Jesus Heals Blind Bartimaeus

Morning, church.

Reading from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10, verses 46 to 52.

Mark 10:46–52

And they came to Jericho, and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a 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 he 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, Go your way.

Your faith has made you well.

And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.

This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

Good morning.

That extra, whoa, it just got dark to everybody, right?

That uh um extra hour of sleep you guys are really using, maximizing the energy.

I I'm not like a MC, so I'm not gonna say, let's try that again.

Good morning.

But if I did, then I imagine that it would be louder and we would all be able to do it together.

Thanks for joining us.

My name is James Raspman, I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

Um we uh we had an extra hour last night, just like the rest of you, and we were still like barely here.

Why is that?

I don't uh oh daylight savings time.

That's right.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Let's pray, and uh we'll look at we'll look at today's text together.

Holy Father, thank you for bringing us here.

Thank you for this weekly uh gathering which which shows up, Lord, I think sometimes just in time for my soul.

Lord, I uh thank you uh for the ability to gather and sing together with our church, to uh recognize uh the the work that you are doing, to see the faces and uh and see the diversity of ways that you're working in so many people's lives here.

Lord, we just praise you for that.

We praise you that you call us together uh to sing with one voice, that we may worship and praise you, Lord.

Lord, you are worthy of our praise for your glory and your honor and for the depth of your love and your mercy towards us.

Lord, I pray this morning that as you have revealed yourself to us in Jesus Christ, as shown to us in your word, that we would see you as you truly are, how you have truly revealed yourself to us, that we may know you and love you in truth.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So last week I preached for like three hours, and we were preaching on uh this central passage in Mark's gospel, and it this what's really the central verse, which is Mark 10, 45, which says, For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

And so right after that, Jesus is continuing with the disciples and this great crowd on his march to Jerusalem.

They're heading there for the Passover feast, but Christ, as he has explained to his disciples, is heading there that he might be crucified, that he might lay his life down.

And we see that on uh so I want us to consider on a walk like that, where you are set on this mission which is has the the most the most dire outcome, the most intense circumstances that you could possibly be walking towards.

How are you walking?

What's your disposition?

As Christ comes nearer and nearer to Jerusalem, the reality of his circumstances, you can you can sort of imagine are beginning to settle.

You know, he's moving closer to that garden of Gethsemane, where we'll see the intensity of uh what he experiences reach it reach a sort of climax in his own heart.

I know that I would not be easily interrupted.

I would think that, look, you guys don't understand what I'm going through and what I'm heading towards.

So I I wouldn't be easily taken off course.

I I wouldn't be it, there wouldn't be many things where it'd be like, oh, can I help you, you know, with tie your shoe or something?

I don't know when that happens.

With children, it happens all the time.

But I know that even when I'm just like doing low stakes things, like like reading over this text to prepare for a sermon, I don't like to be interrupted.

Uh John Gam, who's right there, shared with me this phrase that they use in the army.

I'll take his word for it.

Which I I really love.

It's a it's it's really sticky, but it's mission first, people always.

Isn't that a good phrase?

Mission first, people always.

And we just see Jesus embody that type of dynamic in the in this almost these almost impossible circumstances, the most extreme circumstances we could imagine.

He's walking towards the wrath of God.

He's called out to by a blind beggar.

The crowd does not want to be interrupted on their march, and Jesus is able to be interrupted on this mission.

This is the heart of our Savior.

So let's look at this story in more detail.

Mark 10, verse 46.

Mark 10:46

And they came to Jericho, and as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside.

You know, before I jump in here, this is one of those stories where Jesus heals a blind man and he can see.

And oftentimes we read these stories in scripture, and it's like, okay, another one of those.

And in fact, this is the second one of these stories that we've seen just in Mark, where Jesus heals a blind man.

But when we see a repeated theme like this, it's really a cue.

Okay, slow down and pay particular attention to the details.

Because Mark is really showing us something in the details of the story.

