Healing of blind Bartimaeus
Mark 10: 46-52 Perhaps we hear this story from Mark’s gospel as yet another healing story: miraculous and wonderful for the man who regains his sight, but just another example of Jesus helping and healing someone who needed it. But the story contains a most intriguing question: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’. Jesus asks this question of blind Bartimaeus – a man who cannot work because he cannot see, and so who has to beg for a living. A man so low-down the social pecking order that when he first calls out to Jesus people around tell him to shut up, they don’t want him bothering Jesus, the great teacher & healer. What does blind Bartimaeus want? He wants to see, he wants his life back, he wants the gracious power of Jesus to change him. He wants to be healed.. and he is. And at one level that’s all we need from this story – a story of Good News for Bartimaeus. But this story can tell us so much more, if we’ll let it. It’s position he...