Mid-Week Musings : What Are You Prepared to Die For?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer died for what he believed. Character for him was what was formed in his childhood days at his father and mother's table when they studied the Bible, sang hymns, and affirmed the creed. Deposited into his soul at the deepest levels was a belief that people should be free, that oppression should be fought, and that God was man's highest authority.
That was why it wasn't hard to understand Bonhoeffer's choice when in the late 1930s, he chose to leave a professorship at Union Seminary in New York and return to his German fatherland and almost certain persecution. His friends begged him not to go, as the friends of the Apostle Paul once prevailed upon him not to go to Jerusalem. But he insisted that Hitler-dominated Germany was where he belonged. At one point he wrestled with the genuineness of his character in a marvelous poem :
Who am I? They often tell me
I could step from my cell's confinement
calmly, cheerfully, firmly,like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I would talk to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly,
as though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I would bear the day's misfortune
equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.
Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I know of myself,
restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands are compressing my throat,
yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness,
trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?
Whom am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a comtemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
feeling in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer died on the gallows at Flossenburg prison. There he commended his soul to God and died bravely. There was a character in his behaviour and attitude all the way to the end. A man of Godly valour.
Most of us do not know what we're prepared to die for. We've not lived in a time or a circumstance where death was required. The closest some of us have come to such a gutsy decision might be to lay a job on the line when a matter of ethics or legality is at stake.
Blind Bartimaeus Receives His Sight
46Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (that is, the Son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging. 47When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" 48Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" 49Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." So they called to the blind man, "Cheer up! On your feet! He's calling you." 50Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. 51"What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked him. The blind man said, "Rabbi, I want to see." 52"Go," said Jesus, "your faith has healed you." Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.
(Mark 10:46-52)
In the days of Jesus, handicapped people like Bartimaeus are required to wear a cloak that identifies themselves to be needy people of society. These group of people rely on the mercy of the community for their welfare. In those days, people believed that if a person is afflicted with a disease, a griveous sin must have been committed by the afflicted or the parents of the afflicted. The cloak on Bartimaeus was his identity - an epitome of hopelessness, deprivation and despair. He is the personafication of a sidelined life.
Until one day, while he was begging, he heard that Jesus will be passing by. He cried out "Son of David, have mercy on me!". He shouted all the more "Son of David, have mercy on me!" even as the crowd told him to hushed up (v.47-48).
Verses 47 and 48 is where the essence of the story is being unfolded. With the kind of identity Bartimaeus had, it is easy to conclude that his self-esteem is almost non-existent. Ghis status in society, I am quite sure he didn't speak much to people around him and vice versa. Then, in that a tiniest fabric of time in his entire lifetime, he had the opportunity to come within the presence of Jesus. Conjuring up all the courage he had, he cried out "Son of David, have mercy on me!". That, itself, is a feat given his self-esteem. But to shout out all the more even after the crowd hushed him, that is amazing courage. He called out to Jesus.
Let's re-chew and re-enact in a more granular detail of what might had happened. At the first cry, Bartimaeus didn't get a respond, but a public shun. In that very fraction of time, in his mind, Bartimaeus would have thought he had lost it all. Jesus would have never heard him, walked on and he was probably subject to public ridicule even more. He would have retracted in for a little while, thinking that it was no use. In that split moment between settling with eternal shame and the possibility of healing, he conjures up everything within him and shouted again for Jesus.
Jesus stopped. When Jesus stops, entire reality stops. The crowd stopped following him. Everyone fell silent. In that very moment, Bartimaeus is in the same space with Jesus, with the rest of the world around him being shutted out. He would have all the time to have an audience with Jesus. He threw his cloak aside and went right up to Him. The throwing aside of the cloak shows that Bartimeaus expected a redefinition of his being by believing for the restoration of his sight.
It is interesting to note that people around Bartimaeus switched their stance towards him. At first they shunned him. Then when Jesus stops and call him, they told him to cheer up!
We all have a Bartimaues in us - the individual who, for the longest time, have been sidelined in life. Some of us have been sidelined in terms of job promotions. Some, for the longest while, have been denied the joy of a wholesome relationship. Some crave so much for acceptance in a family. Some of us did things with regrets that make us cringe and entrapped us. But when we called out for Jesus, He stops for us. We have an audience with Him. As Jesus responds, it is time to throw our cloak aside.
The emphasis of the Ps Michael's message was about calling out to Jesus, with very little mention about the outcome in verses 50 and 52. While the outcome is probably noteworthy, it is the relationship with Jesus that should be accentuated first. And rightly so.
Loyalty to God, Death to Self
"The golden rule of understanding spirituality is not intellect, but obedience. If a man wants scientific knowledge, intellectual curiosity is his guide, but if he wants insight into what Jesus Christ teaches, he can only get it by obedience. If things are dark to me, then I may be sure there is something I will not do. Intellectual darkness comes through ignorance, spiritual darkness because of something I do not intend to obey."
~ Oswald Chambers ~
Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey - whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
~ Romans 6:16-18 ~
