Don’t we all wish it was just that easy…

“Hey Jesus, it’s me, ya the blind one… or the poor one… or the one without a job… or the one with the goofy nose.” (You can fill in the blank however you’d like.)
“And I have faith and I want healing, food, employment, plastic surgery.” (Again, fill in the blank.)
“Go ahead, wave that magic wand!” we say, “We heard you did it for blind Bartimaeus in Jericho, It was so simple for you. All he did was call your name, tell you what he wanted and bingo! So have at it, do your stuff! I’m waiting!...”

And wait we do.
In the doctor’s office, the bread line, the unemployment line…
Drumming our fingers, furrowing our brows, taking another hit of Maalox…
Sure we pray… till we’re blue in the face… in a lot of different ways… in special places… to special people.
Visit the Pentecostal Revival tent. Bury a statue of St. Joseph in the yard.
And when we don’t get what Bartimeaus got we react in a number of different ways.

Some of us get angry. We no longer talk to God. We boycott church, refuse to pray, anything to get back at that capricious charlatan who obviously doesn’t think I’m worth listening to. Sure, our anger doesn’t help matters, but it makes us feel better.

Some of us give up on God. We consider our experiences proof that there is no God. So we focus more on logic, reason and rationale, all the while ignoring the mysterious parts of our souls that opened our eyes to faith in the first place. We shun the Spirit’s tugs and tingles. Sunsets become ‘geological phenomenon.’ All is dismissed as fairy tale, innuendo, and the leftovers of a work-in-process evolutionary progression.

This story of ecstatic healing becomes a tale of cold betrayal.
The intimate becomes distant.
Joy becomes pain.

Some of us have been told we need faith like Bartimeaus.
But most of us need faith despite Bartimeaus.

For at the very moment of heightened doubt, when we are convinced God has done nothing and once again left us out in the cold, let us remind ourselves that God, indeed, has done something. God has come among us. God has become one of us. And God has not simply come down to our level - God has gone lower. From the peaks of heaven to the pit of hell, Jesus came to endure for us what we would never want for our worst enemy. No, we never, ever suffer alone. There is no place on earth where you and I must look up to Jesus, for He is always right next to us.

And lest we think we are alone in our suffering, desperation and abandonment, let us remember that whatever’s happened to us has also been experienced by God in the flesh. No matter how bad things are, how angry, depressed or forgotten we feel, God knows what it’s like to go through that, and worse. Because when you and I think that at least God hasn’t killed us, we also remember, oh yeah, he saved that for Jesus.


The Road to Daybreak – Henri Nouwen
The Source – James Michener
Jesus - Borg