Luke’s Gospel, it appears as though He’s coming into Jericho,
not leaving Jericho as here. And then, just to make things wonderfully contrived
for us, the Holy Spirit, in inspiring Matthew’s account, has not a named
individual, Bartimaeus, but actually has two blind men, none of which is named.
Well, of course, if there are two, then there’s one, so that’s not such a great
problem. But it has been a source of some difficulty in the past: why does Mark
have Jesus leaving Jericho, and why does Luke have Jesus entering Jericho?
Well, I spent a bit of time–actually a
fruitless and a waste of time–reading all kinds of modern commentaries. I must
have 20, 25 commentaries on the Gospel of Mark, and I went through every single
one of them, especially recent ones. And lo and behold, none of them made any
reference whatsoever to this issue! And I somewhat suspected, and I e-mailed
Dr. Waters (who’s–I think–my eyes not good enough, but I think he’s sitting up
there in the gallery) as the fount of all knowledge on New Testament matters,
and he confirmed my suspicion. And it’s a very sad suspicion: that modern
commentaries, even from evangelicals, don’t bother with this because I think
they regard this as irrelevant. So what, if there are some discrepancies in the
Gospels? But if you and I affirm inerrancy, we believe the Bible is inerrant,
and these Gospel accounts are inerrant, then there is indeed something of a
problem here that we need to address, and we need to try and get some kind of
answer to. Sometimes in these things we can’t give an answer, and we rest
assured that when we get to heaven and we know more than we know now, an answer
may be forthcoming.
In this particular case, the
answer seems to lie along geography, and something of archeology, because if you
study these things, there were in fact two Jericho’s. Those of you who have been
to Israel, as I have, if you’ve been to Jericho you’ll come across the fact that
there are two–and if archeologists are correct, there are actually three–sites
called Jericho. There is an “old Jericho” and there is “new Jericho”. And
possibly what we have is that Mark is telling us He was leaving Old Jericho, and
Luke is telling us that He was entering New Jericho…and they are separated by
about half a mile or a mile or so, and that would seem to be an explanation that
at least I can live with and sleep content at night, knowing that my affirmation
of the inerrancy of Scripture hasn’t in the least bit been torn asunder!
Well, that aside, let’s turn now
to Mark’s Gospel, in chapter ten, and beginning to read at verse 46.
“And they came to Jericho. And as He was leaving Jericho with His disciples and
a great crowd, Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by
the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry
out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And many rebuked him,
telling him to be silent, but cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy
on me!” And Jesus stopped and said, ‘Call him.’ And they called the blind man,
saying to him, ‘Take heart! Get up! He is calling you.’ And throwing off his
cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want
Me to do for you?’ And the blind man said to Him, ‘Rabbi, let me recover my
sight!’ And Jesus said to him, ‘God your way; your faith has made you well.’
And immediately he recovered his sight and followed Him on the way.”
Amen. And may God bless to us the reading of His holy and
inerrant word.
I want to focus tonight on, first of all,
Bartimaeus; and then, secondly, on Jesus.
I. First of all, this man
Bartimaeus.
Now, there’s this man. (Matthew has two
blind men. Mark is only interested perhaps in just one of them, and he only
refers to this one. He’s the one, after all, that the story is focused upon.)
And he’s sitting beside the road (the road leaving Jericho), I suppose not
unlike the occasional man that you might see here in the city–bereft of good
clothing, maybe sometimes holding a cardboard box cut out, “Homeless – hungry.”
I suppose our reaction to that can often be mixed for a variety of reasons, and
I imagine that the reaction to Bartimaeus over the years had been something
similar. He’s sitting beside the roadside, and he has a cloak, and before him,
perhaps, part of the cloak is stretched out, sitting on the ground, and part of
that cloak is stretched out on the ground, and on it, perhaps, some
coins…passers-by throwing down a coin or two, just enough to buy him some
bread and food to eat.
This is Passover. In the next
chapter it’s the triumphal entry as Jesus goes to Jerusalem. It’s Passover
time. Passover was an occasion when tens of thousands of people, perhaps even
hundreds of thousands of people…some conjecture Jerusalem would triple in size
during Passover…many of them would come by Jericho. Jericho is to the east of
Jerusalem, about 15 miles, about 800 feet below Jerusalem. When you’re going to
Jerusalem, to Zion, you’re going up hill, of course. Many of them coming from
the north would come down on the eastern side of the River Jordan and cross over
towards Jericho, and up towards Jerusalem, in order to avoid going through the
Samaritan District. Others, Diaspora Jews from the Far East, would make their
way that way towards Jericho as the entry point towards Jerusalem. Hundreds,
thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people would pass along this road in the
course of these days.
