When you compare the story of Bartimaeus with the stories that come before it in the gospel of Mark, the first thing that might stand out is that nothing goes wrong.
We are the Light on the Ridge proclaiming the love of Jesus in thought, word, and deed
We are the Light on the Ridge proclaiming the love of Jesus in thought, word, and deed
Sermons on Mark
I think I’ve told you part of this story before, but when our daughter Katie was in preschool, she had a very clever teacher. In the corner of the classroom was a life size poster of a cartoon cowboy. It was only the top half of his body so, the average four-year-old could look him…
In our gospel readings for the last few weeks, Jesus has done quite a bit of traveling. He went back and forth from one side of the Sea of Galilee to the other. Two weeks ago he went to Tyre which is a city in Lebanon and then he went to the cities of the…
Today’s gospel has more than one memorable verse. More than one piece of this passage has been quoted, repeated and woven into our cultural understanding of Jesus, Christianity and the church. The phrases are a part of how we may define ourselves and most certainly have had an impact on the way our culture views…
When we last heard from Mark, he was reporting on Jesus’ conversation with the Judean mucky-mucks who wanted to know why the disciples were eating without washing their hands? Why were they not following “the tradition of the elders?” Why weren’t they following the rules for cleanliness?
We never think it can happen to us – until it does. Good people behaving badly.
When I was in seminary, one of my professors said that if a story seemed odd or unusual it was because either there was some deep symbolism involved or it just plain happened that way. Mark may have told this story, simply because that’s what happened. From the perspective of the storyteller, it provides an…