Introduction
Wearable tech is all the rage these days. Smart watches can track your workouts, monitor your health, answer your phone, tell you when to stand up and when to go to bed, remind you to stay hydrated, play music, provide hands free driving directions with vibrating haptics, call 911 if you fall… why these wearable tech devices are so smart they can even tell you the time of day! But wearable tech doesn’t stop there. Virtual Reality Goggles are goggles that make you feel like you’re inside a video game.
These wearable tech devices make life more informative, convenient, helpful, and fun. But yes, most of the tech we wear isn’t essential to life. Somehow many of us made it to adulthood with watches that only told the time. But for some folks, a wearable piece of technology can mean the difference between life and death.
Think of those who wear a pacemaker or internal defibrillator, which monitor and regulate the heart. Or medicine pumps attached to the inside of body. And hearing aids and other hearing assisting devices. Some of you can literally hear when before you couldn’t because of such tech. So weird though how you’ve told me the batteries to those aides always seem to die at the beginning of my sermons!
My mom has hearing aids that can be controlled—volume up/down, on/off, and more—all by an app on her phone. I wish she had this technology when I was a kid that I could have slyly manipulated because she clearly had a device that gave her the ability to hear every devious scheme I devised. Of course, had I tried such I would have been caught anyway by the device that gave my mom eyes in the back of her head!
Today’s technical advances enable longevity of life for some, while it improves the quality of life for others. And this includes those who are sight impaired and even completely blind. New wearable technology has been created for the blind and visually impaired that has the potential to be an absolute game changer for those who must navigate the world with limited or even no vision. This is going to blow you away…
Generally called “smart glasses,” these devices serve as a visual or audio assistant for those with low, impaired, or zero vision. NuEyes Pro Glasses are one example. They are lightweight glasses that run on an Android platform and use cameras to magnify images up to 12 times, as well as provide the ability to change the color and contrast of the image the person is trying to observe. They even come with a bar code scanner and optical character recognition that is able to recognize and read printed documents aloud.
Aira smart glasses, another brand and type, uses a different approach for those who are completely blind. They use a built-in camera, wirelessly connected to a trained virtual assistant, who provides spoken responses, helping identify objects or read documents. It’s like having a constant pair of eyes guiding a person who is blind. It’s like all of the sudden seeing-eye dogs can talk.
Both of these pieces of technology are new and they are expensive. But like most tech advances, they will likely become less expensive and more mainstream over time … and they will be game changers for those who need them.
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Last week we talked about the concept of discipleship—recalling that we should aim to learn deeper levels of discipleship, aim to master its needed skills, and that chief among those skills is to have empathy. Now this week we see the “get your hands dirty with Jesus” workshop Jesus invites us into where we get to see what we could not see before, even though it was right before our very eyes.
Move 1
Jesus and his disciples are passing through Jericho, getting ready to make the 15-mile trek to Jerusalem…where the cross awaits.
Before this, Jesus had warned his disciples three times he was going to Jerusalem to die, but each time they failed to understand what he was talking about. Just earlier on this walk was the story we heard last week—James and John had come to Jesus with a request to sit at his right and left when he came into his “glory” (10:37), which they clearly perceived to be the glory of an earthly king sitting on the throne of Israel.
You’ll recall, Jesus warned them again his throne would not be the kind they were expecting, and that he had come to “give his life as a ransom for many.” And even though these disciples had been with Jesus a long time, they still didn’t see the truth about who he was and where he was leading them. But a blind man—a man named Bartimaeus— could see the truth. Not with his eyes, and without wearable 21st-century tech. He could see what others could not—even though what he saw was right before everyone else’s eyes.
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When Jesus passed by, Bartimaeus began to shout out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (v. 47).
Now it is significant that only here in Mark’s Gospel, just before going up to Jerusalem, is Jesus identified as “Son of David.” And there is a duality at play here. “Son of David” calls to mind the kind of messiah that would be a military ruler like King David, but Bartimaeus sees this Son of David is different. He is one who comes not with wrath, but mercy. “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me” is the cry of one who sees more of who Jesus really is than those whose eyes were fully functioning. In declaring Jesus as the merciful Messiah, Bartimaeus sees Jesus for who he truly is, while also revealing the truth about himself—one who needs mercy.
In contrast to James and John, who seek to sit beside Jesus in his “glory” as a conquering king— Bartimaeus sees Jesus as the game changer he really is. Changing the game not with might, but with mercy.
