(c) Eva Marie Everson
Question 19: “What do you want me to do for you?”(Mark 10:51).
The Path of Silence:You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain (Psalm 139:1–6).
The Path of Memory: Take time to write your thoughts about your daily journey or a memory.
The Path of Questioning: Read Mark 10:46–52.
Fourteen hundred years before the time of Jesus, the city of Jericho became the first to fall to Joshua’s army after the release of the Hebrews from Egypt and their forty-year wandering in the desert. The city was formidable in those ancient days so the taking of it was no small feat, the victory belonging only to God. But by the time of Jesus, Jericho had become a town filled with men of political importance as well as trade merchants. Jericho, known scripturally as “the city of palms,”[i] was an oasis in the Jordan Valley, only six miles north of the Dead Sea and about fifteen miles northeast of Jerusalem.
Jericho was blessed with an abundance of water from nearby freshwater springs. Its fertile soil produced aromatic essences and spices, its palm trees stretched tall and heavenward, their fronds quivering a song into the warm breeze. So lovely was its landscape that Herod the Great built his winter palace there (this is also where he died).
No wonder this was also a place for the homeless. The outcasts. The beggars. What better place—what greater hope—could they have than the cast-offs from affluent politicians and wealthy tradesmen?
One such man, according to a story told in three of the gospels, was named Bartimaeus, often referred to today when such stories are repeated as Blind Bartimaeus. Although told with slight variations (Jesus was entering Jericho, Jesus was leaving Jericho) the story holds a question we’ve heard before, but this time with a twist.
Listen …
Bartimaeus, being blind, was also a beggar. Beggars often sat near the entrance or exit of cities with their cloaks spread over their laps so that those more fortunate could throw money onto the material. At the end of the day, the beggar simply folded the cloak, gathered his earnings, and went home. This would have been especially critical for the blind so that they could keep the coins in one place. A safe place.
Whether Bartimaeus sat at the entrance or the exit of this proficient, sweet-smelling city of palms is not the issue. No. When Jesus walked into that city—a city He, as God, would have at one time seen destroyed and then rebuilt—He stirred the crowd with great excitement.
And Bartimaeus heard the commotion. Oh, what a ruckus it must have been because the Scriptures say a great throng of people had gathered around Jesus and His disciples.
“What’s going on?” Blind Bartimaeus asked someone who apparently stood nearby.
“The man Jesus of Nazareth is here,” he was told.
Bartimaeus knew exactly who they were talking about. The one who had healed the deaf … the lame … the one who had driven out demons from adults and children alike … and brought the dead back to life. This Jesus of Nazareth was also the one who had healed other blind men. He was the Son of David, a term reserved for the coming Messiah.
In 2 Samuel 7:12–13 written hundreds of years before our story, God made a promise to King David, saying: The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
Several times over the course of His ministry Jesus heard others calling Him by this title—Son of David—and not once do we read that He denied it. In fact, in Matthew 22, we read that Jesus used this title about Himself to stump the Pharisees.
“If then David calls him ‘Lord,’ how can he be his son?”
The Pharisees did not recognize the promise that was Jesus, but a blind man did. “Faith comes by hearing,” Paul would one day write to the church in Rome[ii]. Blind Bartimaeus had heard.
And because he had heard, he called out, “Jesus! Son of David! Have mercy on me!”
Can’t you see him? Back now straight, neck craned toward the vibration and hum of the crowd, blank eyes opened wide, fists clenched, and the veins of his throat bulging as he cried out.
“Hush up,” someone said to him. “Don’t be such a bother.”
Such a bother. Ever feel that way? Like whatever you have going on in your life is so mundane, so trivial, and of no consequence toward the greater good of the world, that to bring it to Him as so much as a simple, whispered request would be a bother to God? Such a bother, in fact, that you figure it best not to mention it to Him at all, much less bellow it at the top of your lungs?
But Bartimaeus would not be silenced. He had become like those stones who will cry out when all else goes mute. “Jesus!” he cried out again. “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
This time, Jesus heard him and, stopping, turned, and said, “Bring him to me.” Bring his need … his want … his crippled and broken and blind self.
