April, 2007
Why Cling to a Beggar’s Cloak?
“Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped
to his feet and came to Jesus.”
Mark 10:50 NIV
INTRODUCTION: The story of Bartimaeus tells of a man who had been blind for many years--perhaps all of his life. He wore the official beggar’s garment, and his life was reduced to sitting beside the roadside day after day begging. He had probably been shunned and ignored by people. He had heard negative remarks so often that his self-esteem had dropped to zero over the years.
It would have been easy for Bartimaeus to “hug his hurts” and pull the beggar’s garment more tightly around him. Self pity and dejection could have engulfed him more as the years went by. Deep down within Bartimaeus, however, was a spark of faith which arose every time he heard about Jesus.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Bartimaeus lived near Jericho which was a town 15 miles northeast of Jerusalem, and it was on the traveled route for people going to Jerusalem. This story occurred when religious people were going to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. You might think that these people who were considered “religious” would have wanted to help him, but it only annoyed them when he shouted out, “What’s happening?” Because of the constant flow of traffic, Bartimaeus picked up quite a bit of information. He stored it away in his heart, and it served as a preparation for what was to happen later. He was probably better prepared for the day he met Jesus than a lot of other people were.
When the opportunity to meet Jesus presents itself, do we first have to work through our fears, doubts, and preconceived ideas? Do we have to spend so much time working on the basics that we can’t cry out to Him quickly? Sometimes we may not be able to respond at all. Or have we, like Bartimaeus, been able to learn who Jesus is and know what He can do for us? If we are having difficulty believing and responding, we can do something about it. We can begin to make daily, small decisions that will prepare us for better future responses.
Some of the things that Bartimaeus learned was:
1. He heard how Jesus had healed other blind people.
2. He had a conviction in his heart that Jesus really was the promised Messiah.
3. He knew that Jesus had not refused people when they came to Him in the past.
4. He knew that Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem for the Passover and He would be coming that way.
5. Bartimaeus knew he was on the right road.
Even though Bartimaeus couldn’t see what was going on in the crowds, his sense of hearing was sharpened, and he began gathering these faith-building nuggets over a period of time.
This reminds me of the following legend:
One night a group of nomads were traveling down the road when they were surrounded by a great light, and they knew they were in the presence of celestial beings. With great anticipation they awaited a heavenly message of great importance to them. Finally a voice spoke:
“Gather as many pebbles as you can. Put them in your saddle bags. Travel a day’s journey and tomorrow night will find you glad and it will also find you sad.”
They were disappointed and angry at the message. They were given a menial task that made no sense. However, the brilliance of the visitor caused each one to go ahead and pick up a few pebbles and put them in their saddle bags.
They traveled a day’s journey and that night reached into their saddle bags. They discovered that every pebble had turned into a diamond. They were happy they had diamonds, but they were sad that they had not gathered more pebbles.
Bartimaeus had been gathering these nuggets or “pebbles” as he heard people talking about Jesus, and his faith began to grown. When he finally met Jesus, these “pebbles” all turned into diamonds for him. What a happy day when he received his sight.
How often do we fail to pick up “pebbles” that will later turn into diamonds for us, and it makes us a little sad to think that things could have been better for us.
Bartimaeus dreamed of such a day when Jesus would come by. For some reason, today seemed a little different to him. He couldn’t see, but he could overhear the crowds talking. There were more people than usual. They were talking louder. The crowd pushed and shoved each other as they went by.
“What’s going on?” he asked. He found out that Jesus was coming this way on his trip to Jerusalem. The crowd became noisier. Something was happening. The crowd pushed by him, ignoring him. He felt an intensity rise up within him. One thing he was sure of. He didn’t want to miss Jesus. He had a need. With his heart pounding, he cried out in a loud voice, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.”
The crowd said, “Be quiet. You’re nothing but a beggar. He doesn’t have time for you!” But he shouted all the more, “Thou Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Although people told Bartimaeus to be quiet, he did not let them stop him. Calling Jesus, “Son of David” was the first in the gospels to do this, and it preceded the public presentation of Jesus as the Messiah. This event precedes the entry into Jerusalem and the opening events leading up to the Crucifixion. It was the last of the healing miracles. Jesus did not need to stop and respond to this man’s need, but Jesus’ concern for the needy had not stopped even though his earthly healing ministry was coming to a close at that time.
