Title: Here I Stand
Text: Mark 10:46-52
Date: October 28, 2012
By the Rev. Dr. David Sutherland
In April of 1521, a monk named Martin Luther was put on trial by the European
Christian Church centred in Rome of which he was a member. He had been severely
critical of the pope, questioning the validity of some of the sacraments and denouncing
church corruption. An archbishop was given the job of examining Luther, and he asked
him, “Martin, how can you assume that you are the only one to understand the sense of
Scripture? ... You have no right to call into question the most holy orthodox faith. ... I ask
you, Martin — answer candidly without horns — do you or do you not repudiate your
books and the errors which they contain?”
Luther replied, “Since, then, Your Majesty and your lordships desire a simple
reply, I will answer without horns and without teeth. Unless I am convicted by Scripture
and plain reason — I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have
contradicted each other — my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I
will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I
stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me.”1
At this trial, Luther was convicted of heresy. Anyone caught following him was to
be condemned. But Luther and his followers were not crushed — they went on to lead
the Protestant Reformation, the movement we commemorate today. We can be grateful
that Luther took a stand for what he believed in and worked tirelessly to bring the word
of God to common people, so that they could develop deeper faith in Jesus Christ.
Now whether or not “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise” were the actual words
that Luther said, they do summarize the stand which Luther took. The most likely
outcome for him was death by being burned at the stake. Yet he was willing to risk his
life because of something he had come to see and to understand. Today we remember
his conviction and his courage.
Most have heard the expression “the patience of Job.” The Old Testament book
of Job tells the story of a man’s refusal to condemn God when Satan was allowed to
destroy his family and his livestock, essentially turning him from a rich man into a
childless pauper overnight. Instead he entered into a series of dialogs that culminated in
a fascinating conversation with God Himself. Though his friends and even his wife try to
turn him away from God, Job will not let go. He takes this stand before his friends and
wife and will not compromise. Whatever his own actions deserve he will trust and
continue to trust in the character of the Almighty and loving God. Facing the hardest
questions of his life, he has discovered that resentment and pride will not help him find
the answers. It is as he bows humbly before God, that he comes to see one of the
greatest truths of all, God can be trusted. Job 42:2-6 (NRSV) He says "I know that you
can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 'Who is this that hides
counsel without knowledge?' Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things
too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 'Hear, and I will speak; I will question you,
and you declare to me.' I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye
1
Bainton, Roland H. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1983, 144.
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sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." He despises
himself because it was his weakness and sinfulness that had kept him from seeing God.
Now at the end of the book Job takes a stand risking the condemnation of his friends –
He has heard God, now he sees who God is and nothing or no one else will satisfy his
soul. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me.”
The story of Job ends with God giving him back more than double of all that he
had lost. But that isn’t the heart of Job’s wealth. The heart of Job’s celebration lies here
in these words. “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.”
Does there exist in your life something so important you would rather die than
compromise? The stand which Job took and the stand which Martin Luther took were
more than just expressions of stubbornness. There were values in their lives they would
not compromise, more than that, there were deep understandings in their lives from
which they would no longer hide. Greater than that, there was a person in their lives
whose relationship they would chose over life itself.
This last point, that there should be a person in our lives more important than life
itself is something most can understand. Don’t come between a momma bear and her
cubs! Mother bears are only half as ferocious as human mothers and sometime even
fathers when children are endangered. There are people for whom we would risk it all.
And I believe, for some anyway, there are still principles and values for which we still
would take a stand.
But these are dark times in which we live. The individual has become so
important that we have learned to not look around us at the needs of others. Values
have become so personal that they are only important when they concern ourselves or
those near us whom we love. More and more our values and our decisions are being
made blinded to the lasting and far reaching effects they will have. Decisions are made
without regard for how they will affect the next generation or even our grandchildren.
Priorities are set in ignorance of how they will affect the rest of the world.
Martin Luther took his stand because of something he had come to understand
and to see about God and life itself. He would not return to the darkness of a former
blindness in which he lived. Job actually prays, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the
ear, but now my eye sees you;” Neither will Job return to the darkness of a former
blindness in which he lived.
