TEXT: Luke 18:35-42

SUBJECT: Luke #71: Bartimaeus

The Gospel invites everyone to come to Christ, to enjoy His fellowship, to receive His blessings, and to become His disciple. Long ago, a man called Bartimaeus did all the above. And now, it’s your turn. You need Christ every bit as much as he did. And Jesus Christ is no less willing to hear you than He was to hear the blind man way back then.

The Lord’s status has changed: He’s no longer a poor man, tramping up and down the land of Israel. No, God has exalted Him to Heaven and given Him a place of power and majesty we cannot fathom. But though He is now glorified—He is same Man as He used to be--with the same generous and loving character.

To the world, Bartimaeus was a nobody—an annoying beggar; to his family, he was a burden and an embarrassment. But to Jesus Christ, he mattered. And so do you—whoever you are, whatever you’ve done, you matter to Christ.

The Gospel invites you to come to Christ with the same boldness and faith that the beggar had in his day. And come without any fear of being turned away. What the Pharisees meant as an insult, He took as a compliment and we take as a promise:

I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s get to the story.

It takes place in the outskirts of Jericho about fifteen or twenty miles from Jerusalem. The Lord, His disciples, and many others are going up to the capital for a major holiday. The others are going to observe the Passover; the Lord is going to be the Passover. The time is at hand—in a few days, Jesus Christ will be crucified—and He knows it.

There’s a man squatting by the road and begging alms. He’s not a lazy man mooching off the people who work and he’s not a crooked man scamming people for their money. No, he’s a blind man and is not able to take care of himself.

As he’s sitting there waiting for a handout, he notices a lot of extra noise and he wonders who is making it and why. He’s told the road is jammed with people following Jesus of Nazareth and harassing Him with their non-stop demands on His time.

When he hears the name, Jesus, he adds to the racket by yelling out for help! Now, it’s not easy to be heard in a crowd, and so he chooses a name designed to get the Lord’s attention,

The Lord had been called a lot of things in His life—and many of them weren’t too nice! But this one is! It’s full of respect and understanding and faith. David was the rightful king of Israel and God had made him a promise long ago: that he would never lack a son to sit on his throne. He made good on the promise for about 400 years, but then something happened.

The Jews so rebelled against God that He broke the Royal House and sent His people into exile. Seventy years later, they came home, but without a king. And they still didn’t have one! Herod called himself the king, but he wasn’t even a Jew and no one believed in him.

But now there is a Man who has the right to pick up the fallen crown. To most people, He doesn’t look like a king, but the blind eyes see more clearly than most people!

Son of David means—king, at least—but it means more than that: it also means Messiah—not just one king in a long royal line, but the Last King—not last in the sense of a dying dynasty, but last in the sense that His Kingdom will never end!

What a profession of faith! While even the disciples are a little fuzzy on who He is, the blind man knows Jesus is the King!

The heroic words ring out in the noise—and they are not heard.

The Lord’s hearing is human, not Divine, and He couldn’t make out the words. But the blind man is not discouraged! If the Lord doesn’t hear him the first time, he will cry out again and again and again—until he is heard! Others don’t like the racked he’s making and tell him to shut up!

But he doesn’t care what they say. He keeps it up until—Luke says—

With all the things on His mind, with the pressures of time beating down on Him, He stops dead in His tracks to listen to a blind beggar He had never met.

What do you want Me to do for you?

Just like that, the man got back his sight and started after the Lord glorifying God for what He had done. And he wasn’t alone: this was a public healing and many thousands must have seen it. They added their praise to his.

Religious men on their way to Jerusalem would go there singing the Songs of Ascent (or degrees)—Psalms 120-134. Most of them are sung in a minor key; they’re slow and sad. But when they saw this amazing act of power and compassion, they broke out the happy instruments and began singing a new song—a song of praise!

That’s the story.

Many valuable lessons can be taken from the story.

From the blind man, we see the value of listening. Like you and me, he had only heard about Christ. He had never seen Him or observed His miracles. But he listened to the stories and he thought long and hard about them. Under the blessing of God, his careful hearing produced faith—just as the Bible says it will—

How carefully do you listen to the Word of God read and preached? Not everyone listens very well. Some are daydreaming, others are half-asleep; some are wondering when they can get out of here; others listen politely, but make no effort to understand. Don’t you see what you’re doing with a sloppy hearing of God’s Word? You’re cutting yourself off from Christ!

