All the more

What are some environments where it’s okay to be loud? And I mean, really loud?

Playing outside? At a sporting event (but not golf because golfers can’t handle it)? Cheering like crazy at the end of a Broadway performance?

What about the reverse? Where would it not be appropriate to be loud?

Church? A wedding? A funeral? In the conference room as executives pore over every legal phrase before signing the papers to finalize a merger?

Volume matters, and tends to adjust based on environment. This is why nobody sneaks up behind a surgeon in the middle of a tense procedure and screams in her ear.

It’s also why most of us turn the radio down when we’re trying to find a parking space on a busy uptown street, or when we’re driving in a snowstorm.

We all just get it, or at least have people in our lives who help us get it, which is why the story in the Bible about a blind man named Bartimaeus is so fascinating to me.

The expectation of volume gets overcome with the desperation of need.

Mark tells the story at the end of chapter ten, and tells us that Bartimaeus was sitting beside the road begging. He doesn’t tell us that this happens every day, but in that culture, it would have been the normal routine for beggars. They all would have their place, and they all would know the expectation: ask for help, but don’t be a bother while you do.

In short, be a polite beggar. Ask but don’t expect much, and be thankful for the crumbs and coins you may receive.

But on this day, Bartimaeus heard that something had changed. Someone different was walking by; Jesus, a man he’d heard could heal and save. A man who could actually give what Bartimaeus really wanted.

This was the day when the beggar started to beg. Mark paints the picture with an interesting word choice:

When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (‭‭Mark‬ ‭10‬:‭47, emphasis mine)

The word for shout literally means to “croak like a raven, to shriek, exclaim, intreat, cry out.”

In a word, beg. I don’t know what croaking like a raven looks like, but I imagine it would be very similar to the noises and antics of a child who wants the candy in the checkout line of a grocery store.

No wonder Bartimaeus’ friends told him to be quiet! Wouldn’t you have, and if you’re one of those parents, haven’t you?

And yet, the next verse says that Bartimaeus “shouted all the more.”

His desperate cry rose because his expectations were also rising. He wanted to see, and he shouted all the more because on this day, he expected to get more than coins and bread. On this day, he expected to see, and no societal expectations were going to get in his way.

I believe we’re in a moment of cultural blindness, a time when every news story makes it painfully obvious that people are stumbling through life, the blind leading the blind.

But there’s a generation whose hope is rising, and whose volume is rising with it. We are the ones who have a passion that cannot be contained, and will not be silenced. We are the ones who will shout “all the more” until we hear the shuffling of feet stop, and make out the kindness in a voice that simply asks, “What do you want me to do for you?”

He’s asking you, and me, and everyone who has been relegated to the side of the road where beggars are seen and heard, but rarely changed. Do what Bartimaeus did: throw away the old things, jump to your feet, and approach Jesus with the boldness of a beggar who knows his life is about to change, and say the words…

“I want to see.”

And you will, and when you do, my guess is that we’ll hear all about it.

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

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