So as this one begins, we see Jesus comes into Jericho, and on his way out of Jericho, he is uh encountered uh by a blind beggar who's sitting by the roadside.

So Mark mentions Jericho twice.

It's an important city in Israel's history.

It's the first city that is conquered when they enter the promised land under Joshua's guidance.

And do you remember how they conquered it?

Marching around the city seven times.

That's right.

They they march around the city for six days, they march around silently, and then on the seventh day they march around seven times, and then that seventh time they're commanded to shout and to blow their horns and to blow the trumpets, and that with just by their shouting, God works in such a way that the walls of this great fortress city come crashing down, and the city is conquered.

It's given over into their hands.

And so the first little slice of the promised land is given into the hands under Joshua by the shouting.

This is also a story about shouting.

Yep.

There's a uh uh this is a story, this is a story uh about about shouting and about bringing down walls.

On the way into to uh Jericho, or on the way out of Jericho, rather, there's a man sitting by the roadside, and he's a blind beggar, and his name is Bartimaeus.

Mark is the gospel which always gives us the best details, and so we learn the names of all these people.

This man's name is Bartimaeus, which means son of Timaeus.

He's a blind beggar, and those things often went hand in hand.

Uh in his blindness, he he found himself unable to provide for himself, and he had to live just on the generosity of others.

He's relegated to the margin of society.

Bartimaeus is a weird name.

Bar is Aramaic for son, and Timaeus is Greek for honored.

So already he's this marginal character because he's blind and a beggar, and so he's pushed to the edges of society.

But we also see that he's he's a mixed character, he's kind of a two-culture kid, because he's got this Aramaic name and this Greek name.

But his name means son of the honored.

Son of the honored.

Now, in in we know that Mark is trying to emphasize this because he says his name is Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus, which is redundant.

He's calling us to, he's just saying, like, look, look at what this means.

Isn't it weird that that's his name, Bartimaeus?

And how ironic.

This one who is this mixture on the margin, who fits in nowhere, he's a peripheral person, he can't even see, and he has to beg for his own survival, his name is Son of the Honored.

Son of the Honored.

That's a strange name for someone like that.

But as he cries out in today's story, we'll see that he lives up to his name.

So in Mark 10, 47, it says, When he heard, that's Bartimaeus, that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

So you can imagine that he's just sitting on the side, and crowds likely at this time were just passing by with relative frequency, because everybody's heading through Jericho, which is like the entrance city towards Jerusalem.

They're heading through Jericho to Jerusalem for the great Passover feast.

And this crowd must have had something peculiar about it, maybe it was a bit bigger or a bit louder or something.

The next story is the triumphal entry, and so these are the same people that were involved with the triumphal entry, and you know, they're shouting Hosanna in the highest, and they're uh uh, you know, there it seemed like there's some energy in that crowd.

Like, for example, if I would have walked up to that crowd and said, Good morning, would have would have been blown away, you know.

Did you guys get an extra hour of sleep?

I would have said, and we all would have high-fived.

They're shouting out, uh, and what he hears from the crowd, and perhaps he just asks, Who's walking by?

What is this crowd walking by?

And he hears, it's Jesus of Nazareth.

Jesus of Nazareth is it's like Jesus' most pedestrian name.

It's just the town that he was from.

And Nazareth, it, you know, does anything good come from Nazareth?

That's right.

Nazareth does a, it's a, it's, it's the smallest possible, it's almost like the safest designation that could be given to Jesus.

And so the crowd is relaying, we're following Jesus of Nazareth.

That guy, you know, who's kind of got this following is this exciting teacher.

But Bartimaeus hears that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by, and he doesn't call out Jesus of Nazareth.

What he cries out is the son of David, the rightful king, the one to whom the eternal throne belongs.

This is the only time in Mark's gospel in which Jesus is referred to as the son of David.

And he's referred to as the son of David just here by the blind man, Bartimaeus.

