Waiting for Jesus
Pentecost 23 Proper 25
Fr. Tim Nunez
October 27, 2024
May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today’s gospel brings us to Jericho. It’s one of the oldest cities in the world, and it’s also the lowest city in the world, 900 feet below sea level. It’s also along one of the oldest trade routes in the world, connecting Africa to Europe and Asia.
We join Bartimaeus, whose name means “one of the esteemed or honored”. Let’s step into his place on the road out of Jericho heading toward Jerusalem. Although it’s a bright sunny day, it’s completely dark for you because you are blind in a place and time where begging is the way you can survive. You have a cloak. At night it keeps the chill off of you. But the days are hot and dusty. Your cloak is there to catch the coins people may give you out of mercy. At least your condition is one that does inspire mercy.
You’ve heard news and rumors about this Jesus. But you can’t see your way to find him. So you wait along the road out of town and hope – hope – that he comes your way.
If he does come, then maybe he will cast mercy like the coins on your cloak that feed you. This spark of hope against your darkness causes you to wait. How long, you don’t know, but wait you will.
We don’t like to wait, do we? Not many of us are very good at waiting.
We live in a microwave culture, so we don’t wait. Not often. Not like they did. We complain about traffic, but Jesus’s walk from Jericho to Jerusalem was a long, hard hike gaining 3,500 feet in elevation over 21 miles. A strong person could do it in a day, but a very hard day. We could do it in about 20 minutes, in air conditioning while listening to music or a great book.
But sometimes we do have to wait.
Some places are really hard to wait, in places built to wait, but not too comfortably because they don’t want us there any longer than we have to be. Like airports. Lots of chairs, no recliners. Or church. Of all the places in a hospital, the waiting rooms are among the toughest places to wait. And it’s not the chairs. Most of us would rather be the patient than to wait while a loved one is suffering or scared.
But if we are the patient, we may be physically as comfortable as we can be, but we wait to see a doctor, to get a test result, to come through surgery, for the medicines to work, to heal or to die. That’s the kind of waiting Bartimaeus has to endure. His life is waiting with no hope of getting any better. Day after day, begging and hoping for enough to get food. Hoping to not be robbed or teased or beaten. Day after day of rarely being noticed at all.
A large part of faith is waiting – perhaps a lifetime of waiting ultimately on the Lord. If we are waiting, then there is much more to this than us – the turns of our minds, the yearnings of our hearts.
Bartimaeus has heard something of that Good News. Although they didn’t have phones, even in Jesus’s time word travels faster than people along the trade routes.
That light of Christ is a spark of hope in his darkness. He knows Jesus is coming. He can feel the excitement buzz through the crowds as he approaches. Maybe he hears some chatter. He responds as he would for coins, crying out, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”
He’s not worried about being a nuisance. He has always been a nuisance. He has that part down pat. All he can do is cry out for mercy and wait. Then come the words that will change everything. “Take heart. Get up. He is calling you.” Bartimaeus gets mercy. His sight is restored. He is able to fully cast aside that old life just as he cast aside his cloak.
There are several lessons we can draw from this. The first is to note that Bartimaeus’s cry for help at once expresses faith that Jesus can help him and a deep hope that he will help him. Jesus doesn’t ask him if he has behaved well. He simply responds to that heartfelt cry.
Often I wind up in hospital rooms with people who are looking for the Lord’s blessing and sit there wondering if they’ve been good enough to receive his love. Please hear me clearly. That’s not how Jesus looks at you. When we cry out to him, he hears us, he loves us. He comes to us. That may or may not mean a physical healing, but his grace is the biggest gift he gives us. His presence helps us to bear through our suffering, and even death itself.
And it is so very very, very important to keep that first. This entire scene is happening immediately before Jesus does go up to Jerusalem. It is happening immediately before his true identity and saving work out on the cross are about to be revealed. The world is blind to him at this point, and it is crying out for healing. Jesus does not wait for everyone to behave to offer salvation. He offered himself as a sacrifice for us because of our sin, to heal our sin. Those with eyes to see will see. Those holding the hope of God in their hearts will recognize their savior and cry out to him. Whatever else may come, salvation comes in crying out to him.
“Take heart. Get up. He is calling you.”
Once Bartimaeus is healed and can see him for who he truly is, Jesus says “Go.” And Bartimaeus regained his sight and followed him. Go and follow. Does that mean follow Jesus to Jerusalem or to follow him as the way to live a godly life? I think, yes, both, whether figuratively or physically. This is no surprise.
Please note that our post-communion prayers ask God to urge and empower us in precisely the same way. Let’s look at them. (BCP 339, 365 & 366). Each prayer thanks God for binding us to Jesus through the “spiritual food” and receiving us as members of his kingdom. That’s the healing. Then, having received these blessings, to send us out to serve him. We pray and enact this scene every week. I’m crying out to you, Jesus. Call me, Jesus. Help me receive you, see you, and follow you.
Then we sing and Archdeacon John sends us to go forth in the name of Christ, or to love and serve the Lord, or in the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s three ways to say the same thing. We shout, and I do insist on shout, “Alleluia, alleluia!”
That’s why we are here.
AMEN!