“Go your way; your faith has made you well.”

The story of the blind beggar Bartimaeus ends with Jesus commending the man for his faith. On the surface, this story could be taken to be an exhortation to approach God in prayer in the hope and expectation that he will fulfil the requests of those who call upon him. And yet a closer look at the context of the story reveals a much more challenging picture of the call to discipleship.

A little about the context to begin with. Jesus is on the road with his disciples. They have stopped at Jericho and are heading towards Jerusalem. The text we looked at last week saw Jesus reminding his disciples that he has come to give his life as a ransom for many and rebuking them for thinking about power and glory in purely worldly terms. Here, Christ illustrates this lesson by taking time to minister to a man on the very margins of society, even one who was rebuked for calling out to him.

Recognition and Request

I want to begin by talking about Bartimaeus, because it is in him that we can see a picture of ourselves and of what God calls us to as we follow after Christ.

To begin with, we are told that Bartimaeus is ‘a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus’. One of the great early theologians of the Church, St Augustine, was intrigued by this description and saw in it evidence that Bartimaeus was from a well-known family and that he had fallen from a great height to be blind and begging by the roadside.

St Augustine said about this that Bartimaeus represents symbolically the helplessness and fallenness of humanity. What he meant by that is that, just as Bartimaeus had fallen from a great social height, so humanity has fallen from God’s original intention for us. We were created for glory and unity with the Godhead and, yet, because of our sinfulness, we have now descended to a state of spiritual blindness and life without God.

And so Bartimaeus recognised his pitiful state and so, when heard that Jesus was passing by, he called out to him, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

There is a basic humility that is called for in the Christian life. We are, each of us, called to recognise that we incline towards sin and we need God to forgive us, help us, and change us by the power of his Spirit. Our wills are involved in this but it also involves a recognition of a power that comes from outside of us to help us.

We see also in Bartimaeus the link between physical and spiritual poverty. The poor are much more aware of their need for God than the rich. I often think that in a city like Winchester many people are blinded to their need for God because they are so wealthy and comfortable.

Many of you will have had a Bartimaeus-like period in your spiritual lives. When we experience loss of wealth or status or health; when we mourn or suffer or are cast out or criticised – these are moments of opportunity because these are the moments at which we are driven to prayer in recognition of our need for God.

To give one small example, I spoke to a lady this week who told me that recently she had started each morning with prayer. She said to me that every morning it transforms her panic into peace and joy. That journey starts with a recognition of need.

Cheap and Costly Grace

To return to the story, after some initial harsh opposition, Jesus calls Bartimaeus to himself and he asks him what seems a rather strange question, “What do you want me to do for you?”

I remember many years ago, I spent some time with a friend who was a pastor in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur is a huge, vibrant city in the Far East. And yet it is very different to a Western city because of the relative levels of poverty and deprivation that are present. This was many years ago, but I remember quite vividly the sight of blind beggars on the roadside. Even in big cities like London, I had not seen homeless men in this condition of half-starvation and physical decrepitude. I remember that some of the beggars who sat there were not only blind but had lost their eyes somehow.

I imagine Bartimaeus in a similarly desperate physical condition. It is very odd that Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” Isn’t it obvious in such a situation?

Actually, no.

The Middle-Eastern scholar Kenneth Bailey makes a very interesting point about the context of this story. The traditional beggar in this type of society had a particular role. Such a beggar would sit in a public place and give passers-by the opportunity to display their charity by giving alms. The beggar would receive an income of sorts and those passing by would be seen as compassionate and godly. It was a kind of mutually beneficial transaction. To be one of these traditional beggars, however, one needed a visible handicap such as a missing limb or, indeed, blindness.

This was Bartimaeus’ place in the world and this was how he managed to provide for his own needs: by acting the role of the traditional Middle-Eastern beggar. When Jesus asks the question, “What do you want me to do for you?”, therefore, it is a rather serious one. Kenneth Bailey comments:

‘…a blind man, such as the beggar in this story, has no education, training, employment record or marketable skills. If healed, self-support will be extremely difficult. Indeed, is it not in his interests to remain blind?’

Kenneth Bailey, Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, p. 174.

If Jesus heals the man, he will receive his sight but he will also need to leave his old way of life behind: no more hand-outs, no more self-pity, no more complaining about his difficult lot in life. And he will receive much greater responsibility, which will be to find a new way of living that is not based upon his disability. Jesus is asking him if he is ready to take such responsibility upon himself?

We see, of course, that he is. Not only does he ask that he recover his sight and receive healing, but we are told at the end of the story that he ‘followed Jesus on the way’. He used his newly received healing to become a disciple of Christ..

This is a powerful picture of the Gospel and of the transforming power of grace. We can often think of God’s grace as God simply doing something good for us. It is certainly true that God intends to bless us and help us by showing grace but what we often miss is the calling to discipleship and transformation that comes through that grace.

The great German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer got this so right when he juxtaposed “cheap grace” with “costly grace”. Bonhoeffer rightly saw that God’s grace is something that is given to us freely but is not cheap. It has an effect in our lives and will often cost us a great deal: the giving up of sinful habits, the laying down of old patterns of life that do not fit with our new calling to follow Christ, the taking up of difficult tasks that God now calls us to, the loss of friends and family relationships. Yes, we are healed, forgiven, accepted, and loved by God with a grace that is given to us at no cost, but we are also called to follow Jesus on the costly road of discipleship.

Bonhoeffer spoke in the context of the rise to power of the Nazis and the challenge that this presented to the German church of the time. He was disturbed by the lack of willingness of church leaders to stand up to Hitler and to count the cost of the faith. Ultimately Bonhoeffer would illustrate the principle of costly grace by dying as a martyr at the hands of the Nazi Party.

In an ancient Arabic paraphrase of this story, Bartimaeus’ request to Jesus is put in a slightly elaborated form. Instead of merely asking for his sight back, Bartimaeus says to Jesus, “Let me receive my sight that I might see you.” And this really sums up what I am trying to say. Spiritual sight is a great blessing because it enables us to see Christ, but, if we are to see him, we are not merely to gaze at him, but also to follow him wherever he leads. And we know, of course, that he will eventually lead us to the cross. The question that the story of the blind beggar Bartimaeus holds out to all of us is: Are we willing to go with him on the way? Are we willing to count the cost of grace?