It was like Christmas for
Bartimaeus. Perhaps he would make enough money during these days to last him
for several weeks, perhaps even months. This is how he had lived. We don’t
know if he had been blind from birth. Perhaps he had been. He was a beggar in a
day without any kind of Social Security system of governmental proportions. This
is how he would survive. Others like him, crippled, would be brought by members
of their family and placed there in the morning, early in the morning, at dawn,
perhaps, in order that the crowds passing by would give him something.
And he overhears the
conversation. (You know, blind people often have an acute sense of hearing.) And
he’s listening to the conversations, and the conversation is about this man
Jesus of Nazareth. He’s in Jericho! He’s coming towards Bartimaeus! What has
he heard about Jesus of Nazareth (or, to be more precise, Jesus the Nazarene,
the text says)? It’s hard to know how much Bartimaeus knew about Jesus. Had
he heard stories about a miraculous birth thirty years ago? Had he heard that
at the age of twelve this Jesus of Nazareth, as a boy, had come down to
Jerusalem and gone to the temple and astonished the Scribes and the teachers?
Had he heard, perhaps, that up north in Galilee He had called twelve disciples
together, and they had been following Him, and they’d traveled throughout the
regions of Galilee and performed astonishing miracles? Had he heard little
snippets of what Jesus had been teaching in the Sermon on the Mount? He might
have heard that Jesus on one occasion had walked on the Sea of Galilee, had
stilled a storm; a Gadarene, a demoniac, had been brought back to his right
mind, a man called Legion; that in Capernaum a daughter of a wealthy ruler
called Jairus had been brought back to life after she had been pronounced dead.
And had he heard that in Bethesda they had brought a blind man to Jesus, and
Jesus had spat on his eyes and the man had been healed?
And now this man, this Jesus of
Nazareth, is there, right in front of him! He could hear the crowds, and within
a stone’s throw–maybe even closer–Jesus, this miracle worker from up north in
Galilee, He’s right there! He can hear His voice, and he realizes that a moment
has come, is passing by him that may never pass by him again: an opportunity to
do something, to say something, and it has to do with this man, Jesus the
Nazarene.
So he shouts out, “Son of David, have mercy on
me!” You can imagine it: He’s sitting there, his head is going back and fro…
he can’t quite lock on where Jesus is, he just knows that He’s there somewhere
in the crowd…and he’s shouting, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
If you’d lived in these days,
or just before these days, you would have heard in deeply religious circles the
expression “Son of David.” It would mean different things in different
settings, but for Bartimaeus it looked as though what Bartimaeus is saying is
[that] this is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy with regard to the
Messiah.
Now, I don’t know how much of the
Old Testament Bartimaeus knew. We’re told so very little about his background,
but he knew enough to know that there was a promise, there was a story
that had been passed down from generation to generation, that had been taught in
temple and in synagogue: that One would come of the lineage of David–a king,
ruler, a messiah figure–who would deliver His people. And maybe Bartimaeus was
familiar with the prophecy of Isaiah in that thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah,
that song of praise and joy: that one of the things that would occur when
Messiah would come, when the Son of David would manifest His rule and kingship,
would be that the blind would be enabled to see.
You remember when John the
Baptist was in prison, and he lost his assurance. And he sent some disciples to
Jesus to ask if He really was the Messiah. And you remember what Jesus said to
those disciples? “Go and tell John what you see and hear.” And one of the
things that they saw was that the blind had received their sight in fulfillment
of that prophecy.
So, what does he do? What does
Bartimaeus do? Verse 47: “He began to cry out….”; verse 48: “He cried out
all the more….” He wasn’t going to be stopped.
Now, there were some who tried to
shush him up. There were some who thought that he shouldn’t be making this
commotion, particularly when Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. His faith in
Jesus would overcome all these obstacles. He wasn’t going to cease until he had
received an answer. He wasn’t concerned about what others were thinking: that
he was a nuisance, that he was embarrassing. There were those who would try to
prevent him from having fellowship with Jesus.
When I was converted, I was
eighteen years of age, and I had been converted about two days or so, and I went
to the local Anglican church. And I remember the words of the vicar as I told
him after the service that I had been converted. And he put his arm around my
shoulders and he said, “Derek, too much religion is a very bad thing!”
This man would not be silenced. This was his
opportunity. Something momentous was passing by. This was his opportunity. You
know there are moments like that, God-given opportunities when Jesus is passing
by. This man believed. He found himself a beggar. He had nothing to offer
Jesus. He’s poor, he’s destitute, he’s in need. And what does he do? He takes
his troubles to Jesus, and he cries out, “Have mercy on me!” He wasn’t claiming
his rights. He wasn’t claiming his status. He wasn’t claiming his privileges.