Our New Testament reading tells the story of blind Bartimaeus. A blind beggar
named Bartimaeus is sitting by the road between Jericho and Jerusalem. The
background setting is this. It is yet another day of travel for Jesus and the disciples.
They are a step closer to Jerusalem. As the crowd moves, Mark tells us they were quite
a crowd, large enough to line the road for Jesus entry into Jerusalem on the donkey.
They would have been the centre of attention and the talk of the town. Where did all
these people come from? Look who is among them? They kick up quite a dust when
they all move at once. They would be the ones attracting attention. But Mark sees the
one whom the others may well have been blinded to and probably would have passed
by, a blind beggar probably low to the ground, sitting by the edge of the road. From the
beginning we are reminded that there are many kinds of blindness.
I knew someone who lost much of her sight as she aged. At first she was bitter at
the loss of her sight but gradually she realized that she in spite of her blindness and
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perhaps even because of it had come to see things that others could not. Bartimaeus
despite his blindness, saw Jesus for who he is, something most of the people did not.
Bartimaeus cries out to Jesus, Mark 10:47-48 (NRSV) "Jesus, Son of David, have
mercy on me! Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly,
"Son of David, have mercy on me!" Bartimaeus is the first to cry the Messianic cry which
will be heard on Palm Sunday “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David!”
“Son of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus calls him over. Bartimaeus was not
carried to Jesus nor it seems was he led. Mark tells us he jumped up and came to
Jesus. Jesus healed his blindness. And Bartimaeus “followed Jesus on the way.”
With the determination of a “Job” and the conviction of a Martin Luther, Bartimaeus
brought his blindness to Jesus and was healed. And Bartimaeus, a man isolated by his
limitations, was freed to never again walk alone.
There are wonderful stories of Jesus healing the blind and this is one of the best.
From one angle it is the story of the blind man who could see for he recognized in Jesus
so much more than just a man. From the other side it is the story of a crowd of seeing
people who were in fact blind for many though they heard Jesus, did not believe in him.
Mark tells this story as a preparation for the story of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem
and the story of Jesus’ suffering, death on the cross and resurrection. Jesus has just
said three times Mark 10:33-34 (NRSV) “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the
Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will
condemn him to death; then they will hand him over to the Gentiles; they will mock him,
and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again."
Three times told they are told and some of them still don’t see that this is the loving Son
of God come to set his people free. Will they see in what happens to him, our human
need for forgiveness? Will they see in what he endures, the determination by which they
and we are loved in Christ? Will they see in the resurrection of Christ, the power of God
in the first born of a new humanity?
The Reformers were not perfect. They didn’t get everything right. “No, the roof
didn’t fall in!” But they got a lot right. They had come to see that about which they had
once been blind. They saw that revelation is at the heart of who God is. God makes
himself known that we might know him. Out of a Holy Book we are pointed to Holy One,
the Word made flesh, God among us as one of us. They saw that the church is part
human and part divine and that the human part should never be in charge. They had
come to see that our reunion with God has nothing to do with a little parade of our
goodness and certainly doesn’t happen while we are still focused on ourselves. They
declared that our reunion with God happened when we looked away from ourselves and
looked upon what God has done for us and declared, This He has done for me!
These insights became the foundation of a new society which transformed the
world for good. A fellowship focus on their faith in Christ.
On this Reformation Sunday we pause by this story of blindness to consider the
growing blindness of our generation and in that perhaps our own. We pause here in the
story of the contrast of two forms of blindness to consider the one we have chosen for
ourselves.
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But mostly we pause by this story to hear the declaration of Jesus, Mark 10:52
(NRSV) "Go; your faith has made you well." Immediately he regained his sight and
followed him on the way. The heart of Bartimaeus celebration lies in his cry repeated
with determination “Son of David, have mercy on me!"
On Reformation Sunday we confess the church’s continued need to reform and
our individual need for healing from the blindness of our day.
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