You can listen to this reflection here.
This Sunday’s Gospel reading finds us on the cusp of the closing act in Jesus’ earthly life and mission. He and his entourage come to Jericho and, the text suggests, leave it soon after. Jericho is his last stop on his final trip to Jerusalem; there he will undergo his passion and death. And on the outskirts of Jericho, the ancient site of Joshua’s miraculous victory, the new Joshua – Yeshu’a – encounters a blind man who can see better than anyone else around. They came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’
Why does Mark make such a point about Bartimaeus’ sonship? “Bar” means “son” in Aramaic, so Bartimaeus already means “Son of Timaeus.” Thus Mark identifies him as “Son of Timeaeus, Son of Timaeus.” Now, maybe it’s just that his father was named Timaeus, but that’s not a Hebrew name. And this isn’t Mark’s usual pattern. Some scholars think Mark is trying to make a point with this name – “Timaeus” is also the name of one of the more influential Dialogs of Plato, and contains a discourse on the eye and vision. Is Mark signaling his readers that we are talking about a new way of seeing the universe? Or is he suggesting that all the intellectual and philosophical insight in the world won’t allow you to see what can only be perceived by faith?
This blind man already sees by faith what no one else in the story seems to: who Jesus really is. Mark’s gospel is the one that makes the most of Jesus’ “Messianic secret”– and here a blind man “outs” him as the Son of David – code for the Messiah, whom prophets said would come from David's line.
What do these two sons, the son of Timaeus and the son of David, have to do with each other? And what do they have to do with us? One might say we are all sons and daughters of both Timaeus and God, heirs to both worldly reason and spiritual sight. As Jesus lived with two identities at once, human and divine, so we in some measure live in these two realities simultaneously, even as they exist in tension.
This rich story invites us to explore our dual citizenship in the realm of this world and the realm of God. It bids us question how our gift of physical sight and intellectual insight can help or hinder our faith vision. How does your capacity for thought about God lead you closer to God? What “evidence” does the world present that holds you back from believing the impossible power of God? Do we fall prey to the mixed messages of too much data?
As we will see, Bartimaeus was unhindered by physical sight, even as he longed to see. But his faith vision was highly developed. We who are blessed with physical vision are invited to be as sure as this blind man was about the God-Life that is all around us, unseen but very, very real.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Showing posts with label Spiritual vision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spiritual vision. Show all posts
2-1-24 - Where's Waldo?
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Jesus may have thought he could go off for a time of quiet prayer and refreshment after a long day and night of ministry, but already his time was not his own. We read: Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.”
“Everybody is searching for you.” All his earthly life, people were looking for Jesus. When he was twelve, he went missing on a trip to Jerusalem. When his anxious parents found him, they said, “Didn’t you know we would be looking for you?” When Lazarus was ill, and Jesus came days too late, Mary and Martha said, “Where were you?” When chief priests and scribes wanted to arrest him, they went looking for him in Gethsemane, though he’d been “hiding in plain sight” all over Jerusalem for weeks. “Why didn’t you just arrest me at the temple?” he asked.
And on Easter morning, we find Mary Magdalene weeping in another garden, lamenting, “They have taken my Lord and I don’t know where they have put him!” There he is, hiding in plain sight again, risen from the dead, mistaken for a gardener.
Is Jesus still “hiding in plain sight?” I don’t believe he hides from us, and yet, like Waldo, he can be remarkably hard to spot, even when we're looking. Maybe that’s because the faculties with which we perceive spiritual reality are different than our organs for discerning the material. And in many of us, especially in Western cultures, those spiritual senses are under-developed. Jesus told Nicodemus that the Kingdom cannot be perceived with human senses, saying, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again,” which he later clarifies as being “born of water and the Spirit.”
Even those of us who have been born of water and Spirit in baptism may not have developed our spiritual perception if no one told us we needed to. Paul prays for the Ephesians that “the eyes of their heart will be enlightened,” their “inner vision” sharpened as they come to recognize the Life of God around them. That's for us too.
