Two Men, Two Kingdoms: Bartimaeus, Part 1

As I wrote, thought, and prayed about Bartimaeus and two kingdoms, it became clear that this would be another long post. So, I broke it up into two parts.  And although I intended the original post to be about Bartimaeus, it ended up being about him and about the Rich Young Ruler ( RYR) as well. I just can’t get away from that guy. 

Bartimaeus (son of Timaeus) was a blind beggar by the side of the road leading out of Jericho on the way to Jerusalem. It is here that he had a brief encounter with Jesus. We meet him in Mark 10: 46-52, and Luke 18: 35-43. Bartimaeus was the exact opposite of the RYR in Jewish society. Bartimaeus was the lowest of the low, the poorest of the poor. In that culture, he, his father, or his other forefathers were considered to have seriously sinned against God. He was unclean, invisible, forgettable; completely unworthy of any notice at all. A man or woman who got dust on their robes from Bartimaeus’ feet as he passed by would have to undergo ritual cleansing.

Bartimaeus was in his usual spot on the side of the road. Jesus was passing by on His way to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover and to die on the cross. His encounter with Bartimaeus, coupled with His previous encounter with the Rich Young Ruler, provides a climax to His earthly ministry of teaching and healing. In these two meetings, we find a synthesis of Jesus’ gospel-message on the meaning and significance of the Kingdom of God.

There was no way Bartimaeus would be allowed to approach Jesus, as the RYR did. Bartimaeus definitely did not have ‘access’. The disciples and other followers would keep him away. So, sitting by the side of the road, the best he could do was ask “who is that passing by”? Someone told him “It is Jesus”. He cries out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”, which has since been called the ‘perfect prayer’. Somehow Bartimaeus knows that Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One, the King who Israel has anticipated for generations. “Son of David” is a messianic title. Not “Teacher” as the RYR named Him, but Messiah, the Anointed One, Christ.

Before we look at the interaction between Bartimaeus and Jesus, I want to examine this amazing prayer “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me”. There are two parts to the prayer: 1) “Jesus, Son of David”. In other words “You are the Messiah” and 2) “have mercy on me”. The RYR asked Jesus “how can I inherit eternal life?” Bartimaeus cries out for “mercy”, which includes a plea for forgiveness and grace.

First, how did Bartimaeus know that Jesus was the Messiah that Israel had been waiting for, and the RYR did not? Oh boy. I could write a book about this one aspect of the story.

Bartimaeus was a simple man. He couldn’t read — he was blind and almost certainly didn’t go to school. We can reasonably assume he had no real knowledge of Scripture. He knew about the world, it kicked him around every day. But he lacked the type of knowledge that the RYR had been exposed to since he was a child. Bartimaeus probably knew about every-day events from snippets of conversation he picked up on the side of the road from passersby as he sat begging. My guess is that he heard about Jesus in this way. Everyone was talking about the healing miracles, raising Lazarus from the dead, and the teachings of Jesus. Especially at this time. Thousands of pilgrims were passing by Bartimaeus each day on their way to Jerusalem.

But whatever Bartimaeus knew about Jesus, the RYR knew a hundred times more. He knew the Scriptures and the prophesies, he had certainly conversed with Scribes and Pharisees, he had probably travelled to see and hear Jesus. He might have witnessed healing miracles.

So why did Bartimaeus get it and the RYR did not? Bartimaeus was simple, unsophisticated, and even child-like, like the disciple Peter. Peter was the first of the disciples to have the revelation of who Jesus was. At Caesarea Philippi, that debauched city of idol worshipers, Jesus asked His disciples “who do you say I am?” Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16: 16 NIV) — exactly what Bartimaeus cried out (Messiah in Hebrew = Christ in Greek). And how did Peter know this? Where did this revelation come from? Jesus told him “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven” (Matthew 16: 17). Peter recognized Jesus supernaturally through the working of the Holy Spirit. I obviously don’t know for sure, but I believe Bartimaeus knew Jesus in the same way: the Holy Spirit revealed it to him. It was not human wisdom or experience, it was a supernatural ‘word of knowledge’.

After Peter correctly named Jesus Messiah or Christ, Jesus taught His disciples with these words “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16: 23 NIV). These are exactly the words Jesus spoke to the RYR — deny yourself by giving away all your wealth, take up your cross, and follow me (NKJV). Jesus shows us the way into the Kingdom of God and is describing for us what the Kingdom life looks like. Each of these steps is manifested in Bartimaeus’ interaction with Jesus. And unlike the RYR, Bartimaeus enters the Kingdom of God joyfully and leaves behind the kingdom of self.

I often wondered why Mark wrote about Jesus and the little children in Mark 10: 13-16, just before the story of the RYR. In Mark 10, Jesus tells his followers “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. And He took the children in His arms, put His hands on them and blessed them” (Mark 10: 14, 15 NIV). The next verse in Mark 10 is this “As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to Him and fell on his knees before Him.” It was the RYR. The juxtaposition of these two vignettes is not an accident. Unsophisticated, simple, uneducated Bartimaeus was like one of the children — he was able to enter the Kingdom of God. The sophisticated, educated, knowledgeable RYR could not enter the Kingdom of God — he turned away sorrowfully because he had great wealth and worldliness. Bartimaeus was set free; the RYR continued to live a life of slavery.

