The Beggar

(Taken from Mark 10: 46-52)

We’re leaving the gates of New Jericho, energized and ready for something new – the next place – all of us excited by what could happen somewhere else, when it comes… A booming voice, tearing through the cacophony of our noise.

“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

The sound rips right through the trample of all these feet walking, all our conversations, all the jostling and over-eager members of this group who are sidling closer to Jesus, hemming him in, waiting for their chance to walk beside him, catch his words, say something he’ll appreciate.

There’s a ripple of unease, a freezing of a second as many hear the phrase, the way it tears through the polite civility we cloak ourselves in. That voice, those words – they disturb the surface we like to stay on top of – the one where we talk about the weather and what chores we did today.

It makes my heart pound. There’s power in that sentence, but I don’t know why at first. It has a ring of desperation to it, and a flame flares up from deep in my soul. I know that sound – I know that cry – I’ve made it, though I try not to let it loose in front of others.

There have been so many moments where I wanted to scream such words at Jesus. To get his attention through a crowd that seems to separate me from him. Now, I crane my neck and stand on my tiptoes, but I can’t see past all the heads and bodies that stream together, hedging Jesus inside as if he’s a treasure to protect, to own and to hoard. As if there’s not enough of him to go around. This crowd is no different than the man that calls out – we’re just pretending we are.

I’m still searching for Jesus when I hear it again.

“JESUS, SON OF DAVID, HAVE MERCY ON ME!” It roars.

I shiver as the call spills over me, the sound somehow multiplied like it carries the world’s pain inside it. Our need and our desire and our recognition of who he might be.

No one in the crowd can ignore it and everyone shifts, uncomfortable. Eyes that have been meeting slide sideways – we all recognize the feelings in those words – but they’re too raw, too open. Most of us flinch in secondhand embarrassment. Don’t know what to do with the desperation that’s exposed. I hear people at the front shush the man, telling him to be quiet. Not to bother Jesus. I can’t hear exactly what they tell the man but I can guess – he’s tired, he’s important; we have a long ways to go… the bottom line is we don’t have time to waste on just one man, one beggar just like the many that spill across the land – too many to aid.

If Jesus stopped to help every single beggar he’d never get anywhere – and the crowd doesn’t want Jesus distracted when we’re busy going somewhere.

How many times have I heard that shushing from inside my own head? Telling me I’m being too needy. Too demanding. That Jesus has bigger fish to fry than one girl’s desire to be seen by him. The world’s too big, there’s too many of us “one more’s.”

But Bartimaeus knows Jesus is here. He can feel him passing by – that instant homesickness kicking in – that sudden panic of not grabbing on, of missing his chance to be found, to be rescued. I know that feeling. That sudden awareness when I recognize Jesus for who he is – like a long lost home you just drove past – that soul touch of something intangible and yet utterly, crazily powerful – that aroma of love and its warmth, its safety.

This man is more afraid of being passed by than being exposed. He’s a beggar and he’s blind, and he’s lived a life being dismissed. He has nothing to lose and he won’t be cowed by the crowd. He doesn’t wait to be noticed like a “mature” person would. A “holy” person. He’s not dressing up his words with self righteous explanations or polite words of address. He’s being real. He’s trusting that if Jesus can hear him, he’ll come.

What is it about those simple, powerful words that squeeze my heart?

“Jesus, SON OF DAVID, have mercy ON ME!” The voice is cracking now from the effort, but it’s still a roar.

The crowd shifts, and I glimpse Jesus through it. His eyes are looking right into mine as we both hear that heart calling out to him so fearless and bold… and I feel tears pressing upwards, threatening to leak out at that quiet gaze as it holds mine. The gentleness of it and the challenge too. He always asks me in these stories what my heart says of him. What it says of me and who I am, in response to him.

I think of all his titles, mixed with this simple quiet that he is in the midst of these multitudes full of need and pretending and walls. And it comes to me then. How many times I’ve let those shushing kinds of accusations inside my head make me afraid of approaching him.

How many times I’ve treated him like a stranger because I’m embarrassed by my desperation – when all he wants is my honesty.

All the times I’ve let the fear that I am too needy, too embarrassing, too weak, convince me to dress up my words to him with explanations and justifications and defensive tones. Make me pretend with him through long prayers with formulas and thank you’s to hide my imperfections from him. Pleading with him like he’s a scary judge indifferent towards me because I feel indifferent to me, embarrassed by me. How I let my own fear tell me he might sentence me to a life stuck in my worst case scenarios if I don’t bargain with him, try harder, get perfect first before I talk to him.

How often do I babble at him like he’s my abuser in an attempt to convince him why he should let me out of whatever cage I’m stuck in? And when I’m like that, how often is my voice full of false humility or desperate, hypocritical promises that don’t let him see me and my need for him?

The beggar calls again. Anguished.

“JESUS, SON OF DAVID, HAVE MERCY ON ME!”

It’s breathtakingly beautiful – that soul appearing behind that voice. With its honesty. With its lack of pretend. That reaching out to Jesus as if this person outside of our crowd knows who Jesus is. The pure Good that we all can’t quite believe is real.

My heart clenches tight at the look on Jesus’s face as he stares through the crowd towards the call. Tears spill down my cheeks. This man, this Being. He undoes me.

Because what I see in his eyes? It’s relief.

A smile is quirking his mouth. “Bring him to me.” He says immediately. An intensity is already filling his gaze at being recognized, at hearing the longing inside those words. The plain and unvarnished honesty in them.

It’s like a balm to him in this maze of walls he walks through. Day by day he faces misunderstandings and hearts closed off and hiding behind pretend masks. He reaches for them, he never stops inviting them and he won’t give up – but this? This is different. He’s grinning at me as he waits, now that I see it, letting me in on how comforting it is for him – that call – that recognition. This beggar who’s never spent time with him somehow senses who he is, and he isn’t trying to be someone he’s not in response to the presence of a king.

Jesus is quiet as Bartimaeus is brought, trembling and slight, his eyes clouded and unseeing. Such a small man with such a loud voice. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks, his voice full of delight, putting a hand on the undernourished shoulder.

The man jolts when he hears Jesus, feels the warmth and weight on his shoulder. His hand reaches up instinctively – wanting to touch this presence that feels so much like welcome. “Teacher, I want to see!” The words tumble out. He’s desperate to see; both the world and this one who stands in front of him. He doesn’t hide his desire behind any attempts to convince Jesus he’s good enough for Jesus’s attention.

And when Bartimaeus’ eyes clear, his feet join the horde of us rather than walk away to find his home. I don’t blame him – who can resist this man with the kindness in his voice, delight in his eyes, and the love in the weight of his hand on a skinny shoulder?