The Gospel for Saturday, April 3, 2004
Mark 10:46-52
They reached Jericho; and as he left Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus—that is, the son of Timaeus—a blind beggar, was sitting at the side of the road. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout and cry out, ‘Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me.’ And many of them scolded him and told him to keep quiet, but he only shouted all the louder, ‘Son of David, have pity on me.’ Jesus stopped and said, ‘Call him here.’ So they called the blind man over. ‘Courage,’ they said, ‘get up; he is calling you.’ So throwing off his cloak, he jumped up and went to Jesus. Then Jesus spoke, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ The blind man said to him, ‘Rabbuni, let me see again.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go; your faith has saved you.’ And at once his sight returned and he followed him along the road. -- The New Jerusalem Bible. 1995, c1985. Doubleday: Garden City, N.Y.
A Study
The quantity of material written about Mark's Gospel is more "modern" than that of the other three, since Mark was not considered very important for quite a while by the early fathers. An interesting analysis of Mark describes his structure as:
"In my opinion Mark arranged his work into three major divisions by subject matter and by introducing and concluding the middle division with a giving-of-sight miracle. The middle division deals primarily with discipleship and more particularly with the “blindness” of the disciples who fail to see Jesus’ role as a suffering and serving Messiah." -- Brooks, J. A. 2001, c1991. Vol. 23: Mark. The New American Commentary. Broadman & Holman Publishers: Nashville
The first section then, was the proclamation of the Kingdom, the second was the education of the "blinded disciples," and the third was the Good News of Jesus' death and resurrection. Mark's use of these two 'blindness bookends', whether intentional on his part or not, does give us a middle section full of Jesus' hammering home points to his disciples, who repeatedly failed to see or understand what he was telling them about himself or his coming transformation -- and allowed Mark the literary device of doing so with his audience over the centuries following.
A Reflection
John Newton (1725-1807) was the most unlikely of priests or hymnodists, but was astoundingly adept at both occupations. The last line -- "was blind, but now I see" -- of the first stanza of Amazing Grace leapt into my mind in reading James Brooks' description of Mark's three sections, in the study above. Newton, the author of Amazing Grace and hundreds of other hymns, was a Royal Navy deserter who eventually became a slave ship captain, then left that line of work and became Surveyor of Tides in Liverpool. He met John Wesley and was inspired to become an Anglican priest. Turned down by the Archbishop of York, he was eventually ordained by the Archbishop of Lincoln, and served parishes in Olney, Buckinghamshire, and in London, where he literally "packed them in."
The parallel with Bar-Timaeus is astounding. Someone dependent on everyone else like Bartimaeus, or worse, a parasite on everyone else, like Newton, suddenly encounters amazing grace and follows Christ. We don't know what eventually happened to Bartimaeus after he continued down the road from Jericho to Jerusalem, although we have a good record of his latter-day parallel in John Newton.
Few of us have such dramatic healing or conversion experiences, though there's drama in each I've heard. Each of us has the treasure of the drama of the sudden stillness when we recognize the presence of Christ with us in prayer, or sitting waiting for a bus, or just some out-of-the-blue happenstance. You know for darned sure it wasn't like much of anything else that ever happened to you, and you cannot wait for it to happen again!
Eckhart Tolle, in the Power of Now, describes a space that we can create, that God can then fill. I can get about a half pint's worth of space when I try really hard, now. It started with a thimble. I recommend it if you can make lots of time and have lots of desire, and can remember to discipline yourself to try it often. I recommend it even if you can't.
Today, or tonight, give thanks for what you can see, and the goodness in it. Like Bartimaeus, you may find yourself on a closer following to Him than you thought possible.
Worship and praise belong to you,
maker of light and darkness.
Your wisdom draws beauty from chaos,
brings a harvest out of sorrow
and leads the exiles home.
In Christ your Son enemies are reconciled,
debts forgiven and strangers made welcome....
--Eucharistic Prayer 3, Scottish Episcopal Church Prayer Book, 1982
7:00:30 PM 
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