In a world where people believed physical infirmity was a sign of spiritual brokenness, Bartimaeus doesn’t campaign for his own righteousness or about the unfairness of his condition. He simply wants mercy: “Have mercy on me!” His persistent cry annoyed the crowd, but it caught Jesus’ attention. And because his cry did—Bartimaeus wasn’t the only one to receive new sight.
Move 2
Now here’s another important message in this text…Mark makes the point of saying that Jesus “stood still” before telling the crowd to call Bartimaeus to him.
This is important because standing still would enable the blind Bartimaeus to find him And Bartimaeus does just that when he throws off his cloak— the outer garment he likely used for a blanket and as a catch-all for donations he receive at the city gate, and “sprang up” to come to Jesus. Then, once Bartimaeus finds him, notice Jesus’ question to him. It’s the same question he just asked James and John who were campaigning for righteousness: “What do you want me to do for you?” The disciples wanted Jesus to make them great, but Bartimaeus only wanted mercy.
So Jesus stood still… so he could be found. And once found Jesus doesn’t just ask the question: “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus also gives Bartimaeus an invitation: “Go, your faith has made you well” Mark says he had immediately regained his sight at Jesus’ word, but we might argue he could see all along. He was given sight because of his faithful insight, and now he would see the glory of God in the face of the Son of David—but Bartimaeus saw that glory as mercy, not might.
When the original King David entered Jerusalem against the Jebusites as a conquering hero, the inhabitants taunted him saying that “the blind and the lame will turn you back” (2 Samuel 5:6). But David would take the city and have “the blind and the lame” removed before his entry (2 Samuel 5:8-9). The Son of David, in contrast to his ancestor, removed blindness instead of the blind as he goes up to the city.
The story of Bartimaeus is a reminder that this Messiah has come to restore the sight of those who have been blinded by power, expectation, despair, or sin. Only those who are willing to see Jesus’ mercy will see and understand how he conquers the city and the world— not through the power of might but through the glory of the cross.
Conclusion
Wearable smart glasses will be a great help for those who need them, but they will never be able to help spiritual blindness.
Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, certainly would have benefitted from some of this wearable tech before he encountered Jesus, but Mark reveals that this blind man could actually see more clearly than Jesus’ own disciples where it counted: in the real vision of discipleship.
So with these two encounters, where Jesus asks the same question, “What do you want me to do for you?” we have to ask ourselves… Do we see Jesus as a means to enhancing our reputation, our status, our own glory? Do you see Jesus merely as a means of getting to heaven?
If we answer yes to either question, then we need a different vision—a whole new vision. We need the kind of vision even a blind man had: an expansive vision of humility, empathy, faith and a desire to follow the One whose throne is a cross.
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So may we ask ourselves these questions. May we hear Jesus’ question as if he were asking us, “What do you want me to do for you?”
May our answer be for our Savior to give us the ability to see as he sees, the ability to see like a blind and faithful follower of Christ who willingly and frequently cries out, “Son of David, have mercy on me.” And may we answer: “Give us the real vision of discipleship, and help us follow that vision to the cross and beyond.” Amen.
Pastoral Prayer, October 24 2021
Gracious and loving God, one of the greatest gifts you have given us is the gift to see your hands at work in the world. You have not forced yourself upon us; you have allowed us to choose whether or not we will see your goodness and way and follow Jesus.
We know this choice is a daily one where we must ask and answer, “Will we today choose our own desires or yours? Will we spring up for worldly pleasure, or will we spring up to run to Jesus?”
Creator God, we bring ourselves before you, just as we are—broken, lost, weak, unable to see clearly, and we confess we are inconsistent people— saying one thing and doing another.
We say we want to follow you, but we turn around and walk the other way.
Have mercy on us, for we have sinned.
We say we love you and yet we do not love our brothers and sisters.
Have mercy on us, for we have sinned.
We say we want peace and harmony and unity, but we fail to open our hearts to those who are different from us.
Have mercy on us, for we have sinned.
And when you have again shown us mercy and forgiven us, we pray you again invite us to walk the path that will lead us to the cross and beyond.
We pray you give us hearts that want to choose you and desire your leading above all else.
Give us spirits that want to do as your son has shown.
Give us hands that we reach out those in need.
Give us feet that will follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
Give us strength and courage to be who you have created us to be, while knowing it will create in us, and in others, the life we all want and need.
May this be the path you put us on. The path forward, that leads to faithful discipleship.
Hear now the prayers of our hearts as we offer them in this time of Holy Silence.
All this we pray in the name of Christ Jesus, who taught us to pray saying, “Our…”