Jay Freireich overcame tremendous personal adversity as a child and young
man, and then went on to face one of the most horrific nightmares faced by
children: leukemia. Because of Freireich’s work, over 90% of children who
combat leukemia win. You can hear a bit about him by watching this video.Bart, son of Tim, didn’t begin his life blind (Mark 10:46-52). We don’t know what happened to him, except that when we discover him, he has been blind for some time, and has resorted to begging somewhere near the entrance to Jericho. We do know a little bit about how people interpreted blindness in the first century, however. Popular belief held that God was intimately involved in every detail of a person’s life as a causal agent. In other words, if Bart went blind, God not only knew about it – God caused it. And, the thinking continues, since God is just, Bart must have done something to deserve such a horrible fate. Bart sinned; God punished. The people believed it, and after awhile, I think Bart probably believed it, too.
I don’t know a lot about Bart, son of Tim, but I do not a lot about Pete, son of Bob. And even though I don’t see well without correction, I am not physically blind. But I am fully aware that I have made mistakes, and that those mistakes have caught up with me throughout my life. At times in my life, I began to lose sight of who I am. I began focusing on what my sin was saying about me. I also let the sin of others who influenced me define me, too. As human beings, we do this to ourselves. We define ourselves by the color of our skin, our ethnic heritage, our geographical home, our size, our attractiveness based on cultural norms, our grades, our zip code, our parents, our bank account, our portfolio, our level of education, our marital success or failure, the number of children we have, our children’s success or failure, etc. None of these things are really who we are. They only tell a story about the life we’ve lived. yet we identify ourselves by these indicators, don’t we? So much so, I believe, that we become blinded by such measures and labels. We lose sight of who we really are as human beings created in the image of God, which implies incredible creative power, strength, and hope. Bart was physically blind, but I bet he was blind like you and I can be blind, too, losing sight of who he really was.
I once listened to a story on the radio about a man who developed a condition that slowly took away his vision. He chronicled the experience in his journal, and then relayed his journey long after he lost his sight. Of course, we can imagine some of what he went through – all the fears associated with losing one’s capacity to see. What surprised me, however, was that once his sight was totally gone and all he saw was darkness, he began to forget what things looked like. He couldn’t really remember colors. He eventually forgot what even those closest to him looked like, including himself. We can become so distracted by how we were raised, or that thing that happened to us, or that choice we made, etc., that we just can’t remember who we are anymore. Bart was like that, I bet. Nothing more than a guy punished by a God for sin. A cautionary tale for parents to use to instruct their children about the dangers of poor choices, sitting outside Jericho every day, begging. Blind in every respect.
We learn from the text that when Bart and Jesus have their encounter, it was as Jesus was leaving Jericho. That likely meant that Jesus and the gang had been in Jericho for a few days at least. Bart probably didn’t know anything about Jesus on day one, but if Jesus did his normal routine of teaching and healing, odds are good there was a lot of chatter about it, and that Bart had heard about it. My guess is he had a few days to think about what Jesus’ healing meant, and what it could potentially mean for him. I wonder if he began to have hope – something he likely hadn’t experienced for a very long time. My guess, given how the story unfolded, is that he absolutely got his hopes up, and that he began to regain his courage – and even some of his insight about God and himself – as their encounter drew closer.
The scene: Bart was begging as per usual. He heard a crowd pass him by, and he realized pretty quickly that Jesus was in the center of it. He knew it was now or never. So he called out Jesus’ name and asked for help. Certainly, even if Jesus came to Jericho as a nobody, when he left, he was a very big somebody. Everybody knows that somebodies generally don’t respond to nobodies. The text tells us that the cord – everybody – told him to pipe down – he was embarrassing himself! So, naturally, Blind Bart yelled at the top of his lungs: Jesus, have mercy on me, now! Can you imagine for a moment the courage it took Bart to act against everything everyone had told him, and what he had been telling himself for so long? Incredible! I wonder if we have the guts or hope enough to yell at the top of our lungs for God to hear us? I wonder who that kind of passion is really for – the yeller or the hearer? I think the yeller benefits more. When we are so passionately behind our call to God, it means we really, really want to see things change. Our desperation communicates to ourselves that we are, well, desperate.
Jay Freireich didn’t just casually and quietly defeat leukemia. Malcolm Gladwell speaks of his heroics in his latest book, David and Goliath, where he recounts how much Freireich was challenged by his colleagues when he began his platelets procedure. But it got worse when he began making chemo cocktails, mixing four drugs together instead of administering one at a time. Other doctors were sure it would kill the young patients. In truth, some did die. But they would have died anyway. Freireich knew that life was on the line and risked everything to find a way to combat this child killer. While it may seem coldhearted, he knew that if he didn’t try, kids would die within days anyway – why not try something that may help? Because he courageously acted on his hope, a treatment was found that has led to a cure.
Bart knew his life was on the line. The life he was made to live was being jeopardized. His identity and hope were at stake. What did he have to lose by screaming for help at the top of his lungs?
Once Bart made the big scene, everybody was indignant – what a blemish on Jericho’s impression on Jesus – they can’t keep their nobodies quiet. But Jesus isn’t just anybody. And he wasn’t the normal somebody. He stopped. And then he invited a new somebody – Bart – to come to him. Jesus asked him what he wanted – more for Bart than Jesus, I think. Jesus didn’t do anything except to say that his faith made him well. Bart could see again. His passionate move paid off.
I don’t think Bart was successful because his cries were loud enough to reach heaven. I think he was successful because his passionate, courageous act broke through all the things that kept him from seeing in the first place. The visual noise of his peers, his own doubts, his primitive theology, etc. He realized what he was missing, and called out for help.
Is your life what you envisioned? Are you consumed and motivated by the life God has given you, or the one you have settled for based on everything else? Do you realize that now, right now, you have the option to get your sight back? Now, right now, you have the opportunity to live fully by the Spirit’s script, which is always really, really good. You can, if you choose, begin living more and more by what you have been called to live rather than what you’ve settle for.
It won’t be easy. There will be opposition. From those around you. And from within. But life – your life – is on the line. Are you ready to see again?
