The gospel of Mark introduced Jesus as the son of God, the same title that the centurion called him after piercing his side. There is something special about Mark, he is not interested in lengthy genealogy like the two other synoptic writers, and rather, for him Jesus is simply the son of God. In the Gospel reading of today, we have another Messianic title the ‘Son of David’. 

God made a covenant with David that ‘his kingdom shall endure’, 2 Sam 7:16. Although, this kingdom endured under King Solomon (David’s son), but it started splitting after him, first, to two different nations, later to 12 tribes, then some of them started merging to form Northern kingdom and the southern Kingdom.

At the time of Jesus, people were for waiting their restoration; looking for the messiah, the true son of David, who will reunite them and save them from their oppressors in the spirit and valor of King David.

Although the people were looking for a fierce and ruthless leader, God in his infinite mercy has chosen to come to his people in his gentle and lowly servant. He chose to reveal himself to those who are lowly and send away the proud; first reading of today noted that God would restore even the lame and the blind. In Christ, it is not the survival of the fittest; rather the weak and the lowly also have a special place in his salvation plan; even David was the youngest but God chose him to be the king over his brothers.

Jesus, the son of David revealed himself to Bartimaeus the blind man in the gospel of today. He was able to see him as the fulfillment of the promises of God while those with vision were seeing Jesus as the son of a carpenter, following him just as a mere magician, miracle worker or a generous bread provider.

The second reading of today reiterated this weakness as one of the features every high priest who needs to be gentle in discharging his duty; being sinful and weak himself but elected to offer sacrifice for his sins and the sins of the community. The whole community is a pilgrim of the redeemed led by Christ the eternal priest who is like man in everything but sin, he knows all about our troubles, struggles and sin. St Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians says “my grace is enough for you, for my power is manifested fully in weakness, I will rather boast of my weakness most gladly, that the power of Christ may abide in me (2 Cor 12:9,10).

That is, Christians may be weak or even ‘blind’ but the grace of God will be sufficient. We only need to beg Christ like Bartimaeus for restoration with a sincere heart.

Some Christians today are mere followers of Christ because they are yet to have a personal encounter with him, they go to church simply because it is an obligation and this is a form of blindness. Msgr John Aniagwu also noted some forms of blindness in his book ‘Breaking of The Word’: intellectual blindness and spiritual blindness: those who are not able to read or assimilate the teachings of Christ and those who genuinely refused to believe in Christ. This is not the time to say that I am not blind, for many are blind but only a few are aware.

We need healing, may Christ enlighten us. Amen. 

In conclusion it is worthy of note that our salvation and our restoration comes with a mandate of bringing others to Christ. The people around Jesus today whispered the message of hope to this blind man, we also need to do the same. Fr Vima Dasan his book ‘His Word Lives “may we then beg the Lord in the words of the blind man Bartimaeus (Mk 10:51) that “we may see” the missionary obligations of our Baptism; see where hatred is, in order to sow love; see where injury is, to sow pardon; see where despair is, to sow hope; see where darkness is, to sow light; and see where sadness is, to sow joy”.