“Holler For Jesus”(Revised)
Mark 10:46-52
By Rev. Kenneth Emerson Sauer, Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church, Newport News, VA
www.parkview-umc.org
There’s a song…and I think it’s by Bob Segar…the lyrics go like this:
“I feel like a number, I’m just a number…”
Well, I bet there are a lot of us who often feel this way.
We may feel as if we really don’t matter much.
We may feel like just another face in the crowd.
We may feel as if our lives don’t amount to much in this great big world!
There’s another song…
…this one by the Beatles.
It’s called Elinor Rigby…
The chorus goes: “Aw, look at all those lonely people…”
And there are a lot of lonely people.
And we don’t have to be truly just by ourselves in order to feel lonely…
…often, even in a crowd, there are a lot of lonely people.
Have you ever felt lonely in a crowd?
I have.
And this is the kind of situation that blind Bartimaeus was in here in our Gospel lesson for this morning.
He was a roadside beggar in a huge crowd of people and all the attention was on Jesus.
And Bartimaues began to shout: “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”
And this annoyed the crowd.
“Who does this blind beggar think he is? He’s a nobody. He doesn’t matter. He’s an annoyance. Shut him up!”
They told him to be quiet, “but he shouted all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!”
Well, the crowd may not have thought that Bartimaeus was worth much, but he sure was worth an awful lot to Jesus Christ, the Author of life!
Let’s all remember this whenever we feel “like a number.” …
…whenever we feel as if we don’t matter much…
…whenever we feel unloved, unwanted, and useless…
…let’s remember this every time the crowds tell us to be quiet!
Let’s remember that the most important person to ever walk this earth…
…the One Who Created this earth cares about us, loves us…each and every one of us…
…is intimately concerned and involved in every aspect of our lives…
…went to the Cross for each of us…
…suffered all the temptations and hardships of life on this earth for each one of us…
…but was without sin…
…and rose again…
…in order to save us!
That’s how important and loved each and every one of us are!!!
So, if anyone tries to stop you from calling out to Jesus, just holler all the more!!!
He’ll stop and listen.
No problem is too big or too small…
…for the most important creatures in His sight!
Remember the story of The Good Samaritan?
A man who was walking down a road was mugged by a group of robbers.
“They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.”
There he was lying on the side of the road and a priest happened by…but he was in too big a hurry to stop and help.
And then a Levite came upon the man, but he didn’t have the time or care enough to bother with him, so he passed by on the other side.
Well, unlike the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus did not pass by on the other side of the road as He came to Jericho and blind Bartimaeus began to holler for Him.
Look again at verse 49.
Now, to put this into a little bit of perspective…
…Jericho was just about 15 miles Northeast of Jerusalem…
…and this was where Jesus was headed.
Jesus’ mind was now set on the Cross, there was a whole procession following Him…Jesus was just about to enter Jerusalem on a colt…
…and a whole bunch of folks were going to wave palm branches and shout: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!…Hosanna in the highest!”
But here is blind Bartimaeus, a roadside beggar.
And this beggar was very important to Jesus, so important, in fact, that on His way to the Jerusalem Cross, Jesus stopped the whole procession in order to give him his sight back.
Jesus’ stopping said clearly, “You count.”
And that is one of the deep, permanent needs of humanity—the need for respect, the assurance that we “count,” that we are not just merely a number…
…one of many.
Bartimaeus was a man who had obviously heard about Jesus.
He had heard about the miracles Jesus had been performing…
…and here He comes…
…He may never come this way again…
…this was Bartimaeus’ big chance!
So, Bartimaeus hollered for Jesus!
He wasn’t going to let anything get in his way…
…get in the way of his opportunity for salvation!
We are all given the opportunity that Bartimaeus was given.
Jesus came his way.
And Jesus comes our way.
This was Bartimaeus’ time to be saved or let Jesus just pass on by.
Look at verse 48 in Mark chapter 10 once more.
