Monday Morning Music Ministry

4-3-23

This time of year we focus once again on Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Good Friday, Easter, the Resurrection, the Ascension. In fact we should meditate on these events – and the truths behind them – more often than once a year. What was a miracle on the morning called Easter is a miracle to cherish in summer, fall, and winter too, and every day of our lives.

In the same manner also I have learned to look “beyond the familiar,” regarding the events of this season, and all events recorded in the Bible, all passages that speak to us. To know contexts is to enrich the truths.

For instance, the story of Blind Man Bartimaeus has always been compelling to me. The setting is just before Holy Week as we call it; just before Jesus entered Jerusalem. We know from the Palm Sunday story that His reputation preceded Jesus. Multitudes of people thronged about Him – happy mobs, really. They knew of His miracles, heard about His teaching; shared in the popular adulation. We read of His entrance to Jerusalem, the crowds, the palms laid in His path, the Hosannas. (We know too how the mob turned, as mobs often do; that is for another time.)

On His way to Jerusalem Jesus passed through the city of Jericho. We know a little bit about Jericho – a city of sin and resistance where “Joshua fought the battle” and destroyed the walls; where, also and perhaps significantly, Jesus named it in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Three Gospels describe the “celebrity tour” (if we can picture it in today’s mode) of Jesus, His entourage of Disciples, and the cheering crowds, as they headed for Jerusalem.

In the midst of this hubbub, a lonely street beggar, blind and poor, became aware that Jesus approached; the Miracle-Maker from Galilee. Here I have always wanted to “go beyond.” There is so much to “unpack” in this seemingly simple story of one more of Jesus’s miracles.

Join me in the various examples of symbolism. “The rest of the story” as Bartimaeus was made to see, his eyes healed.

We can meditate on the significance: Physical blindness being a “type” of spiritual blindness. Even the Disciples, knowing Scripture and prophesies and hearing Jesus’ own references to His imminent fate, were themselves blind to the reality of what was about to happen… and its spiritual importance. Yes, we all need our eyes opened.

We can realize that what Jesus heard was not the poor beggar’s cries, but what Bartimaeus called out: not Jesus’s name, but His title: Son of David. This was (and not from the mouth of a temple scholar) the Scriptural identification of the coming Messiah. This was not Ancestry.com trivia, but an acknowledgment that this Jesus, passing by, was indeed the Son of God incarnate. Yes, we all need to acknowledge the Savior.

In some translations, the cry of Bartimaeus is “Have pity on me!” but in the original Greek it reads, “Have mercy on me!” (Thus Kyrie Eleison, “Have mercy on us,” in traditional liturgies.) Of course, both pleas are appropriate. The cry for mercy, however, speaks as much to the longing of his soul – for forgiveness – as for pity, concern for his physical state. Yes, we all have serious spiritual needs, no matter the condition of our health or comfort in life.

To me, an important lesson has been the nature of the Disciples’ efforts, as we read, to make Bartimaeus shut up. I can almost imagine them saying, “Who are YOU? This is the Master wanting to move on! (Implying, ‘WE are important too!’) Stop yelling out! We are trying to keep this parade organized…” But Jesus had other priorities, and other ideas about order and dignity. Yes, we all need to respond to Jesus Christ as He would have us do… not as people around us – or even people around Him – do!

In contemporary context, I will recall my own experiences. Growing up in churches where prayers – even “Hallelujahs” and “Hosannas” – were sleepily mumbled by writ, with no hints or feelings of joy. Many churches discourage “amens” and raised hands from the congregation when Good News is shared. At the seeming other extreme, some churches order joy and dancing, but likewise discourage weeping in conviction, or expressing needs for forgiveness

“Shut up, blind man! We’re having CHURCH here!”

Thank God, Jesus heard Blind Man Bartimaeus. And He stopped. And He healed. May we all call out to Jesus, laugh with Jesus, cry unto Jesus. Praise Him in whatever circumstance, and wherever you are. He is always ready to call out to us, laugh with us, and cry with us.

Jesus will even stop parades to be there for us.

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That was a meditation on what happened just before Palm Sunday and Holy Week. Here is a song about what might have happened just before Easter itself:

Click: The Night Before Easter