THE CASE OF Bartimaeus, as recorded in Mark 10:46, gives us some insight into a certain number of points relating to prayer.
And they came to Jericho; and as he went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great number of people, blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the highway side, begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy upon me.’ And many charged him that he should hold his peace; but he cried the more a great deal, ‘Thou, son of David, have mercy on me.’ And Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called, and they called the blind man, saying to him, be of good comfort, rise; he calleth thee. And he, casting away his garment, rose, and came to Jesus. And Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?’ The blind man said unto Him, ‘Lord, that I might receive my sight.’ And Jesus said unto him: ‘Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole.’ And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way.
This man, Bartimaeus, was not a young man apparently; he had sat for a number of years at the gate of Jericho, receiving his sustenance from the mercy or the indifferent wealth of those who passed by. It is likely that in the course of his life he had tried all existing means and all possible ways of being healed. As a child, he had probably been brought to the temple, prayers and sacrifices had been offered. He had visited all those who could heal, either because they had a gift, or because they had knowledge. He had surely fought for his sight and he had been constantly disappointed. Every human device had been tried, yet blind he remained. He had probably also heard in the previous months that a young preacher had appeared in
Galilee, a man who loved people, who was merciful and who was a holy man of God, a man who could heal and work miracles. He had probably often thought that if he could he would have gone to meet him; but Christ was going from one place to another and there was little chance that a blind man should find his way to him. And so, with that spark of hope that made despair even deeper and more acute, he sat by the gate of Jericho.
One day a crowd passed him, a crowd greater than usual, a noisy oriental crowd; the blind man heard it and asked who was there, and when he was told that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to callout. Every spark of hope that had survived in his soul suddenly became a fire, a burning fire of hope. Jesus, whom he had never been able to meet, was passing his way. He was passing by, and every step was bringing him nearer and nearer, and then every step would take him farther and farther away, hopelessly so; and he began to cry, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy upon me.’ This was the most perfect profession of faith that he could make at that moment. He recognised in him the son of David, the Messiah; he could not yet call, him the son of God, because even the disciples did not yet know; but he recognised in him the one who was expected. Then something happened which happens constantly in our lives: they told him to be quiet.
How often does it not happen that after seeking and struggling for years on our own, when on a sudden we begin to cry to God, many voices try to silence our prayers, outward voices as well as inward voices. Is it worth praying? How many years did you struggle and God did not care? Is he to care now? What is the use of praying? Go back into your hopelessness, you are blind, and blind forever. But the greater the opposition, the greater also is the evidence that help is at hand. The devil never attacks us so violently as when we are quite close to the term of our struggle, and we might yet be saved, but often are not, because we give way at the last moment. Give in, says the devil, make haste, it is too much, it is more than you can stand, you can put an end to it at once, do not wait, you cannot endure it any more. And then we commit suicide, physically, morally, spiritually; we renounce the struggle and accept death, just a minute before help was at hand and we might have been saved.
We must never listen to these voices; the louder they shout, the stronger should be our purpose; we must be ready to cry out as long as necessary, as loud as Bartimaeus did. Jesus Christ was passing by, his last hope was passing by, but the people who were surrounding Christ were either indifferent or trying to silence him. His grief and suffering were out of place. They, who perhaps needed Christ less, but surrounded him, wanted him to be busy with them. Why should that blind man in distress interrupt them? But Bartimaeus knew that there was no hope for him if this last one vanished. This depth of hopelessness was the well from which sprang a faith, a prayer full of such conviction and such insistence that it broke through all barriers – one of those prayers which beat at the gates of heaven as St John Climacus says. Because his despair was so profound he did not listen to the voices commanding him to be quiet, to hold his peace; and the more they tried to prevent him from reaching out to Christ, the louder he said: ‘Thou, son of David, have mercy on me!’ Christ stood still, asked for him to be brought forward and worked a miracle.
We can learn from Bartimaeus in our practical approach to prayer that when we turn to God wholeheartedly, God always hears us. Usually when we realise that we can no longer depend upon all that we are accustomed to find reliable around us, we are not yet ready to renounce these things. We can see that there is no hope as far as human, earthly ways are concerned. We are aiming at something, we search for our sight and we are constantly frustrated; it is torment and hopelessness and if we stop there, we are defeated. But if at that moment we turn to God, knowing that only God is left, and say: ‘I trust thee and commit into thy hands my soul and body, my whole life,’ then despair has led us to faith.
Despair is conducive to a new spiritual life when we have got the courage to go deeper and farther, realizing that what we are despairing about is not the final victory but the means we have employed to reach it. Then we start at rock bottom in quite a new way. God may bring us back to one of the means we have already tried, but which, under him, we may be able to use successfully. There should always be real cooperation between God and man and then God will give intelligence, wisdom, power to do the right thing and achieve the right goal.
~Archbishop Anthony Bloom, Living Prayer
