Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem for the final time. It would be His ultimate test when He would face His cross and be offered as the Lamb of God for the sins of the world. He had been telling of these events to His apostles, but they had been unable to grasp what it all meant (Mark 9:31-32; 10:32-34). To the amazement of His disciples, Jesus was pressing on to Jerusalem. They knew He faced danger there; He knew He had to die there.
So what happens on the road up from Jericho surprises us on the one hand, but it doesn’t surprise us on the other. The blind beggar Bartimaeus calls out to “Jesus, Son of David” from his place by the road. Many in the crowd with Jesus try to shut him up, but he calls out all the more. Now on the one hand, we might expect Jesus to just keep going since He was approaching the most important challenge of His life and would not want to be distracted from it.
On the other hand, we see the heart of the Son of God respond to this poor blind man of faith. Jesus stopped, interacted with Bartimaeus and returned his sight to him. Compassion in the face of duty. Love interrupting a defined schedule. We would expect no less from our Lord. But do we expect less of ourselves?
Most of us begin a day with a routine of some sort. Then, we usually have some kind of schedule we want to keep or “to do” list for the day. So we get started on the things we want to get done, and then God interrupts. It might be a phone call, a text or a knock at the door. Maybe, “out of the blue,” some words from the preacher’s lesson pops into our head, or it’s words from a scripture we read earlier. Perhaps the announcement about a sick brother or sister comes into our mind. There is a need of some kind, and we have been chosen by God to be involved. God has interrupted our day!
This has happened to all of us. What do you do? Ignore it? Run from it? Pass it off? Are you just “too busy?”
Or do you pause, pray, listen and investigate? Do you see that God is calling you to do something good? How do you answer?
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