I already wrote about the ‘fortified city’ — his wealth — that the RYR had to demolish to get into the Kingdom of God. I believe there was another ‘fortified city’ he had to demolish — the ‘fortified city’ of knowledge related to self-reliance, intellectual pride, and sophistication. The RYR grew up wanting for nothing. Over time he came to rely on his wealth and power to provide not just his physical needs, but his emotional and spiritual needs as well. He was ‘valued’, ‘accepted’, ‘esteemed’ because of his wealth (if you took away his wealth, his friends probably would have disappeared also — the way of the world). His ‘inner life’, the life of his soul, his ‘heart-life’, depended upon these external sources for acceptance, value, and knowledge. It is this type of life that opens our hearts to hear and believe these words “You will not surely die, the serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3: 5 NIV). The RYR did not need God for his life, his value, acceptance, or knowledge. He acquired these things for himself, by his own efforts, or so he thought. And so in his mind he became like God, thinking he knew and possessed all that he needed. God was mostly superfluous. He put up a good religious front — he read scripture, went to synagogue, and was pious — but God was not essential to his life. God was at the periphery, not the center. He came to Jesus, the Good Teacher, only for instruction — “tell me what I need to do to get this eternal life I have heard about?” He had acquired all he needed by his own ‘works’, he could acquire ‘eternal life’ this way also. He just needed to be pointed in the right direction.

Perhaps there is a deeper reason for his intellectual pride. No doubt, the RYR was a sophisticated man in exactly the opposite sense of Bartimaeus. Today, we tend to think of sophistication as a good thing – wise in the ways of the world, not naïve or child-like. Some make fun of the unsophisticated. Think of the TV show ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’ (it’s funny — check out some episodes on NetFlix). The Latin root word of sophistication is sophisticatio – meaning ‘tampered with or adulterated’. From this Latin we get not only sophisticated, but sophistry, meaning a fallacious argument. When the RYR, or any of us, eat of the forbidden fruit at the urging of Satan, when we begin to think that our knowledge, acquired by ourselves (or so we believe) replaces God and His wisdom, a very terrible thing happens: sin is planted in our hearts and minds. Our knowledge is tampered with, adulterated.

I am not thinking of sin as something that we do. I am thinking of sin as Paul thought of it in Romans 7 or as God described it to Cain: a demonic force or power that dwells within us, something that we are powerless to overcome. A force that tampers with and adulterates knowledge so that, acting on the basis of knowledge that we acquire, we are blind and deaf to the real world around us and to  truth. At the core of this ‘fortified city’ of self-reliance and knowledge there is a seed of death – this demonic force, sin. I think this is what Matthew meant when he quoted Isaiah. Speaking about the Kingdom of Heaven (aka the Kingdom of God — here now, not in a future ‘heaven’), Jesus says:

“You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn, and I would heal them” (Matthew 13: 14, 15 NIV).

What a perfect description of the RYR whose heart is controlled by the ‘fortified city’ of knowledge, corrupting, tampering, and adulterating what he thinks he is seeing and hearing. A calloused heart, hardened by the citadel within. For that matter, an apt description of many Christians in America today.

There is only one antidote to this indwelling sin. That antidote is the indwelling Holy Spirit, which we receive as we choose and enter the Kingdom of God. Otherwise, we are powerless against this force. Is this why Jesus said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into the Kingdom of God? A rich, sophisticated man (wealth and sophistication are likely to go together, although not always) like the RYR is much more likely to have a ‘fortified city’ in his heart, blocking his way into the Kingdom, than a man like Bartimaeus. And if the only antidote to a demonic force embedded in that ‘fortified city’ is the in-dwelling Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is a Kingdom gift . . . well its tough. But with God all things are possible, so there is hope. Perhaps this is why many people (I think) in affluent societies ‘find’ Jesus as the result of some trauma in their lives. It is the trauma that is the catalyst for the destruction of their ‘fortified cities’, opening the way for them to enter the Kingdom of God. I don’t believe that God causes the trauma, but He certainly can use it.

Because the RYR had chosen his wisdom and experience over the wisdom of God, and because he was spiritually blind and deaf, he was not able to supernaturally hear the voice of God the way Bartimaeus and Peter had. He knew that Jesus was a special man. He was drawn to Jesus, but he didn’t know why. The RYR had built a ‘fortified city’ of self-knowledge, really a form of arrogance and delusion, that not only prevented him from seeing and entering the Kingdom of God, but also prevented the voice and wisdom of God from entering his heart. His pride rooted in knowledge and experience had isolated him from God. Without supernatural insight about who God was, the RYR was never going to risk all that Christ called him to give up. No way would he radically alter his life for a man, no matter how good a teacher he was.

On the other hand, Joshua knew who the Man with the sword was – He was the Lord. Peter and Bartimaeus knew who Jesus was – He was the Messiah. All three of these men had been touched by the Holy Spirit. With this knowledge, when the Lord or Messiah asks you to do something, no matter how crazy, it is much easier to choose to trust and obey. But this knowledge was not available to the RYR. His life was controlled by his ‘fortified cities’.

Bartimaeus was simple, uneducated, unsophisticated. He was blind, homeless, and very poor. He had never had the opportunity to construct ‘fortified cities’ in his heart, at least not the ones the RYR has built (although very likely he had other ones). But he had riches beyond anything the RYR could imagine — he knew the real Jesus. He knew in his heart and mind that the Messiah was standing in front of him. He saw clearly who Jesus was, even though he was blind. Although this insight was supernatural, this is not faith! Even the demons knew what Bartimaeus knew.

“In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an evil spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are — the Holy One of God” (Luke 4: 33, 34).

I can believe that Jesus is the Christ, that He died on the cross for me, and that He was resurrected. This, by itself, is not faith. Even the demons believe this. We will delve more deeply into faith as Bartimaeus responds to the call of Jesus. We’ll pick this up, and the second part of Bartimaeus’ prayer, in Part 2.