LORD, I WANT TO SEE
Jeremiah 31:7-9; Hebrews 5:1-6; Mark 10:46-52
In Pastor Steven Albertin’s office, hung a modern picture, a maze of colours and shapes. He knew this picture contained some profound artistic message but was unable to figure it out.
One day, Adam, a kindergartener, came to his office, saw the picture, and asked: “Do you see what I see?” The pastor asked: “Do you see something in that picture? I don’t.” “Pastor, can’t you see Jesus hanging on the cross?”
The pastor stared at the picture, tried to find the image of the crucified Jesus hidden in the maze, but couldn’t. Slowly Adam moved his finger along the picture: “There, Pastor, is Jesus’ face, his arms outstretched on the cross.” The image began to appear. There hidden behind the colours and the shapes was the image of the crucified Jesus.
Adam helped a “blind” pastor to see the suffering messiah.
Like Pastor Albertin, many of us fail to see Jesus in the maze of colours and shapes in our lives, in the suffering in our lives and around us. We need help to see him and to make sense of suffering.
In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus helps blind Bartimaeus see!
This healing appears at the end of the section on discipleship in mark’s gospel, in which the theme is suffering. Jesus thrice predicts his passion and death; each time his disciples fail to understand the meaning of suffering in his mission. They are blind. For instance, in the verses preceding this text, Jesus makes the third prediction, and James and John ask to sit beside him in his glory.
Mark uses the healing of Bartimaeus as a device to open the eyes of the disciples to the meaning of suffering. Mark contrasts the disciples with the blind beggar. Jesus puts the same question to Bartimaeus that he put to James and John: “What do you want me to do for you?” James and John wanted to advance themselves; Bartimaeus asks only to see.
Before the encounter with Jesus, Bartimaeus is blind, sitting, on the side of the way. After his encounter, he sees, gets up, and follows Jesus on the way to Jerusalem. Bartimaeus has understood the meaning of suffering in the life of Jesus and of a disciple. He is the paradigm of the ideal disciple.
Like Pastor Albertin in the story, like the disciples of Jesus, we fail to see Jesus as the suffering Messiah, we fail to understand that suffering is an essential part of discipleship. Like Bartimaeus, we sit by the side of the road of life and struggle to make sense of suffering.
May we, like Bartimaeus, recognize Jesus passing by the way, and call out to him to heal us. May we cast off our cloaks, our false securities and follow Jesus on the way… because it is the only way to life.
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