How important is a name?
As many of you know, my first name is not Wes. My full name
is Klinton Wesley Cain. For the first decade or so of my life, I answered to
Klinton, Klint for short. Everyone called me that—my family, my friends, my
teachers… everyone. Sometime in between moving from Hawaii to Texas and the
start of my fifth grade year, I decided that I didn’t want to go by Klint or
Klinton anymore. It just wasn’t… me.
So I started going by Wes. Now, this wasn’t that unheard of
a transition in my family. My dad, James Wesley Cain, is also known by his
middle name because he felt that James was too formal for him. His dad, James
Alvin Cain, started going by Dewey when he was young in honor of Hewey, Dewey,
and Louie. It seems to be a Cain family tradition for one of the guys to not go by your given first name.
Names are funny things. For most people, a person’s name is
an integral part of his or her identity. They could not even fathom answering
to any other name because it just wouldn’t be them. Kevin is Kevin, and he can
be nothing else. Sarah is Sarah, and would not feel right if she was called
anything different. Our names are a part of who we are. In the Cain household,
my parents wanted our names to be more than just a word that got our attention.
They wanted part of who their kids were to be wrapped up in our names. That’s
why Korey, Katherine and I all have the same initials: KWC.
Names are important.
Our Scripture reading this morning includes some very
important names, and some of them have some very interesting stories behind
them. Names like Jericho have deep contexts and rich histories. You might
remember from our journey through The
Story that Jericho was the city that God delivered to the Israelites as
they came into the Promised Land. There’s even a song that goes with it that
you might know…
“Joshua led the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho. Joshua
led the battle of Jericho and the walls came a tumblin’ down!”
Luckily for you, that’s all I know from the song. You don’t
have to endure anymore of my singing for right now. But names are extremely
important. We’re going to focus on two of the names that come
up in this miracle story. The first Bartimaeus, and the second is the name that
this blind man uses for Jesus: Son of David. This is one of those sermons that
is going to be more bible study than sermon, if you haven’t already figured
that out.
So let’s talk about Bartimaeus. What do we know about this
person from looking at the text? Well, we know that he is blind, that he is a beggar—which
was pretty much the only profession open to those with serious handicaps like
blindness, deafness, or paralysis—and that he is the son of Timaeus. We can
also surmise from the reading that he has a powerful set of lungs on him. I
wonder if his yelling was a little like my singing—too loud and slightly
annoying. I’d say “off key” as well, but I don’t think you can yell off key.
So from this information, we can actually dive quite deep
into the story of Bartimaeus. The fact that he was a beggar tells us much about
him, mainly that he was completely dependent upon the charity of others. If he
was blind from birth, he most likely lived with his parents. If he had lost his
sight later on in life, there is a chance that he lived with a family of his
own. Since his father is mentioned in the story, we can make a fairly educated
guess that he lived with his parents and relied upon them. Either way, though,
it is most likely that someone from his family would lead him out to the same
spot every morning, where he would sit in his cloak and loin cloth—the only
things he owned—and pray that enough people took pity on him that he could buy
a little bread and meat at the end of each day. Living in a big city full of
Jews who were by law supposed to be generous to those in need probably helped,
but I sincerely doubt that he was the only beggar situated on the outskirts of
Jericho. Bartimaeus probably just barely got by, and it was only because of
kindness of those around him.
I wonder how much Bartimaeus risked by yelling at Jesus that
day. People even today will go out of their way to avoid a beggar who is
causing a scene. He might have placed his very livelihood—especially for that
day at the very least—in jeopardy just to catch Jesus’ attention.
But that has little to do with his name, doesn’t it? Does
anyone know what the name Bartimaeus means? The text actually gives you the
answer… It means “Son of Timaeus.” The word “bar” in Hebrew names means “Son
of,” and is used in last names to help differentiate between different people
with the same name in the same communities. So if I were Jewish and lived
during this time period, my name might be Wes Barwes, or Wes Barjames.
Bartimaeus was probably this man’s last name, but it was a fairly common
occurrence for people to answer to just this name. It’s just like how when I
was a kid, I was sometimes known as “Mary’s son” or “Gene’s grandkid.”
So who was Timaeus? Many biblical scholars think that the
wording of this passage shows that this truly was a real person and is not a
made-up story. This is not just Bartimaeus; this is the son of Timaeus. People
knew him, or at least knew his father. Maybe he was a well-known and well-liked
public figure in Jericho two thousand years ago. Maybe this is one of those few
places where the Markan writer gives us a clue that this really is a real story
about real people.
Other scholars read this story and get a very different vibe
from it. You see, there’s something interesting about this Jewish man’s name.
Bartimaeus is an interesting mashing of Hebrew and Greek names. “Bar,” as we
already discussed, is a Hebrew word. Timaeus, though, is a very Greek name.
