Bartimaeus.
Here are two noises suggestive of the human life with which we are all familiar. There is the tramp, tramp, tramp, of the swaying multitude, the din of the many minds, many experiences, many mouths, all moving in obedience to a common impulse. Men and women, when they become mere units of a crowd, forget for the time their personal histories, They are swept on by the current, sharing and adding to its excitement. There is nothing more unaccountable sometimes than the impulses which are communicated from person to person, and pass by infection to the multitude. Different days have their different idols. Those who are shouting themselves hoarse with their hosannahs at Jericho will shout themselves hoarse with the cry, "Away with him! Crucify him!" at Jerusalem. Oh, fickle popularity! The Lord knew what the applause of the crowd was worth. The children crying in the temple were far more to him than the loud voice and the tremendous enthusiasm of the thousands who had swelled the triumph of the entry into the city of David. But through that tumult, in the midst of that noise, there is another—that which always reaches the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Only one voice, at most two voices, shrill and clamorous—the voice of misery and want and prayer! Had he not heard that same voice in highest heaven? Had it not pierced through the praises of angel and archangel, of cherubim and seraphim—the cry of a sinful and weary world? A little one only in the system of the universe, but the least in need has a special way of access to the Eternal Love. Far off the great Shepherd hears the bleat of the sheep that has strayed into the wilderness. He who heard the sigh of the world from the excellent glory will not turn from the piteous pleading of the poor and needy. God's tenderness individualizes. "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles."
I. REGARD THIS POOR MAN. Perhaps we shall realize that he is our near kinsman.
1. He has been sitting by the wayside begging. And what are we all but beggars at the world's wayside? Even the mind most richly endowed, the heart most wealthy in love and imagination, needs "the life more and fuller." Is there no begging from heaven? no consciousness of a fountain of living waters? This Bartimaeus, taking his place day by day on the thoroughfare and asking an alms, is only too faithful a picture of me, wanting, desiring, and, alas! too often trying to satisfy my soul with some dole of happiness or excitement thrown to me—a beggar all the while, blind.
2. What is this? An unusual bustle and din. What does it mean? We can imagine the question addressed, with only a languid interest, to some person at hand—a languor which vanishes when the answer is given, "It is Jesus of Nazareth who is passing by." Ah! the newness of cry, sign of newness of life! What and how he had heard of this Jesus we know not; but he had heard enough to open the gates of the soul. The one argument is need, the one reasoning, "I am here; he is there. Son of David, have mercy on me!" It is the great hour of a human life when speech is begun between the soul and heaven. Such speech arrests the love of God in the way. "We enter heaven by prayer."
3. Those around bid the one who cries hold his local. So speak the many to the one in earnest. Notice how often in the Gospels the disciples are represented as keeping back from Christ instead of helping to him (see Luke 18:15). They did not know the heart of God. And men do not know it still. There is often a "send away" in the minds of even the well-disposed. Earnestness meets discouragements where it leasts expects them. Cry on, thou who hast felt the breath of the passing Saviour. If those about thee are unsympathetic, throw thyself the more on thy Lord; the more they protest, cry thou the more, "Son of God, they will not take me up. Father and mother even forsake me. Thou, thou only art my hope. Make no tarrying, O my God."
II. THINK OF THE SAVIOUR, IN WHOM THE LIVING GOD IS REVEALED.
1. There is the Christ-commandment. "Bring him hither to me." It is the commandment to an often misunderstanding and misinterpreting Church. Christ has much to bear at the hand of the world; he has much also to bear at the hand of his Church. How frequently those who are his repel rather than attract, send away rather than bring! "Bring"—there. is no gainsaying this charge. Instantly the tone of the multitude changes. Now it is, "Rise, be of good comfort; he calleth thee." And what alacrity in the Bartimaeus-obedience! The old tattered garment connected with the past time of, it may have been, a sinful life is thrown away. There is no stopping to inquire how the blind can reach that blessed presence. He has called. In the call there is the pledge of a sufficient grace. O mirror of Divine condescension! O word, preparing for work, of power! "The blind, the poor, bring to me!"
2. There is the Christ-question. "What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?" The question is put when the presence is reached. The presence is the help to the answer. Now, the great underlying want is expressed, "Lord, that I may receive my sight." Is it not the prayer of the human heart when the quickening presence of God is realized? It is to prepare for the revelation that the will is gently besieged. He cannot force; he can only draw. Stooping to thee, the person thou art, and as thou art, the word of grace and truth is, "What wilt thou?"
3. And then the Christ-action. "He touched the eyes," says St. Matthew, "Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee," says St. Luke. His faith had been a trust in the dark. He could not make the light, but he could call for it. And he had called, he had pressed to Christ, awfully in earnest, unboundedly confident. The faith saved through what it did. It brought him to the Lord; and that is salvation. The first use of the new sight was to behold the Deliverer. The first face that wrote its image in the heart was the face of God in Christ. Saved, whole, because that face was formed in the heart of hearts, never more to fade from it. "I was blind; now I see." "Go thy way," says the Lord. "Nay, dearest Master, where thou goest I will go. Where thou dwellest I will dwell. Thy way is mine. Mine the new song which thou hast given. Thou hast touched my eyes—
"And in that light of life I'll walk
Till travelling days are done."
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON