“Dear friends in Jesus, in the city of London there is a statue of Admiral Nelson sitting on top of a 170 foot tall pillar. Given it’s height, it’s very difficult for people on the ground to notice the features of the admiral and so about 40 years ago a new statue, an exact replica of the original, was erected at the eye level so that everyone could see the admiral better and notice all his features. Dear friends in Jesus, the same is true with God as well. God is so high above us that He transcends our capacity to see. He’s so invisible that our eyes of understanding can not fathom all His features and so what he did was to send His son to us so that we could see Him, touch Him, understand His nature and have a feel for his features in and through His son Jesus Christ. St. John clarifies the same when he says, ‘No one has ever seen God but the one and only son who himself is God has made Him known to us.’ St. Paul says the same thing when he says, ‘Jesus is the image of the invisible God.’ Yes dear friends, If we want to know what God is like, who God is like, we have to look at Jesus because He himself says, ‘I and the Father are one.’ And then today Jesus tells us that he’s God, the Father is very attentive to everything that we go through in life and that He comes to our rescue every time we need his help.
Think of Hagar, Abraham’s mistress, for a moment. To begin with, she did not want to be a slave or she did not want to be a mistress to Abraham, but being a slave she had no rights or opinions of her own. Abraham as well as Sarah mistreated Hagar to the point she had to flee and go to the desert as a pregnant and once in the desert she realized how helpless, lonely she was without any food or shelter. In her despair she naturally wondered if anyone ever cared about her. It was at this time that God appeared to Hagar and said, ‘Hagar, Hagar, where are you coming from and where are you going to?’ This was a surprise to Hagar because up until this day in her life no one ever called her by her name. Abraham and Sarah always referred to her as your slave or my slave, but never called her by name, but here is God calling Hagar by name. He not only called her by name, but also promised her and her son a bright future. Dear friends in Jesus, when Hagar thought no one cared about her there was God caring for her. When she thought all people did to her was to exploit her there was God trying to rescue her. We do not know if Hagar knew God at this time in her life, but the Bible says that God for sure knows her by her name. Hagar was so happy that God came in search of her, rescued her and promised her a bright future that she went ahead and named God. The name she gave God was a God who sees because God saw her plight and came to her rescue. Interestingly in the Bible Hagar is the only person to have named God based on her personal experience. Dear friends in Jesus, can we relate to the emotions Hagar experienced today? Fear, loneliness, feeling unloved and abandoned- maybe your spouse has abandoned you and your children, maybe you lost your job or your home, maybe you were neglected by your parents, teachers and priests as a child, maybe your employer overlooks you and the hard work you always put in or maybe your friend has betrayed you or hurt you? Do questions like, ‘Does anyone care about me? Does anyone ever know what I am going through right now? Does God ever see the plight I’m in?’ come to your mind? The answer to all these questions is a big yes because the story of Hagar tells us that God always sees us and He comes to our rescue every time he finds us in difficulties. Yes dear friends, we have a God who sees us and knows us by our name. He not only knows our names, but also have them written, have them engraved on the palm of His hand, says the Bible. Being engraved has a deeper meaning that being written. It means it is permanent. It means it can not be erased. It means God can not ever forget us no matter who forgets us in this world. Yes dear friends, we have a God who does not know how to forsake. All He knows is to see us in difficulties and come to our rescue.
In today’s Gospel we have a blind man by name Bartimaeus. Pay attention to what he tells Jesus. ‘Jesus I want to see.’ It is as if he wants to say, ‘I do not want this blindness anymore. I do not want this dependence any more. I do not want people to call me as a blind man anymore. I do not want people to look at my blindness and see it as a consequence of my sins anymore. I am fed up with the way people have been treating me all these years and I want a way out of it.’ Dear friends in Jesus, Bartimaeus hated his blindness not because he was blind, but because he was mistreated, neglected, disrespected, made fun of and cursed by people around because of his blindness with which he was not responsible. I say this because in the Old Testament God gave specific instructions to the people of Israel not to mistreat blind people. Listen to what He says in Leviticus 19:14 ‘Do not place stumbling blocks in front of the blind people.’ Why would God give these instructions unless his people mistreated their blind and Bartimaeus does not want this anymore. Like Hagar in the Old Testament, he wants to flee his plight and so he desperately and repeatedly cries out, ‘Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.’ Now the gospel says, ‘Jesus is surrounded by a sizable crowd.’ A sizable crowd by nature is noisy, but this crowd today is not only noisy, but also unkind. It tries to silence, rebuke and intimidate Bartimaeus, but no matter what the crowd does, the Gospel says, ‘Jesus stopped by and helps Bartimaeus out.’ and now Jesus stopped not because Bartimaeus cries out, but because he is a God who sees and as a God who sees, He sees Bartimaeus and understands the plight he’s in and comes to his rescue.
Dear friends in Jesus, can you relate to Bartimaeus today? Do you feel mistreated? Do you feel looked down upon? Do you see people placing stumbling blocks in your way? Are you unnecessarily blamed for things you are not responsible for? Do not lose heart. Do not be intimidated by the world around you or the noise it makes because Jesus says, ‘I am seeing what you are going through. I am going to stop by you and help you out.’ All He wants us to do is to have faith in Him. All He wants us to do is to believe that he’s already on his way and if we do so he promises to stop by us and help us out and our prayer today is Lord Jesus, see everything that I’m going through, come to me, stop by me and help me out. Amen”