Suddenly, all those naysayers were telling the beggar—a man they probably had little time or regard for in days or weeks or months or even years past—to “Cheer up! On your feet! Jesus is calling you!”[iii]
Oh, sweet mercy. Sweet, precious, unadulterated mercy.
Bartimaeus immediately tossed his cloak aside. Can you see it? The coins flying. Nowhere do we read that he gathered his earnings for the day and tucked them into his pocket. Nowhere do we read that he turned to another and said, “Here. Hold this for me.” No. What we read is this: Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.[iv] Because, really, when the Son of David, the Messiah, the Creator of all there was and is and all there ever will be, calls you to Him … you go. You must.
When Bartimaeus made it to Jesus, Jesus asked him one simple question—what do you want me to do for you?
Although this sounds much like the question the Lord had asked Andrew and “the other disciple” when they left John the Baptist to follow Him, it holds two vitally important words the first question did not have: for you.
What do you want me to do for you?
Bartimaeus did not ask for riches. He didn’t ask for a gleaming palace to outrank that of Herod. He didn’t ask to become a merchant, praised for his ability to trade, or to become a respected politician destined to govern in greatness. Instead …
“Rabbi,” he said, “I want to see.”
Because when you cannot see, the seeing is everything. Somehow, he knew with a simple healing, he could become whomever God wanted him to become. Go wherever God wanted him to go. Do whatever God wanted him to do.
“Your faith has healed you,” Jesus said, and at that moment, Blind Bartimaeus became Bartimaeus.
In Hebrew, the word “bar” means “son of.” This means that Bartimaeus was the son of Timaeus, who theologians think may have been a man of some prominence or popularity. But his son was seemingly not important enough to be called by his full name. For example, in our Greek translation of His Hebrew name, Jesus would have been Jesus bar Joseph. And, for certain, there are times when the New Testament writers were specific enough to tell us the name of a man along with the name of his father. Matthew was the son of Alphaeus. James and John were the sons of Zebedee. But not here.
However …
Typically, the gospel writers did not indulge the name of those Jesus healed. Sometimes they did, but not always. Could it be that this man became so well-known after his moment with the Son of David that reminding the readers that this son of Timaeuswas the son of Timaeushealed by Jesus? Might his ministry have surpassed what anyone might have imagined a former beggar’s could?
Then again, when one has seen what one formerly had only heard, and one has believed with all the faith he can muster … when he has cried out to Jesus, and the Son of David has called him to Himself … what can possibly keep him quiet?
***
Now it’s your turn to journal on The Path of Questioning. Noting the words I underlined, plus any words you may have underlined0, along with the question God asked Blind Bartimaeus—and now asks you—write your answer to Him.
Circle toward the labyrinth’s center with The Path of Prayer. Then, sit quietly for a few moments with God before returning to life as you know it.
The Path of Memory: Take time to write your thoughts about your daily journey or a memory.
The Path of Questioning: Read Matthew 9:27–34.
Thousands of years before Jesus walked among the people of Israel—before He descended from on high to live and move and breathe as the Good Shepherd—He watched as His prophet Moses left his royal palace in Egypt to live for forty years as a common shepherd in Midian. Then, when the time was right, He guided Moses back to Egypt to set the Hebrews free from their shackles of slavery with these words: You are to say everything I command you, and your brother Aaron is to tell Pharaoh to let the Israelites go out of his country. But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites.[v]
Later, Moses said to those set free: You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the Lord your God brought you out. The Lord your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear.[vi]
Signs and wonders—those supernatural acts of God—were of great importance to the Jewish people. This was how God had demonstrated His omnipotence—His all-encompassing power— to them, most especially during their times of exodus from Egypt. But they had also seen them throughout their story, during times of famine and war, times of being under the oppressive leadership of other nations, and in times of being spiritually guided by the great prophets. Signs and wonders were markers of divinity.
No wonder then that beyond His compassion for a lost generation, Jesus used signs and wonders to prove to all who were open to believe that He was (and is) God.
In the earliest chapters of Matthew—some time before the story of Blind Bartimaeus—we read that after healing a man with leprosy, Jesus returned to Capernaum, his adopted hometown. Because we know He had no permanent residence (“Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” Matthew 8:20.), He could have resided with Peter and his family while there.
