Recently the story of Jesus’ healing of Blind Bartimaeus really moved and challenged me. It’s not only because Jesus healed Bartimaeus’ blindness, but the way in which He showed love and mercy to him. Checkout the scripture in Mark 10:46-52:
And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; he is calling you.” And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” And the blind man said to him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.
Look, I totally get that pretty much none of us have the power to restore sight. But, there is a lot we can learn about serving from this passage. First, look where Jesus met Bartimaeus. Jesus was hanging out just outside the city, a place we often find Jesus in scripture. This is really interesting, because hardly anyone would have chosen to spend time in such a place. That was the place that the lame, poor, and rejected spent their days, largely because they were deemed too spiritually impure to enter the cities. Yet, that is a place we often find Jesus spending his time. How much time do we spend in the places in our cities and towns where people have the largest needs? Even more bluntly, how much time do we actually spend with people who have great needs?
Second, look at the question Jesus asks Bartimaeus. He point blank asks: what can I do for you? How often do we as individuals, leaders, and churches actually ask our communities, and the people in them with the greatest needs, what we can do for them? How much effort do we put into discovering what the deepest needs are in our community, and discerning how God can use us to meet those needs?
There are so many people right in our own backyards and communities that, like Bartimaeus, have needs that God can meet through us. Our challenge is to be like Jesus and to meet those people where they are. We can’t spend all of our lives in our areas of comfort, but like Christ need to step into the uncomfortable realities of our world so we can discover needs, and be used by God to meet them.
