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51 Jesus asked, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man answered, “Master, I want to see!” 52 Jesus told him, “You may go. Your eyes are healed because of your faith.” Right away the man could see, and he went down the road with Jesus. ~ Mark 10:51-52
Today, we conclude our study of Mark 10 where the Lord Jesus had been teaching His disciples His ways and culture. In addition, the Lord Jesus entered the town of Jericho and entered into the life of blind Bartimaeus whom the Lord Jesus was showing how to overcome a victim's mentality. Here was a man who was conscious of his blindness, whereas the disciples who were with the Lord Jesus for three years were not all that aware of their blindness.
At this point in the story Bartimaeus, he had yet to see the difference between physical sight and spiritual sight. With the physical we see this world, while with spiritual sight, we are postured to begin to see God. One we see with our eyes while the other we see God with our hearts.
In v.51 of today's passage we read, "Jesus asked, 'What do you want me to do for you?' The blind man answered, 'Master, I want to see!'"
Bartimaeus desired to see. Like the disciples of the Lord Jesus, he did not know what it meant to see God with his heart. From the book, The Little Prince, we are given this quote: "Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
The question the Lord Jesus asked Bartimaeus that day in Jericho was the same question He had posed to James and John earlier. The Lord Jesus asked, "What do you want Me to do for you?" As He did with the disciples, God became the true servant and the true slave of a debased, lowly outcast. The Lord Jesus never ignores the cry of the heart of a desperate sinner.
In response to the question the Lord Jesus asked him, Bartimaeus, according to Luke 18, said, "Lord, Master, Lord," then he made his request of the Lord Jesus. Bartimaeus recognized the Lord Jesus as his Master and his Lord. Bartimaeus arrived there after having been blind for so long. Like you and I, Bartimaeus had to be driven to desperation to call out to the Lord as he did. As a result, the Lord Jesus subjected Himself to be the servant and the slave of a nobody.
In v.52 of today's passage we read, "Jesus told him, “You may go. Your eyes are healed because of your faith.” Right away the man could see, and he went down the road with Jesus."
Bartimaeus was given more than physical eyesight that day, he was introduced into a personal relationship with God. The Lord Jesus used the verb from which we get our English word for "saved." The Lord Jesus literally said to Bartimaeus, "Your faith has saved you."
The Lord Jesus could have used the word that is strictly used in the gospels for healing, but, that was not the word He used here. He used the word sōzō which explains why Bartimaeus went down the road with the Lord Jesus afterwards. According to Luke 18:43, "He was following Him on the road, glorifying God." That day, blind Bartimaeus, the once hopeless beggar, became a disciple of the Lord Jesus.
In v.52 we read, "Right away the man could see."
Strategically, the first thing that blind Bartimaeus could see after he was given sight was the Lord Jesus. So often we do not get an accurate visual of the Lord because this world blinds us to His reality. This is why we must be ardent in not allowing this world to define us. This world is so caught up in the clutches of the fallen that it dims our hearts ability to see God regularly.
All of the people there that day saw the unfolding of Bartimaeus' story with the Lord Jesus. And according to Luke 18:43 we read, "When all the people saw it, they gave praise to God." The ripple effect of our personal relationship with the Lord is what this life is really all about. We can count the seeds in an apple, but we can’t count the apples in a seed. This is a mystery that only eternity will spell out for us to see.
All of this is possible because we all have been approached by the Lord Jesus somewhere along the road in our lives. In our blindness, in our desperation, He passed by, and our hearts were awakened, and we cried out for His involvement in our lives. And He heard our desperate and helpless cry.