As soon as he entered Capernaum, a Roman centurion—a commander of a Roman military unit made up of around 80 legionaries, or nearly 5,000 men—came to Jesus and said, “Lord, I have a servant at home who is paralyzed and suffering terribly.”
Remarkably, Jesus said the most incredible words to this Roman, this enemy of the Jewish people. “Shall I come and heal him?” (Can you imagine the disciples’ reaction to that question?)
The obvious answer would have been for the centurion to say, “Yes, if you don’t mind.” Or perhaps to get huffy about it and say, “I’m ordering you to do this.” But instead, he said, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But if you simply speak healing over him, my servant will be healed. I know this because, you see, I myself am a man under authority, but with soldiers under me. So, if I tell this one, ‘Go,’ he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ he comes. No questions. Whatever I say to my servants, they do.”
Jesus replied to the centurion, “Go. Let it be done just as you believed it would.”[vii]
And so it was.
Then Jesus went into Peter’s home to discover that his wife’s mother was ill. Jesus touched her and she was immediately well and began to wait on Him and His disciples. Evening came, and with it the demon-possessed were brought to Jesus for release and relief from their sufferings. He healed them, the Scriptures tell us, with one word.[viii]
Others who were sick came to Jesus and Jesus healed them all.
Signs and wonders …
Following all this, an exhausted Jesus crossed over to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, weathered a storm, told it to hush—and it did—then healed a demoniac living among the tombs in the region of the Gerasenes. Back again in Capernaum, he healed a lame man who’d been lowered through a roof by his friends, argued with Jewish holy men concerning His authority, healed a woman with a twelve-year “issue of blood” while on His way to raise a young girl—the daughter of the synagogue’s leader—from the dead.
And then …
Two blind men, men who had no doubt heard the excitement spinning around them about this man going around the Galilee, preaching and teaching, healing the sick, driving out demons, and raising the dead, followed behind Him as best they could and with a loud cry, called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us!” Once again, the blind recognized Jesus as who He was, is, and always will be: the promised Messiah.
It almost appears as if Jesus ignored their pleas for help. Instead of stopping, instead of turning toward them with compassion, instead of speaking a single word of healing … Jesus went indoors. [ix]
Why? Had He grown too tired for another miracle? Was He concerned that their outcry—Son of David—may give away His identity? Again? Was He appalled at the way they looked? The color of their hair? The tatters in their clothes?
Or did He wonder if their faith would lead them to follow Him … no matter where that course, that path, might lead?
They did exactly this. They followed Him into the house, a house they’d probably never entered before, nor would they, most likely, have ever been invited in to. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
Amazing, isn’t it, how clearly those blind men could see the Truth as it passed before them while so many of the professional truth-seekers—those priests and scribes—could not?
We do not know if they said another word, lifted another request, dropped to their knees and begged, or wept bitter tears. We do not know if they told him their life stories over cups of sweet wine or snack plates of carob pods dipped in honey. What we know is Jesus asked them a simple question, “Do you believe I can do this?”
“Yes, Lord,” they said. “We believe.”
Jesus then touched the eyes of the two blind men and said, “According to your faith, let it be done to you.”
According to your faith … A powerful line when we consider that Jesus, while surely and always concerned about our physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing, is far more concerned with our faith. The spiritual. Because if that is in order, everything else can—and will—fall into place.
But then …
After the transfiguration (see Matthew 17:1–9), Jesus, Peter, James, and John came to the foot of the mountain. Here, a large crowd—including the remaining disciples who Jesus had not been taken to witness the vision of Him with Moses and Elijah—waited for them. Once they were within earshot, Jesus heard the people arguing with the teachers of the law. But, spying Jesus, the people immediately went to Him. “What is this all about?” Jesus asked them.
A man approached Jesus and knelt at his feet. “Rabbi,” he said, “My son is possessed by a spirit that has stolen his ability to speak. Whenever the demon seizes him, it throws him to the ground … and he foams at the mouth. He gnashes his teeth. He becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”
Jesus, saddened by this news, offered up two additional questions we should explore. “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you?”[x]
Oh, that we may never hear those words from the Teacher. But understand; Jesus knew His time on earth was brief and growing shorter. Had they not seen enough to be filled with faith enough that they could have healed this boy? Why had they lacked such faith in God, the God whom they’d walked with and seen perform miracles—those signs and wonders?
