NOTES for Mar 10:46-52

In an encounter with Jesus, some are healed and others are not. Some notice Him, others ignore Him. Some come near, others pass by. And among those who come near, some come for the Kingdom and for life, while others come to argue or catch Him in His words. To each his own.

The blind man by the road wants healing - he wants to receive his sight, to see, and above all to see the One who can give him back his sight, the very ability to see. Is this possible? Yes, of course. In the Kingdom everything is possible, and this blind man is striving with all his strength toward the very One who brought the Kingdom into the world.

It is possible, but only on one condition: the encounter becomes the chief and only important goal, for whose sake, if necessary, any conventions, prohibitions, and limits can be pushed aside. This is, of course, not about God's commandments, but precisely about limits and rules invented by people, about human opinions. The blind man calls Jesus the Son of David, and therefore the Messiah. They try to make him be silent, since no one had officially recognized Jesus as the Messiah, and even unofficially opinions differed sharply.

At that moment Jesus was, in public opinion, a scandalous figure, or at least an ambiguous one in every respect. To press toward Him like that, one had to trust Him completely - not even against social conventions, but above them, simply ignoring them and seeing only the Person Himself. Relationships with Christ like that are truly saving. Not because He is God and Man at the same time, but because those relationships are real; if they were not real, even His divinity would not help.

In the end, everything is determined precisely by relationships, by their depth and authenticity, whether they are relationships with God or with another person. Real relationships are always unconditional: they cannot be conditioned by any external factors - social, religious, or any others. Only then do relationships become effective, changing those who enter into them. Then in relationship with Christ everything is possible - miracles, healings, participation in the Kingdom. Otherwise everything is useless, even if one meets Him face to face.

Jesus performs healings a little differently each time. Sometimes He touches a person and lays His hands on him, and sometimes He says, as He said to the blind man He healed on the Jericho road: your faith has saved you. What, then, saved the others? Was it not faith? Of course it was: without faith Jesus can help no one. This is, of course, faith as trust, trust in God and trust in Him Himself, the One through whom God acts, through whom God's power and God's love act.

For healing, such trust was enough: the person being healed did not need to understand truly who stood before him; he did not need to see in Jesus the Messiah, still less the Son of God. Something else mattered: trust in Jesus as the One through whom God acts, and acts in fullness, so that nothing is impossible for Him. Given such trust, a person can do more than establish a trusting relationship with Jesus; he can become part of His life, and therefore part of the Kingdom, at least in part and for a time. The fullness of such entry into the life of the Kingdom is determined in many ways by a person's spiritual condition. In principle, every person healed by Jesus, having shared through Him in the life of the Kingdom, could have remained its inhabitant, of course on condition that he preserved the state he experienced at the moment of healing. He would then have shared Christ's path with Him and would have been one of those for whom Pentecost became not the beginning, but the completion of the path, or at least of one of its stages.

For most of those healed, however, healing became only a return to the state available to people in the fallen world. Few of them regarded healing as the starting point of a further spiritual path. Meanwhile, the blind man healed by Jesus on the Jericho road followed Jesus. He decided to share at least part of the path with the One who had healed him. Such a step requires far more trust than simply coming up and asking for healing. With such trust, healing does not even require physical contact; trust alone is enough, the relationship itself as such. The evangelist tells us nothing about Bartimaeus's further fate, but one thing is clear: he followed Jesus. How far he went is a matter between the two of them.

Mark's Gospel, in describing the healing of the blind man, adds one striking detail that is not found in Luke's Gospel: besides the name of the man who was healed, the evangelist mentions the phrase with which the people around him encouraged him, saying, "Take heart; get up, He is calling you." At first glance, the situation looks paradoxical: the man who had just been calling out to Jesus himself, paying no attention at all to the reaction of the crowd, now suddenly stops, as though frightened by something, and does not dare come near the One he had just been calling to for help. What is Bartimaeus afraid of? Certainly not people. If he had been afraid of people, he would not have cried out to the One whom everyone considered a great Prophet in order to draw His attention. Nor is he afraid of Jesus Himself as a Man. Apparently Bartimaeus suddenly sensed something unusual, something this astonishing Prophet carries with Him and within Himself. He sensed that very Kingdom about which Jesus Himself never tired of testifying, saying that it had "drawn near." And after sensing it, he suddenly became timid and stopped. He was not strong in theology. The subtleties of the many messianic theories and concepts studied at that time in the academies of Jerusalem and Babylon were hardly known to him. But he did sense the breath of the Kingdom, precisely because he had entrusted himself completely to this strange and unusual Teacher. And after sensing it, he understood that he was not ready to enter it. The people around him, not understanding what had stopped this man who had just been so determined, push him forward: go, He is calling you. And Bartimaeus goes. To the people around him, he is going toward his healing. Yet he is also taking a step into the Kingdom.

