The Man Who Would Not Be Quiet

Jericho was the last stop before Jerusalem. Jesus was leaving the city with his disciples and a large crowd, on the road that climbs toward the capital and, though few in the crowd knew it, toward the cross. By the roadside sat a blind man. Mark, who rarely names the people Jesus heals, gives us his name and his father's: Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus.

He heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth passing. He began to shout. Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. The title is worth noticing. Son of David was a royal title, a way of saying Messiah. A blind beggar at the edge of Jericho saw something about Jesus that the crowd walking with him had not put into words.

Many in the crowd rebuked him and told him to be quiet. It is not hard to imagine why. He was loud, he was interrupting, and he was the kind of person respectable people had learned to walk past. He shouted all the more. Son of David, have mercy on me.

Jesus stopped. Mark records it as a simple fact, and it is the hinge of the story. The procession toward Jerusalem halts because one man on the margin will not stop calling. Jesus says, call him. The crowd that had silenced him a moment earlier now tells him to cheer up and get on his feet.

Bartimaeus throws his cloak aside. For a beggar, a cloak was bed, shelter and the sheet on which coins were collected. He leaves it on the ground and jumps up. Whatever happens next, he is not going back to that spot.

Then Jesus asks a question he has asked before, only a few verses earlier, of James and John. What do you want me to do for you? James and John had asked for seats of glory. Bartimaeus asks to see. Rabbi, I want to see. Jesus tells him his faith has healed him, and immediately he receives his sight. Mark adds the last line with care. He followed Jesus along the road.

Draw it out. First, faith here looks like persistence in the face of people who want you quiet. Bartimaeus had no standing, no theology to speak of, only a need and a conviction that this man could meet it. The crowd was closer to Jesus and saw less.

Second, Jesus stops. He stops for one voice, and the whole movement waits. No one is too far to the side of the road for him to hear.

Third, the cloak. Bartimaeus left behind the thing that had kept him alive in his old life, because he was betting on a new one. He did not wait to be healed before he let go of it.

And last, the road. He did not go back to Jericho. He followed Jesus toward Jerusalem, into the week of palms and the week of the cross. A man who can see, following the one who gave him sight, into a story he does not yet understand. That is what a disciple looks like, and Mark places him at the door of Holy Week so that we will not miss it.