“And they came to Jericho; and as he was leaving
Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude, Bartimae′us, a blind beggar,
the son of Timae′us, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was
Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have
mercy on me!’ And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent; but he cried out
all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ And Jesus stopped and said,
‘Call him.’ And they called the blind man, saying to him, ‘Take heart; rise, he
is calling you.’ 50 And throwing off his mantle he sprang up and came to Jesus.
And Jesus said to him, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ And the blind man
said to him, ‘Master,[h] let me receive my sight.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Go
your way; your faith has made you well.’ And immediately he received his sight
and followed him on the way.”—Mark 10: 46-52 (Revised Standard
Version, Catholic Edition)
I searched YouTube for the late British actor Alec
McCowen’s legendary solo performance of the Gospel of Mark, hoping to find a
snippet containing this passage, among the most startling of this shortest of
the four canonical accounts of the life of Christ. Though I found this excellent “best of” clip from that show, it did not include the story of
the blind beggar.
I see, however, that Amazon sells a DVD of this performance from 1990. Reviews indicate that the quality of its
reformatting for DVD is a bit sketchy. But if you can put up with that, I would
hope that you can experience this remarkable moment in the life of Christ with
all the drama it deserves.
(The image accompanying this post, The Healing of
the Blind Bartimaeus, is an oil-on-panel painting from the workshop of Fernando
Gallego, a Spanish Renaissance artist active from 1543 to 1565.)
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