As the end of liturgical year draws nearer, Jesus is also coming closer to Jerusalem in Sunday Gospel readings toward the 34th Sunday, which is the last Sunday of liturgical year, also known as “Christ the King Sunday”. Now we are on the 30th Sunday on Cycle B of the Liturgical Calendar.
After Jesus encountered a rich man who wanted to inherit eternal life through him and teaching his disciples not to let earthly wealth become an obstacle to enter the Kingdom (Mark 10:17-31), reflected in the Gospel Reading of the 28th Sunday (Mark 10:17-30), Jesus began his journey to Jerusalem and foretold of his suffering, death, and resurrection there (Mark 10:32-34). Then, as reflected in the Gospel Reading of the 29th Sunday (Mark 10:35-45), James and John sought Jesus a favor to put them to his right and to his left in glory (vv.35-37). Jesus challenged them if they would drink the cup of suffering and be baptized the baptism of death that Jesus would take (v. 38). He indicated to them that going through suffering and death as he would go through would be necessary to be in his glory but it is not him to decide who would be at his right and who to be at his left, as it is for the Father to decide (vv.39-40). Because the rest of the disciples reacted indignantly to James and John for asking a special treatment on them, Jesus reiterated the necessity of humble servantship for the entry into the Kingdom (vv. 41-44), as he had already taught the importance of servantship when he predicted his passion, death, and resurrection for the second time (Mark 9:35). In his emphasis on the servantship to the disciples, Jesus reminded that he himself is the servant, saying:
For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).
This means that Jesus is going to Jerusalem to offer his life as a ransom for the humans to be delivered from bonds of sin, as our mediator with God (1 Timothy 2:5-6; cf. Hebrews 7:27). In other words, Jesus is heading toward Jerusalem to deliver us from evil (i.e. Matthew 6:13), which keeps us to sin. And it means that he is to suffer, die, but raised to be vindicated, as Isaiah prophesized in his third and fourth servant songs (Isaiah 50:4-11; 52:13-53:12).
While Jesus is still on his way to Jerusalem, he performs a miracle sign of deliverance on a blind man, Bartimaeus, freeing him from the darkness of blindness, as reflected in the Gospel Reading of the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B (Mark 10:46-52). Bartimaeus’ blindness metaphorically implies to our spiritual blindness, which is associated with our sinfulness, obscuring our view to see the truth. Therefore, Jesus delivering Bartimaeus from the blindness symbolically speaks to our liberation from spiritual darkness in order for us to see the wisdom.
The First Reading that corresponds to this Gospel Reading is about Jeremiah prophesizing God’s deliverance of the Israelites from the Babylonian captivity, their return to Jerusalem (Jeremiah 31:7-9). This passage is drawn from Jeremiah 31:1-40, in which God promises the Israelites His deliverance of them from the 70 years of Babylonian exile back to Jerusalem to rebuild this holy city and to establish the new covenant. The implication of the new covenant (vv.31-34) suggests the coming of Christ to Jerusalem as mediator of it through his blood (Luke 22:20; Hebrews 9:15).
In juxtaposing the Gospel Reading (Mark 10:46-52) and the First Reading (Jeremiah 31:7-9), we see a theme of deliverance in common: deliverance from blindness and deliverance from the captivity. And both readings are pointing Jerusalem as the destiny. Jesus is heading to Jerusalem to give his life as a ransom to deliver God’s people from evil’s bonds of sin (Mark 10:45). Through Jeremiah’s prophecy, God promised the Israelites in the Babylonian exile for delivering them from the captivity in Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild and to establish the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:1-40).
The setting of the Gospel Reading (Mark 10:46-52) is that a sizable crowd is formed to see Jesus in Jericho as Jesus passes through this town, which was the last fortified city to be conquered by Joshua for the Israelites to enter the promised land (Joshua 5:13-6:23). In the crowd, there was a blind man, Bartimaeus, fervently seeking Jesus’ attention, shouting, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me!”(Mark 10:47). The crowd tried to shut him up but Bartimaeus kept calling, “Son of David, have pity on me!”(Mark 10:48).
There is something about this blind man, Bartimaeus.
Though he is blind, he knows who Jesus is as he calls him, “Son of David”.