And he calls out, he beseeches Jesus in this way where we see that in that cry, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

We see that Bartimaeus understands almost in a peculiar way what he's witnessing.

Jesus.

They're outside of Jericho.

You know, Jesus and Joshua, they're the same name.

Both mean Savior.

And Joshua is the one who leads them into the promised land through Jericho.

And so just shouting out Joshua outside the wall outside the walls of Jericho is there's there's something there.

You know, there's a kingly announcement there.

And then to say, son of David, to announce the that David is promised an eternal throne from the Lord.

And they're in an occupied territory where to all of the Jewish people, they know something is wrong because we don't have a king on the throne.

And he is shouting out, the king is here.

And then what does he beg of this king?

Have mercy on me.

He understands that the one who is the highest, the one who is the one who will sit on that eternal throne that is promised to the Son of David, is also the one who will come to him as a savior, and the one that who will come to him and have mercy on him.

That is what he's begging for.

It's amazing what Bartimaeus is able to see.

He's shouting.

He's shouting outside the walls of Jericho.

And the walls will come down.

But they are bigger walls than had ever come down in Jericho before.

The walls that will come down are the walls between God and man, as our sin is atoned for.

They're the walls between Jew and Gentile.

That strangeness of Barmaeus' name, that hybrid name, these two identities which are impossible to hold together.

That's something that's like sort of almost the way to see Bartimaeus.

Is like he's these two things that is split, and because of his splitness, he has no place.

He is Greek and Hebrew.

There's no place for him.

He is the the honored son and the blind beggar.

He he is no he is nowhere.

It's like he's constantly canceling himself out.

The walls will come down.

That's what will happen for Bartimaeus.

Jesus walks in because he says that he will tear down the temple and he will rebuild it in three days.

Jesus is walking to tear down walls.

And there's one man of faith who is shouting.

The crowd doesn't like it.

In Mark 10, 48, and many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.

But he cried out all the more, Son of David, have mercy on me.

Now why is it that the crowd rebukes him?

The answer is almost everything about the situation is why the crowd rebukes him.

The crowd is marching towards Jerusalem.

And there's this simple level of we have this energy and this momentum of what is happening here.

We've rallied behind this teacher, and we've got some sort of understanding of an excitement that's happening, and our destination is Jerusalem, they can't be interrupted.

So just the simplicity of they're on mission and they can't be interrupted.

Secondly, who Bartimaeus is?

This blind beggar on the fringe of society.

If anyone lived in Jericho, they probably knew him.

They'd heard his shouts for money before.

They'd heard his cries for some sort of blessing.

Perhaps they had ignored him before.

Or perhaps they had given him something before and saw, oh, this seems fruitless.

You could just, you could be doing that forever.

He's the type of guy who just belongs on the margin.

Also, we read elsewhere in scripture that, particularly blindness, if this man was born blind, then there's a suspicion that he was blind because of his own sin or because of the sin of his parents.

So he's on the margin and he ought to be on the margin.

And so we aren't going to bring this man in.

And it's for some reason, right now, he's trying to make himself the center of things.

One man we see break through a crowd and get to Jesus, and then the crowd is fine with it.

And that's Jairus, who was a ruler in the synagogue.

And his daughter was sick.

And Jairus had this position in society where he was able to just march up to Jesus and say, Hey, I need a healing real quick.

And the crowd is just like, yeah, that makes sense.

He's the type of guy who has a status that's able to do that.

The blind beggar, who literally fits nowhere, who's got the most perfectly ironic name, is not the one who we're gonna let come to this great teacher.

He's he needs to stop shouting.

It's almost like he's trying to make this about him.

He doesn't understand, and how could he understand?

He can't even see what's happening.

And third, why they would rebuke him is what he is shouting.

He's shouting son of David.

This is revolutionary language.

The crowd is referring to Jesus in these safe terms.

Jesus of Nazareth.

Yeah, I think that's something we can all, I can handle that.

Jesus of Nazareth, that's not that bad.