Bartimaeus was willing to go against the crowd in order to be saved.
Are we?
Are we willing to holler for Jesus, even when everyone else is telling us that we don’t matter, that Jesus is too busy for us?
And let’s face it, it is not necessarily ‘hip’ to become a follower of Jesus.
We’ve got the whole world telling us to go the other way…
…to follow the pack…
…to go down the wide road that leads to destruction…
…to give in to peer pressure…
…to ‘fit in’.
Bartimaeus was blind, but he wanted to see.
And here lies the key.
He wanted to see.
Many people do not want to see.
They’d rather stay in the darkness…and aren’t we told that this is the verdict which will decide our eternal destinies?
“Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.”
Are we afraid of the light…lest we see something that we do not want to see?
Will there be too many changes we will have to make in our lives if we allow the light to be turned on?
A friend of mine told me a story this past week about a woman who had been suffering with cataracts for quite some time.
Finally she had surgery to remove the cataracts.
After her surgery, my friend asked the woman, “So, how did the surgery go?”
“Well,” she replied. “It sure was a wake up call!”
“How so?” my friend asked.
“I have had this beautiful brown dress that I have always loved to wear. I always thought I looked so good in that beautiful dress.
But when I got home from my surgery I discovered that my dress is not brown at all! It’s green, and I hate green!”
Yes, things look mighty different once the lights come on.
And often there are things that we see that we don’t like…
…Things about our lives that we must allow Jesus to change as we begin and continue following Him along the road to eternal life.
Because when we are miraculously changed by the saving power of Jesus…when we come to Him when He calls us…
…the things that used to look good to us in the darkness, don’t look so good in the light!
There’s another song…this one is a hymn written in 1922…the lyrics go like this: “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”
Bartimaeus, the blind beggar wanted to see the light.
Look at verses 49-52.
“Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.”
His life changed the moment that Jesus heard him hollering for Him, and said “Call him.”
Why, Bartimaeus threw his cloak aside.
He threw his old life right in the waste basket!
He didn’t even have to think about it.
This was Bartmaeus’ born again experience!
Can’t you picture this one-time blind beggar staying right close to Jesus as they climbed the road toward Jerusalem?
He probably drank deeply of every Word that Jesus spoke.
He probably took in every visual impression along the way.
And a little while after this he may have been one of the ones to witness Jesus on Palm Sunday…
…to see his Savior go into Jerusalem.
His new eyes probably also took in the Crucifixion on Calvary and the Resurrected Jesus and the exciting, spirit-filled Pentecost!
He may have even been part of the leadership of the early Church, holding meetings in Jericho.
Bartimaeus’ story reveals to us the stages toward salvation.
It begins with our need…our need to be loved…our need to be heard…our need to be changed…our need to have a useful and worthwhile existence in this often hostile and angry world.
It continues as we holler for Jesus…as we call to Him…repenting and asking Him to change our lives.
Asking Him to heal our miserable existence.
Asking for love.
Asking Him to turn on the Light and take away our sins.
And as soon as He calls us…
…and He will do this if we honestly holler for Him…
…we must spring up, leaving our old lives behind…
…throwing our old lives in the waste basket.
And when we tell Him that we want to be saved, that we want to be made whole, that we want to see…
…if we do this in faith…
…Jesus will say to us: “your faith has healed you.”
Then, in gratitude for what Jesus has done for us we give Him our unswerving loyalty, deny ourselves and follow Him into a whole new existence…an existence where we learn more and more every day how much we really are loved…how much we really do matter…how un-alone we really are!
Bartimaeus was not going to be resigned to staying in the darkness for the rest of his life.
He was not going to remain feeling like he was just another number.
He knew there was a better way.
And he knew from Whom the better way comes.
Do we?
And if we do…what are we going to do about it?
Let us pray: Help us to be persistent in our calling out to You, O God, and come to us and heal us. May we follow You on the way just as Bartimaeus did. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