He didn’t have any. He didn’t come to Jesus and say that Jesus owed him
something. He didn’t come with a list of complaints about how hard life had
been, and how unfair that he should be blind. He simply cried for mercy. He
simply cried for mercy.
I wonder, as we were singing that
hymn–you can blame me, I chose it!–the one in the bulletin. This is a
Presbyterian hymn if ever you saw one! “Lord, I deserve Thy deepest…” Well,
Brad said, “Wrath”–and I say “Wroth” “…my heart is vile, my mind depraved, my
flesh rebels against Thy will. I am polluted in Thy sight, yet Lord, have mercy
on me still!”
Why do we sing hymns like that?
Because they’re true. Because that’s what we are. Like Bartimaeus, the only
thing that we can say in the presence of Almighty God is, “Lord, have
mercy. Lord, have mercy.” It’s grace that he asked for. It’s grace that
he pled for. He didn’t ask for what he deserved, he asked for grace. He didn’t
come saying, ‘This is what I think is owed me.’ He didn’t come saying, ‘This is
what I can give to You, Jesus.’ This is Bartimaeus, poor, blind, needy beggar
at the side of the road, pleading mercy from Jesus Christ.
II. Well, let’s look in the second
place at Jesus.
I want you to see several things
about the way Jesus responded to Bartimaeus, and they’re overwhelming.
The first thing I want you to
notice is that Jesus didn’t answer him immediately. It may not be that
obvious, but it’s there. This man had been crying out for a while. They had
been trying to silence him. Jesus didn’t respond on the first shout. Why is
that? It’s not, I think, that Jesus hadn’t heard him on the first occasion. I
think, from all that we can discern from this passage, Bartimaeus belted it out
at the top of his lungs. He wanted Jesus to hear him. But He doesn’t respond
until verse 49. Why does Jesus do that? Why does He allow this blind man to get
all worked up? Why doesn’t He respond to him straightaway? We want to say,
don’t we, that Jesus hears our prayers and our cries before we’ve even uttered
them? Isn’t there a wonderful example of that in the Book of Daniel in the
tenth chapter? Remember his praying? And an angel is sent to him immediately,
but he takes a while to get there because he finds himself in a spiritual
battle, and Michael has to come in order to win that battle, and eventually the
angel comes and puts his hand on Daniel and reassures him that his prayer is
heard.
Why does Jesus make us wait?
To make us more appreciative; to make absolutely sure the reason why we’re
coming to Jesus in the first place.
When I was twelve…my
grandfather died when I was seven. He had a marvelous record collection. I’ve
told you something of this before. For a twelve-year-old it was Aladdin’s
cave! It was Paradise! He had several hundred, perhaps three-, four-hundred
LP’s. And when I was twelve, I summoned up all my courage. I went to my
grandmother (who really had very little appreciation of these LP’s, I thought as
a twelve-year-old)–and I summoned up the courage, and I said to her, “Can I have
them?” And she said, “No.” But what she did was, she said, “If you come every
Saturday afternoon and you cut my grass and weed the garden, I’ll give you one
every now and then.” (And it was every “now” and more “then” than now!) I
remember–oh, I must have been fourteen or so–when I finally inherited the double
album of Brahms’s German Requiem, which I had coveted for almost two
years, and I treasured it. I absolutely treasured it.
Jesus is making Bartimaeus wait.
He’s making him wait.
Do you notice–and it’s wonderful–that Jesus stops?
Many rebuked him…look at verse 48: “Many rebuked him, telling him to be
silent, but he cried out all the more”; and verse 49: “And Jesus stopped….”
Imagine if this were a movie, and the camera now would be fixed on Jesus’ feet,
because all of a sudden He has come to a stop, and all the crowd that are
following Him out of Jericho towards Jerusalem have all come to a standstill;
and there’s a moment, I imagine, of silence, and all you would hear is
Bartimaeus bellowing in the background, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
The cry of a desperate man has
brought Jesus to a stop. Isn’t that a marvelous thing? That the cry of a
desperate man has brought the creator of the universe, the Lord of glory, the
Son of God, to a stop? He’s heard his cry. The Lord of glory is standing
still for this man.
And then He calls him, and then
He says to him the most astonishing thing: “What do you want Me to do for you?”
