Rev Michael Docherty's Sermon – Sunday 26th October 2003

Texts: Jeremiah 31:7-9, Ps 125. R v.3, Hebrews 5:1-6, Mark 10:46-52

I wonder how many times I've looked at someone this week and not noticed their beauty. I'm not thinking of a skin-deep beauty we seem to have become obsessed with but something much deeper, something far more profound. It's the beauty we all possess, a beauty we possess as children of God from the moment of our baptism. It's like the beauty a wife sees as she looks across at her husband, they've been married a long time, they've argued a bit now and again, fallen in and out of love a hundred times over the years, he's sagging a bit round the edges, he slurps his tea, he's a bit forgetful, goes to the pub too much, but despite his many faults and failings he's still the man she married - she can still see his beauty through all those faults. It's the young mother who looks into the cot at four in the morning and picks up the bundle of joy that has kept her and her husband up all that night and the past eight nights by its desire to exercise its vocal chords, but now the baby merely gurgles a greeting from its gummy mouth - someone beautiful. The dad who has a son who's always giving him grief, costs him a fortune, who breaks his mother's heart, yet who looks on with pride at his son and sees the beauty of that lad stuck on the far side of the rugby pitch, jumping up and down on the spot with his hands tucked under his arms to try and combat the cold of a December morning. It is not a physical beauty - it's a warts and all beauty, an honest beauty, a beauty that passes us by most of the time. A beauty we see when we cut through faults, failures, difficulties.

What about Bartimaeus? Like any beggar on the streets of Britain we'd hardly see past the exterior: the matted hair, filthy clothing, the bags filled with stuff, the demands for spare change, the empty bottles, the smell of booze. We'd walk past, perhaps we'd feel guilty turning our head away, or a bit embarrassed, or we might not give the matter a thought, somebody else should do something about it - the council, the government because it wasn't like this under Thatcher. We wouldn't automatically see the person beneath the exterior, a person with a name, a human being, someone filled with beauty, someone beautiful. Our reactions to the beggar were the reactions of the crowd following Jesus - shut him up, keep him quiet, don't trouble the master. Bartimaeus may be blind, but he can see with faith who Jesus is, understand his real need, not for some spare change, food or clothing, but Jesus - Son of David, the Lord who would save him, who would comfort him, who would lead him along a smooth path where he would no longer stumble in the dark. Bartimaeus who the crowds would have regarded as a sinner, understands his condition and with faith, sees that the solution lies in Jesus Christ.

Christ looks beyond his condition - the disfigurement, the knotted beard, the dirty matted clothes, he sees the beauty which Bartimaeus possesses. Unlike the crowds who surround him, he doesn't discount Bartimaeus, but saves him, returning his sight, bringing him back from a world of darkness to the world of light.

What about us? Where are we in this story? We might not think we're there at all. We're not beggars sitting by the side of a road demanding spare change, most of us have perfect sight, yet we are blind most of the time, not the physical blindness that Bartimaeus endured - but a blindness to sin, sin which disfigures us and cloaks our beauty. To unmask that beauty we need only turn to Christ, who gazes at us warts and all - like the wife to her husband, the mother to her baby, the father to his son, and sees our real beauty. Christ wants to set us free from sin - we need only turn to him who is present in the sacrament of reconciliation, and like Bartimaeus and say to him 'Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me'

©Kitabu Web Design