He's got some wonderful insights into Scripture that I think we can all really glean a lot from.

And if you incorporate them into your life, you'll find that you'll be um you'll be a you'll 10x your productivity.

Jesus of Nazareth.

He's not saying Jesus of Nazareth.

He's saying in the most plain terms, the king.

The king is walking in.

The king is here.

Now they have a king.

Caesar is their king.

That's revolutionary type of language to say that the king is walking here.

So now this crowd, which is able to safely follow Jesus of Nazareth, and they're able to even share some excitement about following Jesus of Nazareth, if there now there's a guy here who is putting a bit too fine a point on it, he's saying the one who's walking through here is the Lord of everything.

He is the king of kings.

He is the one to whom belongs the eternal promised throne that was promised by God to him.

Now, when you're walking in that crowd, you've picked a side.

Now you're on a team with an enemy.

That's different than just walking behind Jesus of Nazareth.

Nazareth is, you know, no big deal.

But the son of David, that's that's putting a pretty fine point on it.

Now there's stakes for all of us.

We could sort of agree to ignore the kingdom that this guy keeps talking about and what that might mean for us, and what that might mean to establish us with him.

It means, oh, we also get his enemies.

So they don't want him to be shouting son of David.

They're fine with him shouting Jesus of Nazareth, perhaps.

But that guy, shouting son of David, he obviously is blind.

Because he doesn't understand the stakes of a statement like that.

Can't you see?

Bartimaeus is the only one who sees.

The crowd is willing to gather with Jesus of Nazareth.

But the blind man who has no place is the only one who sees this is the Son of David.

How do you think he might know that?

Well, who can heal the blind?

You know, he's shouting because he's probably heard the story of when this man, this Jesus, healed another blind man.

And he thought, there's someone out there like that.

This is not.

We are not dealing with a teacher.

Even the people who might have witnessed Jesus healing a blind man, you know, there's something to his understanding, the existential reality of his understanding or his curiosity about something like that.

Where, because of his blindness in that sense, he's able to pierce through and realize the one who could heal the blind, only God can heal the blind.

This is the promised one.

This is the Messiah.

The one who has healing in his hands is here.

So he calls him out and he names him rightly.

You know, just before this story, the what we looked at last week, James and John were arguing about who would be greatest in the kingdom of God.

And Jesus explains to him that if you would be first, you must be last of all and servant of all.

And he shares that strange expression, which has been this frequent refrain throughout Jesus' whole ministry: many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.

And then we see Bartimaeus.

It's the next person we see.

If anybody is last, Bartimaeus is last.

And he sees.

And so the crowd rebukes him.

And Jesus does not rebuke him.

Mark 10, 49.

And Jesus stopped and said, Call him.

And they called the blind man, saying to him, Take heart, get up.

He's calling you.

The last man that Jesus healed, the last blind man that Jesus healed was in Mark chapter 8.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

And these are kind of bookends to this section of Jesus' ministry.

Mark chapter 8, the healing of this blind man, and then the healing of the blind man on the way into Jerusalem.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

And they're like perfect opposites of each other.

In Mark chapter 8, there's a blind man who is presented to him by a village.

Mark 8 · chapter mention

And Jesus takes the man out of the village and takes him alone into a private place.

And he heals the blind man in secret and in this progressive way.

There's sort of like this progressive revelation that Jesus gives to the blind man.

He puts mud on his eyes and he cleans them off and he's like, How do you see?

And he's like, People look like trees, and then he cleanses them off again.

And there's this there's this progressive, intimate, secret nature to the way that Jesus reveals himself to that blind man.

And then once that man was healed, he says, Don't go back into the village.

Jesus is basically saying, like, don't, like, let me give me some time to get out of here.

Because I've noticed that when I do things like this, it tends to draw a crowd.

And so he he performs this in total secret away from the village.

This time, Jesus doesn't go to the man himself and say, hey, let's, yeah, I know, crowds aren't really my thing either.