The answer is obvious! Of course he wants his sight! But Jesus wants Bartimaeus
to vocalize it. Isn’t that one of the most remarkable questions that you will
ever hear? The Lord of glory saying, “What do you want Me to do for you? What
do you want Me to do for you?” James and John had asked if one could sit on His
left and the other on His right, and Jesus had said, “It’s not mine to give.”
But what will this man ask? What will Bartimaeus ask? Jesus comes to
Bartimaeus, and He says, ‘Bartimaeus, name it! Just name it! What do you want
Me to do for you?’
And what would you say? For
perhaps as long as Bartimaeus could remember, the one thing that he wanted more
than anything else was money to buy food, but that’s not what he wants. “Let me
recover my sight.” I want to be able to see. And Jesus heals him, like that!
In an instant, with that immediacy that Mark so much loves, that is so
characteristic of the way Mark writes his Gospel. “Your faith has healed you.”
Bartimaeus’ faith in Jesus as the Son of David, Rabboni, says to Him, ‘My
Master!’ The only other person who uses this term is Mary Magdalene in the
resurrection story in John 20. Faith is the instrument that healed him: faith
not in itself, but faith that is rooted and grounded and lodged in Jesus Christ.
Bartimaeus knew that this man, Jesus the Nazarene, could provide him with
something that would change his life entirely.
You understand that when the
Gospel writers include these miracle stories, they do so because they want us to
see that in these miracles there are signs of the kingdom, and signs of the
King. And here is the King, here is Messiah, here is the Son of David
demonstrating His power.
At one level, of course, this is
a story about a blind man receiving his sight, but you understand there’s
another story here. There’s a metanarrative, if you like, here. And Jesus is
going to Jerusalem, and in Jerusalem He will be betrayed, and in Jerusalem He
will be crucified, and He will be crucified on behalf of sinners. He’s come to
rescue those who are blind and those who cannot see! The Messiah is here! The
Mediator is here! The One promised in Genesis 3, the seed of the woman that
would crush the head of Satan, He’s here! And these signs and powers and
wonders are insignia of His deity; they are the paraphernalia of His majesty.
And Bartimaeus had a glimpse–just a little glimpse–of it, and he can see
spiritually, and he can see physically.
You know, Jesus never went this
way again. He would never be in Jericho again. He would never be on this road
again. If Bartimaeus had heeded the people who were telling him to be quiet, if
he had allowed Jesus to pass, he would have been without mercy forever.
Now, it may well be this evening
that Jesus is passing by you in the gospel, in the preaching of the word, and in
the singing of that hymn, so dour as it was, exposing our sin and our depravity
and our need of mercy.
It may well be, my friend, that
Jesus is passing by you tonight. And Jesus hears your cries as you say
to Him, ‘Lord, I, too, am lost; and I, too, am blind; and I, too, cannot see;
and I’ve tasted of the broken cisterns of this world and they’ve all come up
empty.’ And I say to you, you go home tonight and you fall on your knees. And
without hesitation, you tell Him, you tell Him that you’re lost and guilty, and
poor and wretched, and blind; and you say to Him–and you keep on saying to
Him–‘Lord, have mercy on me! Have mercy on me!’ Tell Him you want to be a
Christian. Tell Him you want the assurance of saving faith in your heart. Tell
Him you want to be a child of God and an heir of glory. Tell Him you want your
sins forgiven, your guilt wiped out. Tell Him you want to be born again.
And you see that last verse:
“…he recovered his sight and followed Him on the way.” Isn’t that beautiful?
He followed Him to Jerusalem. Bartimaeus, you know, he was blind! You’d think
the first thing he’d want to do was to go and say hello to his father or his
mother, or his brothers or sisters, or people that took care of him on a day to
day basis; or he might want to see at last what Jericho actually looked like.
But his entire gaze is fixed on Jesus, and he’s following Him along the road
that was leading to Jerusalem. He followed Him along the way.
Do you know that hymn? – “Lord,
I was blind, I could not see in Thy marred visage any grace; but now the beauty
of Thy face in radiant vision dawns on me…the beauty of Thy face in radiant
vision dawns on me.” Oh, may it be so for you, dear friend, tonight, as you
turn to this same Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and who
promises us in His word that they who cry to Him for mercy, He will in no wise
cast out.
Let’s pray together.
Our God and our Father, we
thank You for these beautiful stories of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and
we pray for anyone amongst us on this Memorial weekend who may well be in
darkness and have no light, who may well be spiritually blind, their eyes never
having been opened. Lord, hear their cry this evening and bring them to see the
marvelous light and glory that shines in the face of Jesus Christ. For Jesus’
sake we ask it. Amen.
Please stand, receive the Lord’s
benediction.
Grace, mercy, and peace from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
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