Sermon for Sunday 25th October 2009

The Healing of Blind Bartimaeus

About a month ago I woke up at 4 o'clock in the morning with a filthy headache, very feverish. My throat was sore. My temperature was 38.1, which in old money is slightly over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, so I was definitely running a temperature.

I thought that I'd better find out whether I had got Swine Flu or not. I certainly felt pretty awful. So I got my laptop out and found the NHS website, which assessed my symptoms. It didn't actually tell me whether I'd got Swine Flu or not, but it did say that it was advisable for me to get some antiviral medicine.

I found a guardian angel to go to the chemist and got 5 days' worth of Tamiflu. After 2 days my temperature, which had gone up to 39 degrees (102F), came down and I started to feel better. After a week I was able to go to a college reunion dinner - and as the days went by I began to feel better and better. So I was cured. I had been ill, and I had been cured. Good for Tamiflu!

Fair enough. But surely there can be no parallels between modern medicine and the story of poor old Bartimaeus in the gospel reading today? Surely in the light of modern medical knowledge it must be just a picturesque story? Actually, not.

Blindness, of course, is much more serious than my possible dose of Swine Flu, but I think it is OK to compare the two cures. I took some pills and went to bed. What did Bartimaeus do? He made a nuisance of himself calling out for Jesus so that people were trying to shut him up, but Jesus called him over, asking him what he wanted. Bartimaeus naturally said he wanted to see again – and Jesus turned round to him and said, 'Off you go! Your faith has made you well.' And immediately he did regain his sight.

There are other rather similar stories of Jesus healing blind people at various other places in the Bible. Earlier on in St Mark's gospel Jesus heals a blind man at Bethsaida by putting saliva on the blind man's eyes, laying his hands on him; and then he asked the blind man whether he could see anything. The blind man said that he could see a bit: he said, 'I can see people, but they look like trees walking'. So Jesus had another go at putting his hands on the man's eyes, and this time his sight came back perfectly.

There is another healing of a blind man in St John's gospel, this time a man who had been blind from birth, and again Jesus cured him by putting spit on his eyes. In St Matthew's gospel there is a story of 2 blind men calling out like Bartimaeus, 'Son of David, have mercy on us'. Jesus asked them, 'Do you believe that I'm able to do this?' (meaning, to heal them), and they said, yes. He touched their eyes and said, 'According to your faith, let it be done to you', and their eyes were opened.

When Jesus healed blind people, he either did it by putting saliva on their eyes, and touching them, so that after his healing touch they could see again, or he simply said, as in Bartimaeus' or the two men's case, that because they had faith, their blindness was cured; and so it was.

Well this is obviously a far cry from Tamiflu. Some people of course simply don't believe it. If you compare a modern medical approach to curing blindness, we would expect at the very least a cataract operation; but Jesus didn't do anything like that; there was no surgery involved. And yet the mere fact that these stories occur on several occasions in the gospels shows that they are are a central part of the story of Jesus. They're meant to be taken seriously, and Mark's gospel is based on Peter's eyewitness account. Most likely, it really did happen. But again, surely there's no modern equivalent. Actually, there is.

Today, when you take some medicine or undergo surgery or any other form of modern medical treatment, all being well you will get better. But even with all the knowledge and skill of the doctors, something else is necessary for a cure to take place. Some treatments, in some cases, very sadly don't work. What makes the treatments which do work, work?

Sometimes doctors say that the true rôle of medical treatment is to enable your body to heal itself, to strengthen you and put you in a position where you can believe and be confident that the treatment will work and you will be healed – just like Bartimaeus, your faith will have made you well.

Amazingly, the miracle which Jesus did in healing Bartimaeus is actually very like the miracle which we still need to take place whenever any of us are healed today. It's not a question of our having faith in Tamiflu, but in whatever it is that makes Tamiflu work. And that, as Bartimaeus knew, is God. Miracles still happen, and we still need them.

Let us be very thankful that there is so much healing power in the world. Let us indeed be grateful for Tamiflu and all the other drugs and all the doctors' and nurses' skills. But let's remember that, when they work, there is still a miracle involved. Like Bartimaeus, it is our faith that heals us, and for that we should always remember and thank God, who created and sustains us, in sickness and in health.

Amen.

(See also stories about Jesus healing the blind in