And he gets over to the side and heals him.

Instead, he tells the crowd to call him, and he tells the people in the crowd to go get him.

And this is the only place in Scripture in which Jesus is not the one saying, take heart.

Take heart is a Jesus phrase.

So I think we can sort of take from that, Jesus told them what to say.

You know, doesn't it seem like the crowd made a weird switch here?

Where they're like, stop talking, Bartimaeus, you're always yelling to take heart.

I think what we can sort of glean from that is that the take heart speech was not their idea.

You know, they're doing what they're told to go get Bartimaeus.

But what we should see here is that Jesus is making this as public as he possibly can.

And why is that?

What was the secrecy?

The secrecy is Jesus is establishing this ministry, and he is giving himself this sort of time to explain the nature of his ministry and to provide people the opportunity to know what it means that he is the Messiah, that they might not mistake it for a mere political savior, that they might not mistake it for a revolution in an overthrow of the current occupiers in the way that they might have seen Joshua going into Jericho to overthrow the Canaanites.

Instead, Jesus lives in this secret moment.

But now, when they're going into Jerusalem, Jesus is no longer in the business of preserving his time in ministry.

He is absolutely exposing himself to the crowd and to all the dangers that come with it.

Because this is his ministry.

That he would come to gather his enemies against him, that they would kill him.

His life is not being taken from him.

He is laying it down freely.

And we see that even here as Jesus does this most dangerous thing, which is that he identifies with the one who is calling him the son of David, because he understands he's right.

I am.

And that is a costly name to be called in this town.

Sometimes I just think of it in terms of a Western.

That's a c I reckon.

That's a costly name to be called in this town, to be called the Son of David here means that you are naming your enemies.

You're taking sides, but that's what Jesus is here to do.

And so, in like a perfect opposite to the hidden healing of Mark 8, he involves the crowd and has them call them to himself.

But he calls the man and he says, Take heart.

This is the way Jesus calls.

He calls us to comfort us.

He calls us to heal us.

He calls us to restore us, to bring us into a real and direct relationship with him, the true and merciful King.

This is what the call of Jesus means.

And that's the very call that he gets.

Take heart.

Jesus is calling you.

All the reasons that the man was rebuked by the crowd are ignored by Jesus.

And of all the crowd, Jesus has the most reason to silence him.

It's the most dangerous for him that he would be called the Son of David.

It's the most of just, you know, even forget the danger element, just what he knows he's walking towards.

They're heading, they're taking this huge group towards Jerusalem.

And he's able to be interrupted on that mission by like the definition of a no one.

The most peripheral, the most dangerous, the most peripheral.

Jesus is able to be interrupted by.

What is the man like?

What is Jesus like?

I bet if he were walking to his very own cross and you needed help, he'd stop and help you.

It's what he's like.

Mark 10, 50 through 51.

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.

He throws off his cloak.

He sprang up and came to Jesus.

He throws off his cloak, he jumps up and goes to Jesus.

You throw off your cloak to run.

You're meant to love this man.

When you're reading this, you're meant to say, I love this guy.

This is the uh think of the faith that he's showing, the resilience that he shows.

Look, he when it talks about him being rebuked for crying out, it says he cried out all the more.

Son of David, have mercy on me.

He can't be he can't be stopped.

And then the the blind man, when Jesus calls him to himself, he runs to where he thinks Jesus is.

Just the courage of this man.

He knows that there's this sense of I'm running into a crowd that doesn't like me.

But and I can't even really see.

But Jesus is in that crowd.

So they couldn't stop me from shouting, and now he called me.

They are not going to stop me from running.

This is the disposition of the heart that sees who Jesus is.

Perhaps you have a disability that can't be healed.

Perhaps you have a disposition in your heart, a sinful disposition in your heart that plagues you.

Perhaps you have some financial or family circumstance that you can't overcome or you can't resolve.

Perhaps you are a torn person like Bartimaeus, where it feels like the way you are, you've got no home.

