Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time at Mississippi Abbey

When Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, hears that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by he cries out “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” Some bystanders tell him to be silent. How strange! In other stories people carried their sick to Jesus for healing. Why do these people rebuke Bartimaeus? What is happening here?

Every event in the life of Jesus is both a love story and a hate story. The lovers are Jesus and his bride, the Church, all those he saves. The haters are Satan and his sentinels, seeking whom they may devour. It is only with our hearts that we can uncover the hidden drama of love and hate that is taking place here.

Jesus is passing through Jericho for the last time on his way up to Jerusalem where he will soon be crucified.  He sees a people in peril, and he comes to save them. Satan sees a Challenger unlike anyone else who has ever been born, and he wants to stop him. The Passover is near at hand. Pilgrims by the thousands are making their way to Jerusalem. Blind Bartimaeus sits down on the dusty roadside. He spreads a cloak across his lap to catch the coins that pilgrims toss into it. This lowly beggar is beneath all those who pass by because blindness and every form of sickness was considered the consequence of personal sinfulness. Even his skin has been burned dark by sitting under the hot sun all day. He is black but beautiful. His eyes are blind, but his heart sees what others are missing, Jesus is the Son of David.

Someone in the crowd tells Bartimaeus that Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. After three years is that all they see, Jesus of Nazareth, a Galilean passing by? Bartimaeus is blind but he sees more clearly with his heart than those who have eyes. He cries out, “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me.” In St. Mark’s Gospel no one had ever called Jesus by that Messianic title. It took a blind man to see Jesus as the promised Son of King David, the Messiah.   

This is too much for Satan. His heart is so hardened and blinded with hate that he wants everyone to share his total darkness. The crowd becomes Satan’s voice by rebuking Bartimaeus, telling him to be silent.  But the bride, Bartimaeus, hears the voice of the Beloved and cries out all the louder, “Son of David, have pity on me!” Then the Beloved stops and calls him. Oh, what happiness! Oh, that we could all hear the Beloved calling us, too!  At once Bartimaeus throws aside his cloak, leaving everything, letting all the coins snuggling in the folds of his garment scatter where they will.  He flung aside this cloak which was his covering against the cold of night and he sprang up leaving it behind. How different he is from the very nice, clean, rich young man on the other side of Jericho whose possessions turned him away from Jesus. Bartimaeus, the unclean one, leaves his possessions behind and goes to him whom his heart loves.

Jesus gazed at the blind man and said, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Master, I want to see.” The heart of the bride cries out, “Let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and your face is all beautiful” (Song of Songs 2:14). Jesus said to him, “Go your way, your faith has saved you.” “Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way” (Mk. 10:46). This is a love story. In earlier miracles of healing and salvation Jesus imposed silence on the one who was healed. Not now. Instead, Bartimaeus follows Jesus from the wilderness of the Judean desert outside Jericho into the Holy City of Jerusalem all the while proclaiming the Son of David. Then the whole crowd begins calling Jesus by that Messianic title:  “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest” (Mt. 21:9).

This is a love story. “Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning upon the Beloved?” (Song of Songs 8:5). It is the bride, Bartimaeus, who is faint with love. It is only with our hearts that we can see the hidden drama of love taking place in this story, and hear him saying, “I am my Beloved, and my Beloved is mine. I am my Beloved and his desire is for me.” But this is also a story of hate. Satan seeks the Bridegroom, not to awaken love but to kill Love.  What anguish must have flooded the heart of Bartimaeus when he saw his Beloved crucified a week later, when Satan tried to snuff out the Light of the Beloved with the darkness of death. But the shadow-land of death could not extinguish the Light. Death was swallowed up by the Dawn from on High at the resurrection of Jesus.  Now we know that when we die a good death, we are merely turning off a little lamp at the end of a dark night because the great of dawn of the morning sunrise has come. With Bartimaeus we cry out, “[Oh], let us see your face, let us hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is all beautiful” (Song of Songs 2:14).  Behold, even today at this Mass, our Beloved hears us and is coming to rest on our tongues, in the kiss of communion.  Oh, what happiness is ours in this Eucharist.