‘What do you want me to do for you’

“Jesus stopped and said, ‘Call him here.’”

(Mark 10:49)

Have you ever stopped in the street because someone is shouting at you?

Jesus stood still when he heard Bartimaeus cry out ‘Son of David have mercy on me!’

Despite his blindness, this beggar had worked out that this Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of David, from the reports he heard about him. Are we so steeped in the Scriptures and prayer that we can recognise Jesus acting among us, simply from what others are saying?

Bartimaeus was nearly shouted down by the crowd, and the disciples did nothing to help him – maybe they even joined in the attempt to silence him. He could have shifted his attention to them in anger, but instead he keeps shouting, even louder, to Jesus alone. When we meet opposition, do we react to it directly or keep all our attention on Jesus, deepening our prayer, ‘shouting’ in the silence of our hearts to him?

He leaps up and abandons his cloak, a sign of great detachment, since a cloak is a treasure for a beggar, and Jesus asks him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’

Jesus wants us to be specific about what we want from him, because he wants to give us so much, and often we ask for so little. We cannot even imagine what he wants to do through us: he ‘is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us’ (Ephesians 3:20).

Bartimaeus asks for very little, to regain his sight, but when it is granted, he spontaneously does something much greater than seeing physically: he follows Jesus. 

When we ask Jesus for what we really want, even if it is something small for him, he expands our hearts for bigger things. Let’s keep asking for what we want and he will lead us to ask more and more.

Bartimaeus followed Jesus and was called to share in the greatest of all God’s works: the redemption of all people. Jesus calls each of us to share this mission too, by our baptism, even in our weakness. He had seen the counter-productive behaviour of his disciples – whose silence or even collaboration with the crowd had nearly blocked him off from Bartimaeus. But he does not give up on them; it would have been tempting to call Bartimaeus himself but he still works through them although they are weak. Now they obey and they encourage the blind man: ‘Courage,’ they said ‘get up; he is calling you.’

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