Seeing

Text: Mark 10:46-52

Focus: Humble access to Jesus

Function: To help people be humble

Form: Storytelling

Intro:

Of the four gospel accounts that are in the NT, Mark is the first one. There is a missing one, called “Q” for some reason that is sort of the outline for Matthew, Mark and Luke.

They say that Matthew was written primarily to the Jewish readers. It points to Jesus as the Sacrificial lamb who takes away the sins of the world.

Luke was written by a Greek Doctor who traveled extensively with the Apostle Paul. His intent was to be as complete and historical both to the times, dates and events.

John was written with a completely different mindset. It was written to those whose world view was primarily Eastern instead of Western. A friend of mine taught English in a orphanage in Seoul, S. Korea and did research into the Christian roots of Buddhism. The concept of transcendence and detachment actually came from the ministry of the Apostle John, along with Jesus' mother, Mary, in India.

And Mark, they say, was written to the Western Imperialists like the Roman citizens and government.

Mark is a book of action.

In the Greek, the present tense is used to describe past tense events, sometimes with a sort of cadence like a sports announcer: “the Apostles are corned by the guards, wait, Peter is arrested! They are praying hard. Peter escapes! O My Nerves, he is running through the city...”

And even though in English we would never do that, the literary device was common. 43 times Mark uses the word “Immediately.”

It appealed to the powerful people of Rome because power was what they respected and worshiped. Caesar was a god to them because they worshiped power.

I have a friend who used to be what she called a real live witch who became a Christian after reading the gospel of Mark. It is the gospel of power and action. And so, Mark highlights the miracles that happened around Jesus.

And that is what makes this story, and where it is placed in the gospel of Mark remarkable.

Mark talks about power. He attracts people to the power in Christ Jesus. But soon, very soon, he introduces them, especially the powerful, to a who different kind of power.

He introduces them to the power of love that comes from God.

And that power comes from a humble relationship with Jesus Christ.

Mark places this story immediately after the apostles were fighting for supremacy and Jesus contradicts the world's view of power by commanding them to become servants, even to the lowly position of servitude expected in slavery, toward one another.

They were jockeying for position with their personal influence and embellishments of their own worth.

“Are you worth something?” Jesus says, “Then show it by serving others.”

Contrast those 12 apostles with Bartimaeus, the other actor in this story.

Jesus! Have Mercy!

Now, the story tells us that there was a crowd, Jesus was trying to get away, and the man who was blind was yelling over the noise and confusion of the crowd and again, he, in his need, becomes an inconvenience.

The crowd admonishes him to be quiet. But the man if nothing else is, is persistent.

Jesus! Have Mercy!

Jesus! Have Mercy!

I guess this is the way to get to the heart of God: Cry out for mercy.

Lord, Save me!

Lord, Help me!

Even “God help us” when born out of faith is powerful.

I suppose that in the crowd it was a miracle that he got Jesus attention, or he was really loud.

We know that he was desperate.

We know that even though he is desperate, he clings on to his hope.

Lord! Have Mercy!

These guys were vying for Jesus attention, and the man who gets it is the man who, in humility, cries out to God: “God, have mercy.”

And the lesson is taught through the one person that everyone else is dismissing.

So often, God works in these mysterious ways through the unlikely source.

I love the story of the woman at the well.

She was at the well at a different time than the rest of the women from the town.

She was a Samaritan, a racial half-breed, according to the disciples. And she was a wanderer. Married 5 times and living with a 6^th man.

Perhaps the women in the town were threatened by her seductive ways. I imagine that then needed no one else to gossip about.

And she convinces the town to come and find Jesus.

She was the most unlikely source, the one that God decided to go through to reach the entire town.

The town itself had to forgive her in order to be lead by her toward Jesus.

I find interesting. The disciples were vying for power, the man was vying for mercy.

The Samaritan town that finds Jesus gets to Jesus through a woman of ill repute. In giving her mercy, they find mercy themselves.

I want to see.

I want to understand. I want mercy.

There is a lot about this faith that even though I spend my time studying it, I find I miss a lot.

I don't understand why we don't see the miracles today that they saw then.

Some people dismiss miracles as embellishments to the story.

But, I believe that I have seen a miracle or two.

I don't know why I would experience one when starving kids across the world need one much worse than I do.

Maybe, just maybe, all of this is true and the miracle that they need is bound up inside of our own prosperity.

At least, that is what God told Abraham, “I will bless you, my servant, so that you can be a blessing to others.”

There are things, I said, that I don't understand, but this much seems true.

God is near to the cry to God for mercy. It seems as if that humble position before God is what moved God in this story.

Now again, faith isn't about figuring out ways to manipulate God, that isn't the point.

The point is the cry out to God, “Save me.”