The people said, “Don’t bother Jesus. He’s on his way to Jerusalem. Don’t slow him down.”
TRANSITION: Out of the crowd came a voice like no other. “Bring that man to me!”
Bartimaeus sprang to his feet, and flung aside his beggar’s garment making his way to Jesus. This is the part of the story that I want to specifically focus on today. Why do you think that Bartimaeus threw away his cloak which signified his license to beg even before he came to Jesus? It would be as if I threw my counselor license away or my teaching certificate. These certificates and licenses permit me to do certain jobs in the state of Ohio. What if I would just throw them in the trash can? Bartimaeus’s cloak was his license to beg, and he jumps to his feet and throws it on the ground.
The cloak signified four things:
1. A Beggar’s Lifestyle--The beggar’s garment represented the old lifestyle. He had faith in Jesus’s ability to change all of this. He would not have to sit along the roadside and beg anymore. Once Jesus healed him, he would have a new life. So strong was his faith in what Jesus could do and would do for him, that he flung aside the beggar’s garment even before he went to Jesus.
When we meet Jesus, we can be assured that our lives will never be the same again. We are not beggars any longer. We are new creations in Christ. The old has gone, the new has come (II Corinthians 5:17). There are better things ahead, and we never have to go back to a sin-filled, beggarly lifestyle again. Apparently Bartimaeus had prepared his heart so thoroughly before Jesus got there, that it didn’t occur to him to hang on to his license to beg. Once he sprang to his feet, he did not see himself as a “downcast beggar” any more. He hadn’t been healed yet, but he envisioned a new lifestyle once Jesus touched him. He didn’t have the slightest thought of seeing Jesus and then returning to his place along the roadside with the other beggars.
How has your Christian experience changed your life? Are you living different from the life you led before coming to Jesus? Many people who come to church don’t seem to be very different as a result. It’s just a routine for them. Jesus said, “I have come to give you abundant life” (John 10:10). He tells us to “ask and you shall receive that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). Some people say, “I’m just going to try to hang on until Jesus comes or some people will focus on the beggarly elements of society--the high crime rate, the violence among teenagers, the environmental issues, and they feel that everything is hopeless. They are just barely surviving. People feel that they can’t make it financially and are just scraping the bottom of the barrel.
When the Lord touches our lives, He expects us to cast off the beggar’s garment, rise to our feet and start expecting to live a more abundant, joyful life. He has made provisions to supply all of our needs. How do you know that? “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). He has made provision for our healing when we are sick, “for by his stripes you were healed” (I Peter 2:24). He has promised never to leave us nor forsake us” (Hebrews 13:5). Do you believe this? Say, “Amen, if you do.”
We must begin to realize who we are in Christ. We are no longer beggars anymore. Why do we insist on clinging to our beggar’s cloak of fears and doubts? We have been “accepted into the beloved” (Eph. 1:6). Our Christianity should become a real and vibrant lifestyle for us. It should be exciting. When we get up we should be able to say, “Good Morning, Lord,” not “Good Lord, morning.” Bartimaeus’ lifestyle was changed. Has Jesus changed your lifestyle?
2. Limitations: The beggar’s garment represented limitations placed on his life. All he could do was beg. He was identified as a beggar when wearing this garment, and as long as he wore it that is exactly where he would stay--along the roadside. Once he met Jesus, he knew these limitations would be gone. He flung off the garment even before he came to Jesus. The boundaries were changed. What could he do as a career now that he could see? What were the dreams that he had for his future? Where once he was limited and locked into a set routine, now he was free to venture out--to try his wings.
We often make a decision to follow Jesus, but we continue to cling to the limitations of a beggar’s lifestyle. We need to make plans for a new life. It won’t just “happen” if we go back to sitting by the roadside. We must remove the limitations by setting new goals, breaking old habits, getting additional vocational or educational training, or by seeking the help we need in other areas of our life. Sometimes we feel we can’t change. We feel we’re too old, too limited financially, and even teenagers will say, “I can’t change because that’s the way I was raised.” Bartimaeus could have said, “I can’t do anything else. I have always been a beggar.”