If we want to see and experience Jesus more fully, we need to do some spiritual exercise. Sure, sometimes we get a glimpse or an encounter with Jesus unbidden, unexpected; perhaps God gives us those experiences to draw us closer, to get us on the path, the way falling in love gets us to the place where we're willing to work at a relationship. But we will see and experience more as we cultivate the intimacy Jesus promises us. “Spiritual disciplines” are practices that help us expand our ability to perceive and receive, just as we hone our mental capacities or our physical strength and stamina. We wouldn’t expect to run 10 miles our first time out; we gradually increase our capacity. In the same way, our spiritual muscles must also be exercised.
What spiritual practices are you drawn to? More reading of the Bible? A more consistent life of prayer and meditation? Getting more involved in ministries with the sick, the poor, the marginalized, where Jesus also promised he could be found? Lent is approaching – why not ask the Spirit to lead you to a spiritual practice that will help you grow your inner vision. Ask a pastor or a spiritual director for help (or me).
Long ago, God made a promise through the prophet Jeremiah: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” It can be hard for us to do anything with our whole heart, yet Jesus is not hiding from us. Wherever we start, he will honor our desire to find him as we seek with the eyes of our hearts.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here arethe bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to ithereon Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Jesus may have thought he could go off for a time of quiet prayer and refreshment after a long day and night of ministry, but already his time was not his own. We read: Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.”
“Everybody is searching for you.” All his earthly life, people were looking for Jesus. When he was twelve, he went missing on a trip to Jerusalem. When his anxious parents found him, they said, “Didn’t you know we would be looking for you?” When Lazarus was ill, and Jesus came days too late, Mary and Martha said, “Where were you?” When chief priests and scribes wanted to arrest him, they went looking for him in Gethsemane, though he’d been “hiding in plain sight” all over Jerusalem for weeks. “Why didn’t you just arrest me at the temple?” he asked.
And on Easter morning, we find Mary Magdalene weeping in another garden, lamenting, “They have taken my Lord and I don’t know where they have put him!” There he is, hiding in plain sight again, risen from the dead, mistaken for a gardener.
Is Jesus still “hiding in plain sight?” I don’t believe he hides from us, and yet, like Waldo, he can be remarkably hard to spot, even when we're looking. Maybe that’s because the faculties with which we perceive spiritual reality are different than our organs for discerning the material. And in many of us, especially in Western cultures, those spiritual senses are under-developed. Jesus told Nicodemus that the Kingdom cannot be perceived with human senses, saying, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again,” which he later clarifies as being “born of water and the Spirit.”
Even those of us who have been born of water and Spirit in baptism may not have developed our spiritual perception if no one told us we needed to. Paul prays for the Ephesians that “the eyes of their heart will be enlightened,” their “inner vision” sharpened as they come to recognize the Life of God around them. That's for us too.
If we want to see and experience Jesus more fully, we need to do some spiritual exercise. Sure, sometimes we get a glimpse or an encounter with Jesus unbidden, unexpected; perhaps God gives us those experiences to draw us closer, to get us on the path, the way falling in love gets us to the place where we're willing to work at a relationship. But we will see and experience more as we cultivate the intimacy Jesus promises us. “Spiritual disciplines” are practices that help us expand our ability to perceive and receive, just as we hone our mental capacities or our physical strength and stamina. We wouldn’t expect to run 10 miles our first time out; we gradually increase our capacity. In the same way, our spiritual muscles must also be exercised.
What spiritual practices are you drawn to? More reading of the Bible? A more consistent life of prayer and meditation? Getting more involved in ministries with the sick, the poor, the marginalized, where Jesus also promised he could be found? Lent is approaching – why not ask the Spirit to lead you to a spiritual practice that will help you grow your inner vision. Ask a pastor or a spiritual director for help (or me).
Long ago, God made a promise through the prophet Jeremiah: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” It can be hard for us to do anything with our whole heart, yet Jesus is not hiding from us. Wherever we start, he will honor our desire to find him as we seek with the eyes of our hearts.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here arethe bible readings for Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to ithereon Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
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