Bartimaeus wants to see. Often people who ask for something are afraid of it at the same time, because then they will have to change their familiar way of life, and that always creates problems. If Bartimaeus receives his sight, he will have to stop begging, start looking for work, and generally take responsibility for himself and those around him. But he is ready for this: he not only cries out to Christ, but goes to Him, throwing off his outer garment, perhaps his only valuable possession. Bartimaeus risks being unable to find it again if he does not receive his sight, yet he is ready to cast aside everything valuable in order to ask for the one thing that matters most. He goes to Jesus and, once he can see, remains with Him. How often the “outer garment” to which we cling—different for each of us—prevents us from going to Jesus and receiving true sight from Him...

Different people react differently to Jesus' appearance. And the most direct reaction, as a rule, is shown by those who seek help from Him, most often healing. This is understandable: such people usually have nothing to lose. What demand can be made of a blind beggar sitting by the highway? Those around him try to make him be quiet or at least not shout so loudly.

They can be understood: by this time all kinds of rumors about Jesus were already circulating among the people, and attitudes toward Him and His preaching were ambiguous. To many respected and authoritative people in religious society, it seemed at least doubtful. But the blind beggar by the roadside had little concern for these respected and authoritative people: none of them could help him. Nor did the respected and authoritative people need him. Of course, they gave him alms, and he did not die of hunger.

But that was the limit of what he could receive from society and from the people respected in society. And here is someone who can help for real, can heal, can deliver from blindness. Some preacher. People say He is a prophet. Perhaps He is not a prophet, but He heals, that is certain. If such a one passes by on the road, how can one not make use of the opportunity? How can one not call out? All the more if seeing again is the chief goal and chief meaning of life. Here an important spiritual law is at work: for relationships with God, relationships with Christ, to be full, they must become unconditional. A person must follow Christ without looking back.

Without looking back at tradition, customs, or religious authorities. Otherwise nothing will come of it. And to go that way, one needs inner freedom from all this. Such freedom as that of the blind man by the road, who has nothing to lose. Who wants one thing, and wants it with all his soul, with his whole being. He, of course, does not yet understand whom he is dealing with. But his resolve is great; those who try to make him be quiet do not have such resolve. And thanks to this resolve and to his trust in the Stranger, the blind beggar receives what he wants. Those who tried to make him be quiet receive nothing. That is not surprising: after all, they were not seeking anything.

"Going up to Jerusalem," Jesus again speaks of His sufferings and His resurrection; until now the disciples had not understood His words, and Peter had even argued with Him. Now He describes everything that must happen to Him. The disciples are horrified; but have they now understood the Teacher's words?

James and John ask Jesus to give them the most honorable places in His Kingdom. According to the customs of that time, the king's chief adviser sat at his right hand; the place at the left hand was considered second in importance. Christ answers the brothers, "You do not know what you are asking," and invites them to share with Him the cup of suffering. This is what happened to the brothers: John endured persecution (see Rev. 1:9), and his brother James was killed (Acts 12:2).

Wanting to restore peace among the disciples, Christ reveals to them that requests like this make no sense: in the Kingdom of God there is no pyramid of power such as exists in every earthly kingdom, no domination in the familiar sense. Who is greatest in the Kingdom of God? The one who serves most. And the One who serves most of all is the King Himself (cf. Phil. 2:7).

Perhaps for contrast, the Evangelist Mark tells about the request of blind Bartimaeus, to which the Lord responded with the miracle of healing. How was Bartimaeus's faith shown? He calls Jesus by the messianic title "Son of David" (not everyone liked this address; many order the blind man to be silent). As he goes to Jesus, he throws off his cloak - if he had remained blind, he would never have found it again. Finally, when he receives his sight, he follows Jesus.

The Lord responded to the plea of blind Bartimaeus, but rejected the request of two of His disciples. Let us ask ourselves: "What are my prayers like?" Perhaps Jesus is saying to me too, "You do not know what you are asking"?