Bartimaeus tells how he cried out to Jesus and was cured of his blindness:

Ah, so you’ve heard have you?  And come to have a look-see for yourself, have you?   Uh huh!  Well, come closer and let me have a look at you instead!   No, not there! The sun’s too bright for my eyes at the moment.  There!  Just there!  Aah, so that’s what you look like!  I’ve always wondered. Hhm…nice legs- shame about the face! (Only joking!!)

Oh, so you don’t think that’s funny?  I see. 

I see!

Hah!  I see!   I SEE!!!

Oh, my goodness…that’s the first time I’ve said those words knowing I can take them literally!  I see.  I can see! I can see, I can see, I can SEE!

OK, Ok. I’ll calm down and tell you all about it!

Well, they were not in a good mood either – his followers, yesterday I mean.

They were quieter than usual.

Tense.

A little overprotective of their master as they passed by.

“Shut up!” they told me.

“Be Quite!”

“Don’t bother the Master now!”

Did I listen to them?  Like Heck!   Where would that have left me?  Still blind… Still begging… and still desperate! (‘cause, that’s what I was, you know; desperate!)   They may well have been right that Jesus had got more important things to think about than me, but I had to grab my chance; it may have been the last one I ever had!

 “Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me!” I shouted.  And I kept on repeating my cry, despite all their attempts to hush me.  Their gagging efforts only served to make me shout the louder.  After all, it wasn’t them I wanted to hear me; it was Jesus.  I was determined to keep on shouting until he did!

I almost thought it was over… that Jesus had walked on by and my chance was missed forever.  Oh, the cruel agony of it!  I could not let it happen! Oh God, PLEASE, do not let it happen!  But then I knew that he had heard me.  There was a flurry in the crowd as on mass they stopped and turned to see what had caught his attention.  In the silence that followed I heard him speak to his closest followers, telling them to come and call me to him. 

“It’s your lucky day,” they said when they reached me, “Get up! Come and see the Master!”

And I was up like a shot, throwing my coat aside.  

When he asked me what I wanted him to do for me, I answered quite simply, “Teacher, I want to see!”

That was it. That was all.   I didn’t want or need anything else.   My one desire was to see. 

All my life, I’ve hated the humiliation of begging. But what else, as a blind man, could I do?  If I could see, then I could work.  If I could see, I would be accepted and respected.  If I could see, I’d be free of this cursed life to start a new one, standing on my own two feet, earning my own living, taking up my responsibilities, gaining the respect I deserved.  So yes, I wanted to see.  Without doubt and with everything I had within me, I wanted to see.

Then, “Go”, said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.”

That was it!  Nothing more.  Nothing dramatic. No mumbo jumbo words or incantations.  No grand theatrics for the crowd.  Just this; “Go. Your faith has healed you.”   And as Jesus spoke those few simple words, my eyes opened!  Just like in the scriptures, it was exactly the same for me: ‘God said “let there be light!” and there was light’   

To be honest, though, I’m not sure what faith I had worth mentioning?  

I was desperate, that’s for sure.  So desperate, that I was not going to give up crying out to Jesus until he heard me.  Is that what faith is?

And I was ready; coiled up like a spring, ready to leap up the moment he called me to him. Is that what faith is?

Or perhaps it’s that, in this one moment at least, I was prepared to leave everything behind and pin all my hopes on him? Is that the faith that he saw in me?

I don’t know.  What do you think?

What I do know, is that I’ve Ieft my old life behind and I’m stepping into a new one with Jesus.  We’re on the road heading into Jerusalem now.  I wonder what we’ll see there?  

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