Once more, brothers and sisters, we are given a beautiful Gospel. Once more we are with Christ on his way to Jerusalem. And this is the truth of our life. It is a journey, with Christ, from birth to death or, better, from baptism to eternal life. It’s a journey that is taken up into the great journey of Christ, our High Priest, our Shepherd. We mustn’t let these Gospels pass us by.
Going up to Jerusalem: to lose and to gain, to die and to rise. There is a sense that, at this place and time, there’s another way too we are going up to Jerusalem. It’s not becoming, nor is it going to become, any easier to be a faithful Catholic Christian in our society, in our culture. We feel squeezed. We can expect trouble, hard decisions ahead. We will experience the cost of discipleship. But that will mean a new joy too, a taste of resurrection.
On this journey, things happen. There are incidents. We’ve had James and John jostling for power. We’ve had the rich young man asking about eternal life. Now there’s this blind beggar, Bartimaeus. The story’s so vivid. Jericho apart from being one of the oldest places of human habitation is also one of the lowest. And blind Bartimaeus is himself in a low place. There was a time when he could see, share life, work. Now he can only sit and beg. He has, though, heard of Jesus and now he hears he’s passing. He may be blind, but he has an inner eye. At the end Jesus says to him, “your faith has saved you”. He has already seen and believed that this Jesus is the Son of David and can heal. He has this precious insight. And he’s also in the truth about himself: “have pity on me (have mercy) on me”. I need “mercying”. This is the truth. And so, fearlessly, like the Syro-Phoenician woman in another story, he just shouts out. He doesn’t let the fickle crowd stop him. He persists. And Jesus stops. Everyone stops. “Call him here”. Up he jumps and stumbles his way towards the Voice. “What do you want me to do for you?” asks the extraordinary Voice. “Rabbuni, Master, let me see again.” “Go, your faith has saved you.” And immediately he sees again. And he follows him along the road. His inner vision becomes an outer vision. And – it’s often said – the first thing he would have seen was the Face behind the Voice, was Jesus himself. When we’re born, the first thing most of us see is the face of our mother and in a way that determines our whole life. When we’re reborn by faith, the first thing we see – through the Holy Spirit – is the face of Christ. And that will shape our whole eternity. “Lift up the light of your face on us, O Lord.” “To you, O Lord, I lift up my eyes.”
Bartimaeus, of course, is a real-life parable. He’s there to model us. He shows what happens when Christ meets us. He goes from being a sitting, sedentary man to a moving man, someone with a purpose. He goes from being alone to being with others, his companions on the road. He goes from being someone who just takes from life, from others, and starts instead to contribute, to give. He has experienced what the Lord said through Jeremiah: “I will bring them back, I will gather them, I will comfort them, I will guide them…For I am a father to Israel and Ephraim is my first-born son.” Bar-Timeaus, son of Timaeus, now knows he’s a son of God.
And we know his name. That’s unusual. Most of the people Jesus healed remain anonymous, but not Bartimaeus. This implies he was a known figure – in the early Christian community, even in Rome perhaps, where the Gospel of Mark may well have been written. Yes, he went up to Jerusalem. Perhaps he gazed from a distance at the face of Christ on the Cross. Perhaps he was one of the 500 disciples who saw the risen Jesus on the mountain and heard the great commission. But something else too perhaps. Bartimaeus had seen the truth about himself: I need mercy. He had seen the face of the merciful Christ. And out of those two seeings would have come a third. He’d have felt, from inside, from his own experience, from his own pain, the need of others for mercy. This is for us too. Our own personal, sometimes very personal, difficulties can blind us, but through Christ, they can open us to the needs of others. Would not Bartimaeus have had a particular feeling for the blind? Perhaps now he spent time sitting with them, hearing their stories and sharing his. Perhaps he asked Peter and the others to lay their hands on them. Perhaps he spoke of the inner vision even the blind can have. We can imagine a whole “apostolate”. And I think the Lord gives each of us a particular sensitivity to a particular form of human distress. He calls us out by means of it. He gives us a work to do.
And so, brothers and sisters, we go up to Jerusalem.
St Mary’s Cathedral, Aberdeen, 27 October 2024
