And answering him, Jesus said, “What do you want Me to do for you?” And the blind man said to Him, “Rabboni, I want to regain my sight!” And Jesus said to him “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and began following Him on the road.

                                                                                                               Mark 10:51-52 

The man’s name is Bartimaeus. He was a blind man, literally, physically blind. But this wonderful story of healing at the hands of a gracious and benevolent Savior has deeper insights to offer us.

Let’s begin with the fact that upon hearing that Jesus was passing by, Bartimaeus began to cry out for the attention of Jesus. It’s important for us to notice the reaction of the people around him as he appealed to Christ. You might think that they would support him in his zealous effort to gain Jesus’ attention, but they didn’t. Instead, the people sternly told him to be quiet. Of course he ignored that advice and kept on crying out all the more.

There are times in our lives when the people around us do not support us in our Christian lives. Others may not share your optimism over the promises of God found in scripture nor your enthusiasm and tenacity for the gospel. Your zeal for seeking God can often be met by skepticism and doubt. However, persistence in calling on God to act on your behalf will yield a harvest of blessing if you just stay consistent. Jesus taught about perseverance in prayer as He told the story of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8). He also instructs us to keep asking, keep seeking, and keep knocking because “everyone who asks will receive, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (Matthew 7:7-8). So ignoring the naysayers and persisting in our appeal to God will yield a harvest of blessing. Bartimaeus didn’t listen to the crowd and continued his appeal to Christ.

Secondly, Bartimaeus acknowledges Jesus for who He is. When he calls Him “the Son of David” and refers to Him as Rabonni, which means “My Master,” he is correctly identifying Jesus and verbally expressing his faith. One of the distinct ways that you can recognize a born again believer from the rest of the world is their acknowledgment that Jesus is the Son of God. “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides with him and he abides in God (1 John 4:15).” For us to expect God to work in our lives, we must first rightly acknowledge Him, placing our trust in the fact that He is who He says He is and that He will do what He says He will do. For this blind man, ignoring the voices that were encouraging him to cease his appeal and clinging to his knowledge of who Jesus is, Bartimaeus was successful in his effort to secure the attention of Jesus.

Thirdly, as Jesus approached Batimaeus, He asked him what it was that He wanted Him to do. When we pray, we should always be prepared to seek God’s perspective on our lives, however, in this instance, Jesus was questioning Bartimaeus about what was on his mind. God desires for us to bring everything to Him in prayer (Philippians 4:6-7). But when we pray, we need to understand the irreplaceable value that faith plays in our making an appeal to our heavenly Father. This blind man was prepared to cry out as long as it took to secure Jesus’ attention and now that he had it, he had to exercise his faith in the power and ability of Christ to meet his need. Scripture tells us that failure to believe when asking God for things in prayer will result in an inability for us to receive anything from Him (James 1:5-8). We have to believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who earnestly seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). I believe that Bartimaeus exhibited this faith in Christ as he responded to Jesus’ question by saying, “I want to regain my sight.” And that brings us to the next point.

Jesus heals the man of his blindness stating what we see throughout the gospel accounts; that his faith had made him well. I do not believe that this fact should be ignored or understated. Like so many others who encountered Jesus and received healing, this man’s faith was the catalyst that unleashed the power of God in his life. The word used in this passage describing the man’s healing is the same word used in the vast majority of the places in which we see Jesus healing someone of a physical ailment. It is the same word that we would use to describe the salvation of someone’s soul to eternity. I don’t believe that this is a coincidence. In other words, I believe that this man received physical sight while obtaining spiritual sight at the same time. Jesus’ pronouncement of his deliverance included the physical and spiritual simultaneously. We see this reality in the last of the passage.

Bartimaeus began to follow Jesus. He was a man who had gone from physical blindness to the ability to see but he was also a man that was changed on the inside. I believe that his faith brought about healing both for his eyes and his soul.

Do you walk this earth with spiritual eyes? Do you have the capacity to “see” things in light of the truth of the gospel? The Bible describes those who are without Christ as being spiritually blind. They are incapable of discerning spiritual things because that ability only comes when we surrender our lives to Jesus. As Christians, we are to be a spiritual light for those around us. Much like a lighthouse warns the passing ships of the danger of approaching land, we are to light the way for others to experience the physical and spiritual healing that Bartimaeus enjoyed when encountering Jesus. A city on a hill cannot be hidden (Matthew 5:14) therefore we are to let our light shine before men so that they will see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). Why not use your spiritual sight to lead someone else to the Savior today!

This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.

                                                                                                                   John 3:19-21