And the man who could fix it was walking by.

How would you call?

How would you go to him?

If he really could.

The man who could really resolve it.

If he was walking by.

Even if you had to stumble blindly, you'd get to him.

Jesus to the lowest man in the group in these verses, he he positions himself as a servant.

It's all that Jesus said he was here to do last week.

For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.

Here's the lowest among them.

If you would be first among me, you must be least of all and servant of all.

And Jesus, the blind man, approaches Jesus, and he doesn't, the son of David doesn't hold out his ring that it might be kissed.

He says, What what do you want me to do for you?

It's the way servants talk.

What do you want me to do for you?

Do you see what he's like?

He asks for something impossible.

He says, let me recover my sight.

I can't be done.

Who can make a blind man see?

You ask that.

You would only ask for that if you had true faith of who you were talking to.

If you believed this is the son of David, this is the promised one, he is merciful, and he will be merciful to me.

I can ask him for the impossible.

The scripture is shouting to us.

This sort of refrain that it's the least of these who are able to see, that it's the blind who are able to see Jesus.

In Mark 8, before the last healing that we saw of the man that uh the blind man that Jesus had previously healed.

That took place right at the end of this conversation, where Jesus had just fed the 5,000.

The disciples get into the boat, and Jesus is like, Beware the leaven of the Pharisees, and they say, We forgot the bread.

They're literally like, We left, we forgot the I always walk out and leave the leftovers, you know?

And Jesus, aware of this, said to them in verses 17 through 18, Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread?

Do you not yet perceive or understand?

Are your hearts hardened?

Having eyes, do you not see?

Having ears do you not hear?

And do you not remember?

And then they go and they heal, Jesus heals a blind man right after that.

Jesus is able to make the blind see.

Even the disciples.

It's almost like he heals the blind man because he says, look, you of your weak faith, you can't see.

But I can make the blind see.

I can make people of weak faith like yours.

I can make you see.

But here, the man who is blind, the least of these, is able to see.

And finally, in 1052, Jesus said to him, Go your way, your faith has made you well.

And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.

Can you imagine the crowd?

The crowd that had rebuked him.

And he says, Your faith has made you well.

He commends him before the whole group, and he says, Go your way.

He grants him his freedom in a sense.

And he calls him to him and he honors him before the group, before this crowd that had rebuked him.

It's honestly, it's like Jesus rebukes the whole crowd.

He says, You guys were walking with me, but you wouldn't identify with me like him.

You didn't trust me like he did.

You didn't know, you wouldn't use my real name, not in public, in a crowd like this.

But he has this great faith where he would leave, he would shout out his allegiance to me.

He would shout out his hope of who I am.

He would even come to me with the greatest, most impossible need.

And he would hold it before me and honor me as the one who can fix this great need.

His faith has made him well.

That blind man, he's the one who can see here.

And now he can see just like the rest of you.

Immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.

Jesus heals the man in this most public way.

I want us to just look at this.

First of all, is it possible that there is some great need of yours that is unmet by Christ because you've listened to the rebuke of the crowd?

Because if you've called out his name, someone told you stop.

Don't identify with him.

It's harmful.

And then we don't meet him.

And we just sit in in whatever this need is of ours.

Is it possible that we listen to the rebuke of the crowd?

Maybe let's approach it this way.

Why is it that Bartimaeus didn't listen to the rebuke of the crowd?

Well, he already didn't have the crowd.

He had no one.

He had no place to lose.

Why is it that he clung against the opposition to his hope in Jesus?

It was because he understood I could have everything to gain from him.

I could see.

This is the man who can heal the blind.

Find me another.

And I'll shout just as much.

That's right, there isn't one.

So for now, while he's walking by, I'm gonna call out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

So why do we listen to the rebukes of the crowd?

You have too much to lose.

The crowd offers too much.

You have too much to lose.

And you don't have enough to gain.