“Bring the boy to me,” Jesus told them. Which, honestly, is the root of our faith, isn’t it? Our belief is not in our ability to do anything at all, but in the One who dwells within us.
They brought the boy to Jesus, and immediately, the Scripture says, the demon threw the boy into a convulsion. The child did exactly as his father had described; he fell to the ground, convulsing and foaming at the mouth.
“How long has he been like this?” Jesus asked. Again, not because Jesus did not know the answer, but because those who were about to witness another sign and wonder would need the facts.
“From childhood,” the father answered.“It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”[xi]
“‘If you can?’” Jesus asked the child’s father.
Why had the man brought his son to Jesus if he didn’t believe in the Lord’s power to heal? Why had he laid out the circumstances if he didn’t think Jesus could reverse them? These are easy questions for us to ask, but, really, aren’t we the same way? Don’t we bring our requests to the Lord, and having laid them out, don’t we speak our addendums? If it is your will … if you want to … if it isn’t too much trouble. Naturally, we want what is in God’s will, but I believe sometimes we throw in those last lines because we are not sure of the God we say we are so certain of.
“Everything is possible for one who believes,”Jesus told the child’s father. These words were much like those God had spoken to Abraham and Sarah (“Is anything too hard for the Lord?”[xii]) and to Mary of Nazareth (“For nothing is impossible with God.”[xiii]).
Now, Jesus has said the words to the boy’s father, who quickly exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
How different these words were from those of the blind men. The father of the demon-possessed boy laced his faith with doubt and wove unbelief with belief. Then again, haven’t we all done the same at one time or another?
Where then do you stand? With the father of the boy or with the two blind men? Do you weave unbelief with your belief or are you willing to blindly “follow Jesus into the house?” Do you add an “if you can” to your requests—those heartfelt desires and wishes that only He can grant—or are you bold enough to open the door and walk into the unknown—whatever it takes—to prove to Jesus that, yes, you believe?
What do you want me to do for you? He has asked you.
And now the all-important follow-up question: Do you believe I can do this?
***
Far too often, people want the perks of a relationship with Jesus without the actual relationship. They take credit when things go well and offer up … prayers when things go badly. They attend church, but only on holidays. They want assurance of heaven while maintaining devotion to the world. They have a faith-someday mentality—I’ll go to Jesus when I’m older; when I’m done living life on my terms. But unfortunately, human terms are sin soaked.
Jesus is looking for people who will run to Him, to fall on their faces, to repent, surrender, and worship because of who He is, and to learn and grow in a faith that remains even when the miracles cease. Jesus knew what was in people’s hearts—it’s the reason He came. And so, true believers aren’t just in it for the miracles; they have been fundamentally and irrevocable changed by Jesus Himself, making relationship with Him the ultimate prize.[xiv]
Amanda Jenkins, Kristen Hendricks, Dallas Jenkins
***
Now it’s your turn to journal on The Path of Questioning. Noting the words I have underlined, plus any words you may have underlined as well, along with the questions God asked the two blind men and the demoniac’s father—and now asks you—write your answer to Him.
Circle toward the labyrinth’s center with The Path of Prayer. Then, sit quietly for a few moments with God before returning to life as you know it.
[i] Deuteronomy 34:3; Judges 1:16
[ii] Romans 10:17
[iii] Mark 10:49
[iv] Mark 10:50
[v] Exodus 7:2–4
[vi] Deuteronomy 7:19
[vii] Matthew 8: 6–9, 13
[viii] Matthew 8:16
[ix] Matthew 9:28
[x] Mark 9:19
[xi] Mark 9: 22
[xii] Genesis 18:14
[xiii] Luke 1:37
[xiv] Jenkins, Amanda, Hendricks, Kristen, Jenkins, Dallas, The Chosen: 40 Days with Jesus, Book One (BroadStreet Publishing Group, Savage, MN), 101, 102
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