Mark 10 - Blind Bartimaeus

I sat through a sermon a couple weeks ago that really struck me. There was so much packed into this for me, but I don't remember it all, so I'll just highlight a few minute points.

The sermon was on the passage in Mark 10 that is about a man named Bartimaeus (let's call him Bart). There were so many good points in the sermon that I'll leave out of this entry, but one that I remember sort of clearly is that in verse 46 it says that he was sitting on the roadside begging. When the pastor went into this a little more he found that Bart was purposely in the way. He was in the road, in the way of Jesus and where he was walking, almost begging for attention. There was no way to ignore him. Bart is called over to Jesus and asked a very direct question, "What do you want me to do for you?" 

Woah. Lately, I've been a intrigued with the questions that Jesus asks. Usually it's straight to the point, no beating around the bush and it requires a very direct, point-blank response from the person being asked. What if Bart didn't know what he wanted? What if, instead of replying with exactly what he wanted Jesus to do for him ("Rabbi, I want to see"), he replied with, "Rabbi, I really don't know." But, asking those questions really doesn't matter all that much because he did know exactly what he wanted and he told Jesus about it. He was bold enough to say it. Why? Because he had been blind for so long he didn't have to debate with himself about wanting to see. He was tired of it. He wanted a change. The pain brought him to the place where he knew exactly what he wanted, no questions. He got beyond the fear and anxiety and went for it, without looking back (no pun intended). Real change comes from outside ourselves. He couldn't keep struggling because it wasn't helping anyway.

And, to top it all off, when he was calling out to Jesus, he wasn't using the right name. He didn't refer to Jesus the "right" way...in other words, he was wrong about Jesus. He had the wrong idea, the wrong assumption, the wrong picture. But...something the pastor said that stuck was, "You don't have to be right about Jesus, to get help from Jesus."

After that, there's not much else to say.