Pentecost 22: Seeing is Believing?

Jeremiah 31.7-9

Psalm 126

Hebrews 7.23-28

Mark 10.46b-52

“Seeing is believing” or so goes the old adage, but what Jesus’ disciples seem consistently to show is that seeing is not believing.  It is unfortunate that the reading from last week has been separated in the lectionary from today’s, because they are intimately connected.  They belong one to another and together reveal one of the central themes of the Gospel of Mark:  “things are not always as they seem.”  Seeing is not always believing.  Indeed, true faith in Jesus often requires of us that we see beyond our own narrow experiences and expectations.  It requires that we not allow our minds to be trapped or our hopes limited by the way we believe things are or want them to be.  While taking the present seriously it requires that our vision be able to see beyond the inherent limits and limitations of the present. 

The Christians to whom the Gospel of Mark is addressed are a community living under difficult conditions.  In Mark, the faith to which Jesus calls is not a calm, safe, self-evidently socially accepted faith, but a faith that has to struggle to maintain its existence amid opposition, incomprehension and sometimes persecution.  Written some forty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Gospel begins to address the fact that Jesus’ return is not as imminent as had originally been expected.  Many who had known Jesus personally were getting old, some would have by now died.  Moreover, things weren’t even getting better, but instead were getting worse.  The Romans had even destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, and still Jesus had not come to vindicate those who trusted in him.  It is from within this context that the author of Mark writes what is called the “little apocalypse” and says, “When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come.  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” (Mark 13.7-8)  For Mark’s community things had not only not turned out as planned or expected, but had actually turned from bad to worse; but the author’s message is, “Hold on.  Be faithful.  Things are not always what they seem.”

Seeing, perceiving, understanding then become central themes in the Gospel of Mark.  If you remember from last week, Jesus’ followers cannot bring themselves to see the point which Jesus is making about his passion and death.  All they want it the benefits of his glory: Teacher, “grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” (Mark 10.37)  While seeing, they are blind to the realities of life and what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah.  This morning, however, we have quite the reverse.  It is the blind who see, and who beg to see more clearly.  It is the blind who declare the glory of Jesus, even as they are rebuked for doing so.  It is the blind who having new eyes are able to follow Jesus on the way.  It is the blind Bartimaeus who is the true disciple, and Jesus’ followers the ones who are caught up in the blindness of their expectations.

In these figures, the writer of Mark presents to his community two images of those who seek to follow Jesus.  The first represented by James, John and the other “disciples”, the second represented by Bartimaeus.  The disciples represent that first wave of the earliest Christians who, so certain of Jesus’ quick return, were already counting on their places next to him in glory.  The other, represented by Bartimaeus, is a more recent Christian community; it is a more mature Christian community.  This community has learned to recognise Jesus within and through the darkness of their times, and the seeming hopelessness of their trials and difficulties, and therefore are still able to confess him as Lord and cry, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us.” (cf Mark 10.47)  We so often think of the words “Lord, have mercy’” in a penitential sense, but the fact is that in contemporary secular usage it was an acclamation used at the approach of an Emperor, comparable perhaps to “God save the Queen” or “Hail to the Chief”.  Like Bartimaeus, Mark’s community is are not asking for pity or forgiveness, but rather affirming that Jesus is the Lord, the Son of David.  Tragedy may have darkened their lives, but it has not hampered their vision or destroyed their faith  Even in the midst of their difficult situations the Good News is still good news and like Bartimaeus they hold fast to it, following Jesus on “the way.”

I see us modern-day Christians very much as the inheritors of the traditions of that later Christianity, of the Christianity symbolised by the blind Bartimaeus.  We live in a world in which the old certainties no longer exist, and one which continually offers us new uncertainties.  Our world is one in which we constantly hear of “wars and rumors of wars.”; A world in which, if we are attuned to the television, radio, newspapers we too hear of earthquakes, famines, violence, devastations.  A world in which we are all too aware of the darkness.  And Jesus does not come.  What is to be our response?  I think that it is to be the same to which the writer of Mark calls his own community:  “Be faithful.  There is more to what we see.  Do not be misled by glory, or brought to despair by darkness.  Like blind Bartimaeus continue to cry out ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us.’ ” This does not mean that we retreat from the world and let it carry on until the full revelation of Jesus.  Christianity is far more subtle than that.  Instead, it means that we can engage with the crises and darkness of our world creatively because we know that Jesus is Lord.  It means that we do not look away from the darkness to find the glory of God, but rather that we perceive the glory of God even in the darkness.  It means that we know that what we may believe to be our greatest defeats are the very places where are greatest strengths may be revealed.  Is that not, after all, the message of the cross and resurrection of Jesus?

There are none so blind as those who will not see, and even living in the presence of light is no guarantee that our eyes will be opened.  In fact, light can be as blinding as the dark, the disciples of Jesus are proof enough of that.  Thinking that they were living in the light and could clearly see, they did not look far enough or closely enough.  They had no understanding of rejection, the passion, the cross.  They were like those seeds that were sown on rocky ground, they received the Good News with joy, yet having no root, when trouble or persecution arose they immediately fell away.  They can perceive the glory of Jesus in the light, but only there.  The darkness overcomes them.  On the other hand, the community of Mark knew that if the message of God’s reconciling love and goodness was to bear fruit, they would need to perceive the glory of God and the truth of Jesus even within the darkness, even within the trials of their lives. They would need to hold on in hope and faith, and like blind Bartimaeus continually to cry “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us.”  They must continue to confess Jesus even when told to shut up.  Thanks to be to God that they did.

We too must continue to cry out in hope, if not literally then practically.  Whenever, we offer hope in the darkness, whenever we look for the resolution in the conflict, whenever we honestly confront the difficult (instead of shying away from it),  whenever we engage with the world as it truly is and not go into flights of fancy,  then we too cry “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us.”  The message of Mark’s gospel is for us today.  In the darkness, “Hold fast.”  In the uncertainty, “Be hopeful.”  In all conditions of life cry out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on us.”  That is the meaning of faith.  That is the meaning of living in the light which shines the darkness, and which the darkness does not overcome.