“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?