If the beggar hadn’t listened, he would have died blind. And if you don’t listen to the Word of God you’ll die worse than blind! Jesus Christ was not filling time when He said,

Listening is a skill that can be improved on. With practice and prayer and accountability.

From the blind man we see the value of persistence. He might have called out once and given up. But he didn’t give up—he stayed with it until he was heard!

When fighting God all night for a blessing, Jacob, I will not let you go until you bless me. He meant it: his gripped was not loosened until he got a new name: Israel because he’s got power with God!

There’s a story from the First Great Awakening in America (c. 1730). A pastor was scheduled to preach, but he didn’t feel the Lord was with him. So he slipped off into the woods and prayed. Another man heard him pouring out his soul, "I will not go unless you go with me!" The eavesdropper said the pastor meant it and when he got back God was with him!

How many blessings do we miss—how many opportunities to we lose—because we won’t ask for them more than once or twice? The promise is not to everyone who prays, but only to those who…

The blind man was a stubborn old cuss—stubborn with God! May the Lord give us more like him!

From the blind man, we see the value of a healthy independence. Everyone told him to be quiet, but frankly, he didn’t care what everyone told him. He didn’t fuss or fight or publish books against them, he just ignored them. And he was right to do that.

We shouldn’t be too proud to listen to others—the Bible warns of that. But, when we know we’re doing the right thing, we ought to do it, no matter what others say. The Gospel has freed us from human bondage:

And the Master is Jesus Christ!

From the blind man we see the value of faith. Who opened the eyes of the blind man? It was Christ. How did He do it? He did it with His Word. Yet the Lord says the man’s faith made him well. Faith was so important to the healing that the Lord took it for the whole cause. I’m not sure I can explain this, but I don’t have to! What I can say is that the blessings of Christ ordinarily come to those who believe in His power and His goodness. Some other place, the Word says, He could do no mighty work there because of their unbelief. But this man believed and got the blessing Christ had for him.

The beggar is an important figure in the story, of course, but he is not the central character. The story is not really about Bartimaeus, his faith, his persistence, his listening skills, or his healthy independence.

No, the story is about the Other Man in it. It’s about the Lord Jesus Christ. What does the healing of Bartimaeus say about Him?

It says many good things about Him: it says He is compassionate and unselfish, eager to do good, and amazingly powerful.

But most of all, it says He is the Messiah.

Under the Old Covenant, God did many great things through His prophets and other servants. He parted the Red Sea, He destroyed the Philistines, He healed lepers and even raised the dead. But never—ever—had any of them opened the eyes of the blind! Not Moses or Elijah with all their miracles—not Job or Daniel in the great holiness—not Noah or Methselah in their 900 plus years of life. No one had ever done such a thing.

Do you know why? Because God reserved that special work for His Son, the Messiah. Isaiah 35 makes a promise to God’s people, then living in great fear and uncertainty:

The times were bad and they would get worse before the got better. But they would get better: one day, in the distant future, God would break into human history and open the eyes of the blind. When they saw a Man do that, they’d know their God had come!

Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of David and the fulfillment of every Old Testament prophecy. He is God and Man; He is Lord and Savior; He is Lawgiver and Judge.

And though you ought to know this anyway, today’s story underlines it in red and makes you see the truth!

This gives me great hope for the lost. Have you ever witnessed to someone who just didn’t get it? No matter how carefully you laid out the plan of salvation, he just stared back at you with a blank look on his face? It’s not getting through. Because he is blind—the devil has blinded him—and there’s not a thing you can do about it.

But that’s all right, for Christ can open the eyes of the blind. He has done it with physical eyes and He’s doing it every day on spiritual eyes. If you don’t believe it, just remember how blind you used to be and what the Lord did for you. If He opened your eyes, why not the other’s? Huh? Why not? Why not the stubborn man, why not the jeering woman, why not the impossible kid, why not the Muslim, Hindu, or atheist?

Witness to the blind and pray that Christ will open their eyes! The blinder they are the more you ought to witness and pray for them!

This also makes me love Christ. How dear He is to listen to the nobodies of this world! And to answer their cries for help. And how patient we ought to be in praying and how content in waiting for Him to help us even if the help is long delayed.

This makes me want to join the blind man in joyful discipleship. He wasn’t forced into following the Lord, but he wanted to follow Him. How could he not want to? The Man opened his eyes!

The Lord has done even more for you and me: we ought to be more eager and happy in serving Him.

Well, that’s the story of the blind beggar Bartimaeus, and his Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. May God open our eyes to it. For Christ’s sake. Amen.