Of the many persons helped by Jesus, we get to know the beggar’s name indicating that he could have been an important personality. In fact, outside the inner circle of Christ’s disciples, this man, even though visually impaired, was alert intuitively or spiritually to the presence of the Saviour.
In Bartimaeus’ appeal to Christ, we catch an echo of the Penitential Rite at Mass. “Jesus Son of David, have mercy on me”. “Eleison me, eleison me” translated becomes the familiar “Kyrie eleison”, that is, “Lord, have mercy (on me)”. This plaintive cry of Bartimaeus can help us take a look at who we truly are and what we need most.
Bartimaeus shows us that we need God more than we realise. The overarching theme provided by the first and second readings is our creaturely helplessness. In Jeremiah, the Israelites were exiled and vulnerable. It was God who led them to freedom. In restoring the Israelites, God revealed Himself to be the Father of a people. In Hebrews, Jesus the High Priest can empathise with our helplessness and weakness because He is a man like us except for the inclination to sin.
At every turn, man is helpless, especially in the area of sin and salvation. We may have bionic capabilities propped up by technological mastery but when it comes to saving ourselves we are beggars like Bartimaeus. The beauty of this blind man was not only his sensing of who Jesus is but despite the attempts to silence him, he still cried out to Jesus all the louder. Beneath the cry for healing was a firm faith supplied by the title “Son of David”. Faith in the Saviour saved him.
He is a symbol of a humanity that is disabled by sin and whose only recourse is to throw itself at the mercy of the Saviour. As sinners we are unable to save ourselves but must depend on God alone.
In the case of Bartimaeus, his faith is immense. After Jesus called him, he shook off his cloak and went towards the Lord. Such was his confidence in Jesus’ ability to heal. If the miracle did not materialise, one wonders how Bartimaeus could find his cloak. The cloak is like our security blanket and forsaking it signals the courage to leave behind one’s comfort. Sometimes we can be canonised in our sins because we know no better.
The nature of sin is not only its addictiveness. It could also be a form of security. We cling to sins because we dare not let them go. It is like a security blanket and therefore it is not merely a case of faith or a lack of it, as if we have no faith. The challenge for modern man is that our faith is often limited by our capacity to control. Since we are self-made, we pride ourselves on the ability to control our destiny which means we tend to shun helplessness. We even resent the state of helplessness because it is a sign of weakness. A self-help generation trusts God only in as much as it trusts ourselves. In other words, we turn to God only because we cannot do things for ourselves.
A good illustration is provided by our political experiences. Think about palace plotting, or party politicking, or clerical conspiracy. While we consider them weaved into our social fabric but manoeuvring is a symptom of our need to be in control. Thus, the election of the Pope is never an innocent affair because certain quarters will try to manipulate the outcome. Intrigues and politicking are indications of the lack of faith and our need to be in charge. We are fearful that God cannot be depended on and so set ourselves to supply what God is incapable of doing for us. We want to be in control.
While we may want to direct our destiny, still we can never save ourselves. The Israelites and Bartimaeus are lessons to learn. They mirror our need for God and His salvation.
Finally, Bartimaeus asked to see. Sight or vision is not merely a physical faculty but it also to have the eyes of faith, that is, to see what is proper. Our notion of vision is basically that of an ability or capacity to see. Fair enough? But is that the function of sight? Perhaps a question might just clarify this for us. We have fundamentally become a pornographic generation. It is so because smut is acceptable, accessible, affordable and anonymous. Consider these two options. Between being blind and being able to watch porn, which would you choose? The correct answer should be: I choose to be blind rather than to offend God with the faculty of seeing.
In the case of Bartimaeus, there appears to be no difference between seeing and not seeing. He was blind and yet he already recognised Jesus. So if we cry out like the blind beggar, then our desire, that is, what we most need, is to see Jesus our Lord so that we can be saved. As we inch closer to Jesus, we grow deeper in the awareness of His presence in the lives of others, most especially in the lives of those who are poor and outside the ambit of our vision, the vision of society.