At that time, nobody called him rightfully so. People thought him as John the Baptist or Elijah or one of the prophets (i.e. Mark 8:27-28). Those who were in Jesus’ hometown, Nazareth, only saw him as the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon (Mark 6:3). So far, only Peter recognized him as the Messiah (Christ)(Mark 8:29) and a demonically possessed man in Gerasenes saw him as the Son of the Most High God (Mark 5:7).
This suggests that Bartimaes was not an ordinary blind man. In fact, his name, Bartimaeus (Βαρτίμαιος) is a Hellenized Aramaic name, which means a son “בר/bar” of honor “τιμη/time”. This indicates a possibility of his noble origin. But, he is only seen as a blind beggar in Jericho. However, a Hebrew word with a similar sound, טמא (tame), means “to become unclean”. Does it mean that Bartimaeus was reduced to be blind beggar because he was tainted with sin, though he was to be a man of honor? Nobody knows, as nothing is written about his background. But what matters here is that this blind beggar recognizes Jesus as the prophesized Messiah by calling him the Son of David (Mark 10:47,48) , reflecting Nathan’s words on the Messiah to be from the Davidic lineage (2 Samuel 7:12-16). Otherwise, he would not be so persistent and vehement about seeking Jesus’ attention for his pity (mercy - ἐλέησόν/eleson) on him (Mark 10:47,48).
Perhaps, Bartimaeus’ persistence, which let nothing stop, (Mark 10:48) is comparable to the faith of Syrophoenician woman’s (Mark 7:24-29). It reflects Jesus’ parable of the persistent friend (Luke 11:5-13), as well as, his parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8), and these words of Jesus from his Sermon on the Mount:
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened (Matthew 7:7-8).
Jesus sure notices Bartimaeus and asks the crowd to call him (Mark 10:49a). So they said to Bartimaeus, “Take courage; get up, he is calling you”(Mark 10:49b).
So he wasted no time, as he threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus (Mark 10:50). And this certainly shows Bartimaeus’ faith in Jesus, whom he sees as the Davidic Messiah for Israel. The fact that he threw his cloak suggests that he left behind what is associated with his past, his blindness, in order to receive something new from Jesus, as God makes something new in His act of restoration (i.e. Isaiah 43:19).
As Bartimaes comes, Jesus asks him, “What do you want me to do for you?”, and he replied, “Master, I want to see” (Mark 10:51).
Actually, in the original Greek text, Bartimaeus calls Jesus, “Ραββουνι”( Rabbouni). This is a title of respect, meaning “teacher”, as well as, “master”. So, it is more like “maestro”, who leads and guides. Mary Magdalene also called Jesus with this word as she recognized him in the morning of his resurrection (John 20:16). This indicates that Bartimaeus foresaw Jesus as a leader who came to deliver him from the bonds of blindness, which symbolically means ignorance, to the light of his soteriological wisdom. In this sense, this is not just about healing his physical blindness.
To Bariemaeus’ request, Jesus commanded him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you”, and he immediately received his sight and began to follow Jesus toward Jerusalem (Mark 10:52).
Bartimaeus interpreted Jesus’ command to go his way as to follow him. And this is because he saw Jesus as his teacher, by calling him “Ραββουνι”( Rabbouni)(Mark 10:51). This implies Bartimaeus’ foresight in Jesus: seeing him not only as the Davidic Messiah (Mark 10:47, 48) but also as the master “Ραββουνι”( Rabbouni) to follow him (Mark 10:51-52). And this was made possible because of his faith of persistency that let nothing become an obstacle. Thus, Jesus delivered Bartimaeus from being a son made unclean to a son of honor, as God delivered the Israelites from the Babylonian exile to rebuild Jerusalem.
Jesus is heading to Jerusalem to suffer, die, and be raised from the dead, as a ransom to deliver us from evil bonds of sins. And Bartimaeus, though he was blind, has a foresight to see him as the Davidic Messiah and as his master to follow. So he began to follow him as Jesus made him see.
In addition, the Second Reading (Hebrews 5:1-6) describes Jesus as the eternal High Priest of the order of Melchizedek (Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 7:17), glorified by the Father, who offers himself for our atonement with God. And this makes Jesus’ Messianic work in Jerusalem special as a ransom to pay our debt of sins to God and free us from the evil bonds of sin.
The blindness of Bartimaeus symbolizes our blindness due to sins, which can put us in exile away from where God is. As a lesson from this blind beggar, we shall seek Jesus with uncompromised persistence.
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