Now, it was not unheard of for mixed marriages to happen between Jews and
Greeks during this time, but it was uncommon.
To complicate matters a little more, the name Thimaeus was fairly famous at
this time as the title character from one of Plato’s philosophical works.
Ironically, Thimaeus delivers one of Plato’s most important cosmological and
theological treatises, which holds that sight is the foundation of all
knowledge.
So Thimaeus believed that God was revealed through sight.
Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, cannot see until the Son of God grants him
sight. Pretty interesting, right?
And this son of Timaeus shouts to Jesus, trying desperately
to get his attention. “Jesus Christ, son of David, have mercy on me!”
So what does “Son of David” mean? Well, we know that David
was king of the Jews during Israel’s golden years. He was said to be the man
“after God’s own heart” who longed to devote all he was and all he had to the
worship of God. Through his reign, God’s people became a great nation, and the
people of God flourished under his rule. His son, Solomon, his successor, was
going to bring even more glory and honor to God through his leadership. Through
him, it was hoped that all the world would come to know God and worship God.
There is a story in I Kings 10 about a queen from the far
off land of Sheba coming to visit Solomon and see for herself the nation of
Yahweh. She is said to be a wise leader, and after she has spent some time
testing and observing Solomon, she says to him, “Because of the Lord’s eternal
love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness.”
Now, it’s important to note here that she does not say that he is maintaining
justice and righteousness, just that it was for this reason he was made king.
But grab your pew Bibles and turn to 1 Kings 9:15. Let’s
read what it says: “Here is the account of the forced
labor King Solomon conscripted to build the LORD’S temple, his own palace, the
supporting terraces, the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer.”
Here is the account of the forced
labor… what’s another word for forced labor? Slavery. Now, I know it’s been a
while since we started going through The
Story, but do you remember what the Israelites were doing when God rescued
them from Egypt? They were working as slaves to Pharaoh. God rescued them from
this plight and set them up as a nation in the Promised Land. And no sooner do
they become a major power in the known world than they begin to do the same
thing to others that was happening to them. They began oppressing the nations,
conscripting slave labor from conquered peoples. And what for? To build the
LORD’s Temple. The same God who freed the enslaved Israelites is now supposed
to dwell in a house built by slaves.
Does this sound like justice and
righteousness to you?
King Solomon’s rule was marked
with decadence in the extremes, usually built on the backs of and paid for with
the blood of slaves. He had hundreds of wives and concubines, a palace that
dwarfed the city around it, an army of horses and chariots that rivaled that of
Pharaoh’s army of old, and all of it came at the cost of others.
Rob Bell, one of my favorite
preachers, writes that “This is a major moment in the Bible. In just a few
generations, the oppressed have become the oppressors. The ancestors of people
who once cried out because of their bondage are now causing others to cry out.
The descendants of people who once longed for freedom from Egypt are now
building another Egypt.”
The Queen of Sheba told Solomon
that he was made king “to maintain justice and righteousness.” That is
what the Son of David was supposed to do. But instead he fostered injustice,
indifference, and oppression of those beneath him. And so the people of Israel
began to whisper that maybe, the real Son of David, the real king that was to
usher in and maintain justice and righteousness, was yet to come. The prophet
Nathan spoke god’s work to David and told him that one of his descendants will
usher in the true Kingdom of God. Maybe, just maybe, this Son of David was yet
to come.
The Son of David who would maintain justice and
righteousness throughout God’s kingdom. The Son of David who would be the
Messiah.
When Bartimaeus names Jesus the Son of David, he is
declaring that Jesus is the Christ. The Lord’s Annointed One, the true Son of
David who would not fall prey to Solomon’s sins. The Messiah. This blind man,
the son of the man who declared that sight is the foundation of knowledge, knew
who Jesus was and revealed it to the people of Jericho that day. He asked for
mercy to be shown to him, and he asked for his sight to be restored.
For if Jesus was the true Son of David, the one to establish
God’s kingdom, he could and would give him the seemingly impossible. He could
and would restore his sight.
So what does this mean for us? What can we glean from this
story? Well, first and foremost, we are called like Bartimaeus to proclaim that
Jesus is the Son of David, the Messiah. We are called to risk everything, even
our livelihood, that this message might be shared with the world. Like the son
of Timaeus, we are have been given that which we truly need—new life in
Christ—and we are called to follow after the one who has saved us from an
eternity of darkness. For we have a savior who is the true Son of David, the
one who came to maintain justice and righteousness throughout God’s kingdom. He
is not one who oppresses, but one who sets the oppressed free. He is not one
who enslaves, but one who liberates. He is not one who burdens the backs of
others, but takes their burdens upon himself.
He is the Christ. He is our savior.
And friends, I firmly believe that this is Good News for us
today. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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