Because you know that the thing that you're facing, or this particular proclivity, or whatever, whatever it is that you have resigned yourself to.

You know Jesus probably can't help with that.

You're not calling out the one, you're not calling out to the one who sits on the eternal throne.

So we we should be inspired by Bartimaeus when we see this.

Inspired by Bartimaeus' faith.

To see, look, what is it that I truly have to lose?

I don't have anything to lose.

Whatever I'm identified with here that feels like a loss to me, that that would stand in my way of receiving Jesus, shake it off.

Reminds me of a song.

Wildest Dreams.

That you would have faith like the lowly.

Oh, that you would have faith like the lowly.

Steinbeck says, if you need help, go to the poor.

They will help you.

If you need faith, go to the lowly.

They will show you.

Look at his faith.

His name became Bartimaeus when Jesus called him to him.

The last thing to see is who is it that your faith is in?

He's he.

Oh.

There's no circumstance.

If he on his walk to the cross will stop and tend to the ones that he love, there is no circumstance in which you cannot cry out to him.

He will hear you.

He desires to hear you, to come to you.

What does he want you to hold to him?

Hold up to him your greatest need.

Give it to him.

How can you trust that he'll take it and that he'll handle it tenderly?

What did this man need?

Yeah, he needed to see.

But Jesus doesn't just make him see, he integrates him into the community.

He honors his faith before the world.

He walks out in a completely different position.

So bring him your need.

You'll only get more.

Have faith like Bartimaeus, because the one who your faith is in is Jesus.

And look at what he is like.

All right, are there any questions today?

One question.

Let's take it.

Does God still work through healings?

If so, it seems like it has become much less central than in Jesus' ministry.

So all healings are, I mean, I hope this doesn't sound trite, but the only healing is from the Lord.

And we our only hope that our decaying bodies might experience any sliver of restoration on this side of the new heavens and the new earth is just the overflowing mercy of our Lord.

And so we come to God and we pray for healings.

We pray that it would be accomplished.

And we even we even pray with an with an expectation that it will be accomplished.

James gives instruction.

If you are sick, have the elders come to you and they'll anoint you with oil and they'll pray for you.

We've never done that.

Maybe that's why it hasn't, we haven't seen much.

And we ought to have.

Healings are the central aspect of Jesus' ministry.

There are lots of people Jesus doesn't heal in his earthly ministry.

Lots of people.

He leaves a town that to like a one of the first things he does in his ministry is he leaves the town where Peter's mother-in-law lived, and there were lines out the door of people who were sick and possessed by demons, and he leaves because he came to proclaim the kingdom of God.

And so healing belongs to the Lord.

How is it that we can wrestle with sometimes it seems like he does, sometimes it seems like he doesn't?

Well, his purposes belong to him.

I wish I had a clean, a clean it all up answer for you in this, but but I don't.

I don't.

But it is right to come to him and ask for healing.

We know it's not from lack of love.

It's not from lack of love.

He went to the cross.

He'll hear you.

He'll come to you.

And he'll give you more than what you need.

Which may be different than what you think you need.

Now let's take communion together.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11, starting in verse 23, for I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you.

That the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread.

And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

We know it's not for lack of love.

Because he who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also with him freely give us all things?

We can trust him.

It's what he's like.

See the depth of his love.

Let him come to him with your greatest need.

See what he does with it.

Come to Jesus.

Take heart.

You can come to him.

Holy Father, we thank you for this time to eat in celebration of you laying your life down on our behalf, of the depth of your love shown to us and your march to the cross, your character revealed to us.

Lord, Jesus is that.

No one has seen God.

Jesus has made you known.

This is precisely who you are, Lord.

Father, I pray that you would work in our hearts and our spirits to trust who you have shown yourself to be and to come to you with the recklessness of faith that Bartimaeus shows.

Lord, would you break off a spirit of what Bartimaeus has?

And would you give it to us, Lord, that we might share in it?

As we see you, the Son of David, Lord, have mercy on us.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.