We must believe that with Jesus helping us, “we can do all things through Christ” (Phil. 4:13). Too often we CAN God. We say, “CAN God heal me? CAN God give me a better job? CAN God??? Turn that around and say it this way, “God CAN heal me. God CAN meet my financial needs.” Think of ways in which you are limiting yourself. You may be telling yourself, “I can’t.” Fling off the beggar’s garment of limitations.
3. Hurts of the Past: the garment wrapped tightly around Bartimaeus was a comfort from the hurts of the past--the cruel words, the abusiveness, the slights, and the tears over lost hopes and dreams. He knew he could shelter himself not only from the wind and the rain but also from people. It served as his “shell” to protect him from getting hurt over and over again. He may have relived these hurts over and over again in his mind and repeated them to other beggars along the way. He clung as tightly to his past as he clung to his beggar’s garment.
Like Bartimaeus, we hang on to hurts too long. We talk about them over and over until they become self-perpetuating. Some people “hug their hurts” by constantly calling attention to their problems and reliving their past abuses. In order to get the attention they so desperately crave, they will often create crises. In a small group they frequently make their needs the centerpiece. Perhaps this pattern developed in childhood when a crisis was the only time parents noticed them. We make it even more difficult by punishing ourselves over and over. It has been said that we are “our own worst enemy.” We tell ourselves that people don’t want to include us in a group or that people don’t like us or any number of things. We must be done with hurts of the past. Sometimes they last in families for years. People won’t speak to a relative who has said something. That is held tightly around them as the beggar’s cloak was.
Let us throw aside the garment of hurts, expecting Jesus to heal our inner memories. He will if we will let go of them.
4. False Security: The beggar’s robe represented security to Bartimaeus, but it didn’t amount to much more than a false security. He could cling to his cloak “just in case” things didn’t work out with Jesus. If Jesus didn’t help him, he could always go back to begging. If he didn’t have enough faith to believe that Jesus could give him his sight, he could always go back to the side of the road. The cloak represented something to “fall back on” if things didn’t pan out.
He could throw it away because he had full confidence in Jesus. He could make this response deliberately and quickly. He knew that once he had seen Jesus, he wouldn’t need it anymore. He was headed for a “Mid-life career” change, and immediately he got rid of what symbolized his blindness, limitations, and hurts. He was about to change direction. Why would he need to beg anymore? He didn’t.
How often do we feel a need to hang on to “something” even if it is nothing more than an old beggar’s cloak. It may be difficult for us to let go of the things that hold us back from finding the healing, both physical and emotional, that we need so desperately. Are we afraid to let go of our “beggar’s cloak” because of our insecurities? Do we need to hang on to it “just in case”?
Remember, Bartimaeus cast aside the garment before he went to Jesus. He made no provision for “what ifs.” he did not accept the false security of going back to a miserable beggarly existence. That was not one of his options.
Many people will stay in abusive situations because they feel that they have learned how to cope and adjust. We are more afraid of the unknowns of our life. We may say, “I don’t like the way things are now, but at least I know how to cope with my situation.”
The beggar’s cloak is only a place of false security. Jesus wants us to fling it aside and trust Him as He brings us into genuine security. We don’t have to accept a life of false security just because it is as comfortable as our “old” shoes.
When Bartimaeus was healed, scripture says he “followed Jesus.” Although making a decision to follow Jesus is scary, yet He assures us that He will go with us.
CONCLUSION: I think that all of us can say that we are clinging to a beggar’s cloak in some way or another because we are all needy in some way in our life. But we don’t have to stay that way. We can move on into a more overcoming life because of Jesus. I ask you this question in conclusion, “Why are you clinging to a beggar’s cloak? Don’t you want to fling it aside today?”
LET US PRAY:
Lord, we thank you for opening our eyes
to see all that You want to do for us today.
Help us to quickly fling aside the beggar’s
cloak that holds us to an old lifestyle, binds us with limitations, and reminds us of hurts of the past.
Help us to move out into a new relationship with You. Let us feel secure in Your love. Heal our hurts, change our lives, in Jesus Name we pray.”
Amen
