Mercy

Blind Bartimaeus Receives His Sight ~ Mark 46 – 52

I always know that God is speaking to me, when twice in the last two days a story is given to me. Yesterday, I attended a bible study and this was the lesson and today it is in the reading. I know God is sharing with me and it always amazes me! I love to be amazed with wonder that God loves me so much that He wants to share with me! It just gives me those chills up and down my spine and I just dance for the rest of the day! God is sharing with me.

After hearing the story yesterday, I actually came home and studied the story even more. This morning, I got up picked up the Bible and there was the story again. So, I will share a little bit about what I have learned from my studies with each of you.

The first part of the story tells us that Jesus and his disciples were leaving Jericho. Do you know that the name Jericho means to smell, or a place of fragrance. Jericho was actually a city that had many plants that had great fragrance like roses, balsam and cypress. Also, honey is found in abundance here. Imagine, they are on the edge of the city surrounded by this great fragrance. The fragrance of the surroundings and of Jesus!

It tells us they came upon a blind man named Bartimaeus sitting by the roadside begging. After reading about the meaning of the name Jericho, I thought what does Bartimaeus mean…after all they didn't usually name the blind man in the stories. He is actually named in this story, so research began. The name is actually two Hebrew words together the first is Bar, meaning the oldest son or heir; and the next is tame, meaning to be foul or unclean …unpresentable to God.

So Bartimaeus is literally "heir to being unpresentable to God. His inheritance was sin. Imagine what does he do next? He cries out "Jesus, Son of David" have mercy on me. The Hebrew phrase here literally means Son of loving..He cried out Son of loving please have compassion on me.

Wow…this blind man could see a lot more than we do at times! He knew to call out to the one that truly loves us please show me compassion. The blind man could not see, but he saw who Jesus truly was.

In verse 48, he seized the moment. He saw his opportunity to be healed and he took it. It goes on in verse 50 and 51, He knew the power of God. He didn't question he jumped to his feet threw off the cloak and knew he would be healed.

In verse, 52, Jesus tells him to Go, that his faith healed him. But what did Bartimaeus do? It tells us that he followed Jesus along the road. He knew what really mattered. What do we see?

Do we know all the things that this blind man knew? I love the song "I Can Only Imagine" by Mercy Me (which plays here)…this is true of this story. I can only imagine here sat a man with a name that literally meant he was unpresentable to God and yet he knew different. He knew to call out Son of Loving please have compassion on me. Do we know the same?

Sweet Blessings,

Debbie