GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 10:47
Once-in-a-Lifetime OpportunityOnce-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity
The television announcer told listeners that he was offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase his product. Ten minutes later, he made the same announcement. The next day, the same announcer made the same claim. After a while, it is reasonable to ask: if he has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, why is he repeating the same “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity over and over?
There are, however, such things as “once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.” That may have been true for Bartimaeus, the blind beggar sat beside the southern gate of Jericho. St. Mark records, “When he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out, and to say, ‘Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me.’” (Mark 10:47)
Matthew reports that there were two beggars (20:30), while Luke says the man was sitting by the road as he approached the city and that the crowd told him it was Jesus of Nazareth passing by (18:35–36). Scholars have offered plausible reconciliations of the accounts, but all three Gospels show that the man recognized a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity and cried out to Jesus. The word Mark used (κράζω, krazō) does not imply that he merely called out, but that he screamed out or shouted.
Bartimaeus’ theology may not have been fully formed; after all, he was about seventy miles south of Capernaum, where Jesus did most of his ministry. Yet word of Jesus’ ministry had spread that far, and the blind man had heard of Jesus of Nazareth. He referred to him as the “Son of David,” a Messianic title expressing the expectation of a conquering king from David’s line who would restore Israel’s greatness. Nevertheless, Bartimaeus had faith, and that faith compensated for his incomplete understanding. One writer observed that it is appropriate to ask people to think, but not to ask them to become theologians before they become Christians. The call is for faith, not astuteness.
Even without the drama of a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” it remains essential to cry out to Jesus the Nazarene—the Christ—for mercy, just as Bartimaeus did.
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