To call on God for help, to cry out to Him, beseeching Him to intervene, is an act of faith in His mercy on which we can rely. We dare to pray assuredly in this way because He Himself urges us to do so. He behaves as a father, so eager to lavish His tenderness on His children that He closely watches for the slightest opportunity.
In the first reading, He sends them a messenger who had once manifested his anger toward them and who is now commissioned to bring the good news of forgiveness.
‘Proclaim your praise and shout! The Lord has saved His people….’
God is so happy to be able to pardon at last that He asks all nations to rejoice over what He does for His people. He speaks of His people as if they were the first, the most important of all people. And it is so for Him because He loves them with a love of predilection. He reluctantly decided to chastise them, but only that they might repent their aberrations. Now, He is going to renew with them a fruitful dialogue and inaugurate a new phase of salvation. How patient, how loving, how forgiving is our heavenly Father. As so often, this reversal in the situation is presented as a new Exodus that must not be a journey rife with ambushes and rebellions against God, but a ‘level road, so that no-one will stumble’ leading to ‘streams of water.’ This Exodus will see those who were scattered all over the world return to their land. It will put an end to schism and reunite people. All will benefit from this salvation, all will be able to walk along this straight road, even the weak and the handicapped, those whom a legal impurity kept apart: ‘The blind and the lame….the mothers and those with child.’ The great universal gathering announced by this oracle is a process throughout the ages. Coming ‘from the ends of the world’ the multitude of believers continues its Exodus toward God, who through the voice of His envoy Jesus — whose name means: ‘God saves’ — ‘God is with us’ — calls it to come back by following the level road.
The Son of God made man, Jesus the Christ is the unique mediator between God and humanity. Our ‘great High Priest who has passed through the heavens….’ So that ‘we can confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find timely help.’ Such is the scene in today’s Gospel concerning ‘Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus). The Blind Beggar.’
Every High Priest, says the Letter to the Hebrews, is taken from among men and made their representative before God. This is the usual distinction of the priestly ministry. Today, it is true, the necessity of this function is questioned often enough, certain persons deeming that they had no need of an intermediary in their relation with God. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews totally ignores such an objection. For him, as for the whole biblical tradition, it is through signs that a person reaches the transcendent domain of the sacred, in the same way that it is through signs that God, the All-Other, manifests His presence here below and sanctifies humans. Every radical challenge to this ‘sacramental economy’ is equivalent —whatever may be said about it— to a negation or a misunderstanding of God’s transcendence. By the same token, one fabricates a human sized god or else one sets oneself up as God, even though this consequence is probably less conscious.
‘No-one takes this honour upon himself but only when called by God. The author adds: ‘Just as Aaron was’because he addresses Christians coming from Judaism. This divine election is done through meditations in the Old Testament, the fact of belonging to a priestly lineage; today called the Church represented by the bishop who is responsible for his local community. ‘In the same way, it was not Christ who glorified himself in becoming High Priest, but rather the one who said to him: ‘You are my Son; this day I have begotten you.’
The Prophet Isaiah had foretold that the advent of the Kingdom would be heralded by signs such as the cure of the blind. A fact Jesus recalled in His inaugural preaching in Nazareth and in the response to the inquirers sent by John the Baptist. ‘Tell him that the blind see…..’ The four evangelists have recorded at least one of those cures worked by Jesus. That of Bartimaeus, the account which we read today, is particularly important in Mark’s Gospel because of the contrast it stresses with the attitude of the ‘Son’s of Zebedee’ and with their blindness and lack of faith which we read about last Sunday.
The healing takes place when Jesus ‘was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a large crowd’ in order to begin the last stage of a meandering journey, undertaken after the arrest of John the Baptist (see Mk 1:14) and coming to an end in Jerusalem. Mark has already related the cure of a blind man in Bethsaida, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. At that time people had brought the man, asking Jesus to touch him. The healing was performed almost in secrecy — ‘outside the village’ — and progressively — He had first put spittle on the eyes of the man, who began to see; then He then laid hands on him with the result that the man saw clearly. Jesus ordered him not to go into the village.
When Jesus leaves Jericho, everything happens very differently. The blind beggar sitting ‘by the roadside’hears the noise of a crowd. He learns that Jesus is passing by and begins ‘To cry out and say, ‘Jesus, son of David, have pity on me;’ and many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more, ‘Son of David, have pity on me’. Jesus stopped and said, ‘call him.’ So they called the blind man saying to him, ‘take courage, get up, He is calling you.’’ Then the man ‘Threw aside his cloak,’which he probably used to collect alms from the passersby. He
‘Spang up, and came to Jesus’ a brief dialogue takes place and ‘Jesus said to him in reply, ‘what do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man replied to Him, ‘Master, I want to see again.’ Jesus told him, ‘Go, your faith has saved you.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed Him on the way.’
This narrative is extremely lively because of the succession of concrete details and the dynamic style of the text. The scene unfolds before the readers or hearers, who are led to take part in retrospect. It is similar to the way that eyewitnesses, still moved by emotion, relate in an animated way the extraordinary happenings they have just observed. But Mark certainly used his narrative talents for a didactic purpose, which we can easily discover.
Now that we are close to Jerusalem, we must go very fast — there’s an urgency. Everyone must become aware of being blind, of failing to understand the mystery of Jesus; everyone must stop sitting ‘by the roadside’ and run toward the Son of David crying ‘Have pity on me.’ Overcoming all interior hesitation, ignoring the voices that would deter us from this decisive move, we must closely follow in the footsteps of the Lord, that is, act as resolute disciples and go with Him on the road to Jerusalem.
The time is no longer time for silence: we must now shout the Gospel in public squares and in all the streets and corners of the world — we must be like missionaries proclaiming the Kingdom — we must take God’s word to all who have never had the opportunity of hearing it — we must encourage the blind, eager to see, so they may confidently approach Jesus. For ‘Once we experience the power of God’s love, we cannot help but proclaim and share what we have seen and heard.’
Surrounded by His disciples and a large crowd of witnesses, Jesus, invisible to the eyes of the unbelievers, walks in our way — so that we might walk in His way. God is calling a great Exodus, an immense gathering of those coming from the ends of the earth, and we are all included. In spite of infirmities, all walk at a brisk pace while singing the Lord’s praises and crying out ‘Save the remnant of your people.’ Let no-one feel excluded and left by the wayside: the Lord stops and calls whoever wants to recover their sight. Even if, on certain days the road seems long and arduous, this is not the time to be disheartened — it is not the time to stop. ‘Stand firm’ since we are in view of Jerusalem. ‘Hold your head high, because your liberation is at hand.’
The time for waiting is over. Now we must take the risk of the faith adventure — which is no risk at all — we must be ready to drink the cup that the Lord Himself is going to drink, receive the baptism in which He is going to be immersed, renounce the exercise of any kind of power in order to become servants and slaves of all, as did the Servant of God — Jesus — who made of His life a sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation.
‘What marvels the Lord worked for us! Indeed, we were glad.’
