Shout It From The Rooftop

Mark 10:46-52

The Lord Be With You.

A parable of the Gospel …

There once was a man who was constantly forgetting where he would put things in his house. He would set an important document down on his dining room table and leave, only to go back, and it would no longer be there. He was sure that he had put it there but, because it wasn’t there, he soon convinced himself that he was going a bit insane. This happened over and over again but not with everything and not in every place he would leave documents. Just with some and only when the man thought he had left them on the dining room table. However, a few years later, the man decided to redo his house. When the floorboards were taken up to put new ones down, underneath were many pieces of documents. Documents that the man had thought he had misplaced. The construction company also told the man that his foundation needed to be secured since he lived on a very slight ground fault that shook ever so slightly and would shift the boards on the floor. The fault was so slight that normally the man wouldn’t have noticed. The construction company told the man that stuff on his table would eventually fall off, if left there during a shaking, and fall between the cracks in the floor where he would lose them.

Here ends the parable.

Verse 47 says, in part, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” If we could only do the same more often. If only we could let go of all that keeps us down and call out for the mercy of Jesus and God. If only we could be sure that His words can lift anything that might be causing us to be blind to His gifts. If only we could. If only.

This passage, in Mark, is Jesus’ final healing miracle concluding His ministry before He was crucified. It was the last time anyone would observe the actions of God on earth. It was the last time that people could hear His words of assurance that all is not lost and the people were no longer lost but found. And, unlike the prior times where Jesus instructs the person healed to go and tell no one, He does the opposite with Bartimaeus. Unlike the prior miracle of regaining of sight, Jesus just speaks the words. No action, Just speaks the words.

But the crowd wanted the blind man to remain blind. The crowd wanted Bartimaeus to not vary from going against the narrative. So they tried to shout him down. They tried to silence him. They tried to cancel out Bartimaeus. But Bartimaeus was having nothing of the sort. He knew that Jesus was the very one that he needed to cure him of what’s ailing him. He knew Jesus’ past even if he didn’t know his future. And he was sure that when he gave his life over to the Son of Man that he would come out on top. Sort of like this story I’m reminded of …

You know, whether you’re a basketball fan or not, you’re probably familiar with the name Larry Bird – the former basketball great of the Boston Celtics.

During a retirement party for Larry Bird in Boston Gardens, former Celtics coach K. C. Jones told of diagramming a play on the sidelines, only to have Bird dismiss it, saying: “Get the ball to me and get everyone out my way.”

Jones responded, “I’m the coach, and I will call the plays.”

Then Jones turned to the other players and said, “Get the ball to Larry, and get out of the way.”

That’s the church’s message, that’s what Bartimaeus was hoping for – Give the ball to Jesus, put your life in His hands, and get out of the way.

I’ve called this message, “Shout It From The Rooftops” because, like Bartimaeus pressing forward, crying out all the more, we should do the same. No matter what the crowd says. No matter if the truth goes against the narrative of the day. No matter if we’re canceled out ourselves. No matter if the truth goes against someone’s feelings. We’re to shout out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” because to stay silent is to turn our backs on the one who came back here for us. For you and for me.

By calling Bartimaeus forth, Jesus is saying to us to remain silent no more. And if we remain silent no more then we too can set the tone in our own neighborhoods for proclaiming what we all know anyways. That the kingdom of God is always at hand. That Jesus will come back. That the promises made to us through those early disciples can come to fruition. Can come true.

We can be like Bartimaeus and start to follow Jesus closely unlike the rich man who made the choice for this world over the next. We can be like Bartimaeus and show those that have questions about all this Jesus and God and heaven stuff that it really is real. That it really is for them just as it is for you and for me. That the truth of what Jesus did and said and promised is just that, the truth.

You see, if we can really yell out and believe ourselves that Jesus is the Son of God, the Son of man, then we can live out our calling in this world to bring people to the next world for all of eternity. And you know what? The more we can tell our own stories, the more our own fears, our own silence, our own hesitations can be overcome. We can rise above even those 12 disciples who were all eaten up by those very fears, keeping those silent voices silent, feeling those hesitations and we can walk upright that what we know beyond a shadow of doubt is the very truth that we’ve been given. What we’re instilled with.

Folks, the reality is that no one, nothing on this earth, can silence the Good News that we’ve been given. No other belief system has it. Not the Jewish faith. Not Islam. Not Buddhism. Nothing. Jesus is the only one that came back to us to tell us that His was the true path and all those others are just lies made up by people trying to justify their flawed belief system.

Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me reminds us that God is always merciful to those who have put their trust in Him. And He reminds us daily if we can listen. If we can open our eyes to the magnificent beauty that He has created. To the truth that everything that we have in our bible is the truth, the way and the light. If we can take what He says and carry it within our hearts so that our roads don’t remain so bumpy then His truth can win out. As it always does.

It’s like the elderly man who was taking his first flight on an airplane. He was much more relaxed than he had expected – but there was one problem. His ears wouldn’t stop popping. He mentioned this to the airline steward. The steward returned momentarily and explained that chewing gum would keep his ears from popping and handed the man some gum.

At the end of the flight the man thanked the steward: “The gum worked fine; I didn’t notice any more pressure in my ears, but I have another problem now. I’m having a terrible time getting this gum out of my ears.”

It’s real simple folks, we can allow the murmurings of the crowd, the noise, to tell us that all is lost, go back into your homes and shut the doors, let those in power attempt to take God’s power so they can be their own Gods, or we can shout it from the rooftops that no one can stop the words of Christ from permeating through all the crap that we hear on a daily basis.

The last verse in our passage says, your faith has made you well and it’s this that we gotta hang our hats on because it’s only through the belief in the faith that we’ve been given that we can be made well. That can help us to walk with Him when He extends His hands to guide us through the muck and mire of the world we live in. We can be like the guy in our parable that lived on a shaky foundation or we can live on the word and let the Holy Spirit firm up our foundation.

Our parable shows us that sometimes we’re unaware of what’s going on around us and it’s only when it’s been exposed to us that we can see the solution to whatever problems or challenges we might be having. The man, whose house shook, didn’t know that the shaking was a short natural occurrence but affected him long term. So it is with us. Many times we’ve convinced ourselves that the reality that exists around us is not real when it conflicts with what we’ve convinced ourselves is the truth. It’s only when an expert, Jesus, comes in and explains things that we can come to the realization of what’s happening to us. Sometimes we listen. Other times we close ourselves off to what that person is trying to get us to realize.

So it was with Bartimaeus. We don’t know if he was blind from birth or blind from what was going on around him, like the man in the shaky house. We don’t know if his blindness was physical or spiritual. We only know that the contractor, Jesus, allowed him to see again the reality of the gifts that he had been given. Whether that be the physical ability to see or the spiritual ability to believe. We can choose our path too. We can choose whether we remain blind or we can choose to see again. It’s our choice. Choose wisely. Something to think about! Something to pray about?

Can we pray? …

Father we pray for the gift of sight to see the beauty that you have surrounded us with. We pray that you can open our eyes to what you designed us to be. Father we go through this life and we live on shaky grounds. Help us to grab onto the only hand that can guide us through our challenges. Help us to speak with you when we’re faced with the uncertainties that seem to confront us at all times. Help us to hang onto the promises that you’ve already given to us so that our hearts are open to your word. Fill us with your Holy Spirit so that we can walk in the path that you’ve laid out for us. Lift our pains. Relieve our troubles. We pray for your grace and your mercy. We pray this in the name of your Son, Jesus the Christ.

And all God’s people said – Amen?!

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