In the restoration of the captives and the suffering is proclaimed the power and goodness of God (Jeremiah 31:7-9). The blind man saw in Jesus mercy and new life (Mark 10:46-52).

The return in joy

With Yahweh himself as the speaker, the first reading pictures what the exiled people would be experiencing in the future: their joyful return home after years of pain and sorrow. Their salvation is a certainty, though still only in anticipation. Their return procession is a retrace of their march to exile to the land in the north. If then they departed in tears, now they will be going back with shouts of joy. Refreshed by streams of water, they will be trekking home on level roads so as not to have anyone stumble.

Jeremiah in a style similar to Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah 40:3-5; 41:18-20; 43:1-7) presented to his people a vision of their homecoming parallel to the joyous and triumphant exodus of the Israelites from Egypt’s slavery. Once more the people would be marching through the desert to their new life in freedom. After Jeremiah had bluntly propounded to his people the unpopular explanation that their suffering and shame in Babylon was a deserved consequence of their infidelity to the covenant with God, he gave them next a balm of soothing comfort in the promised liberation, a hope in their darkest estrangement and helplessness.

By God’s merciful power

Their homecoming would be tantamount to a miracle brought about by divine mercy and power. Only a remnant (anawim) would make it home: the blind, the lame, pregnant and nursing mothers, that is, the most vulnerable people who could not have survived the rigors of exile on their own, and who would not be making it back home on their own either. Their rescue would be miraculous, people utterly dependent on God, and of them the nation would be restored. This is expressive of the prophet’s faith that in spite of insurmountable obstacles, the people would be saved through God’s providential power.

That it is God as father and shepherd who would be consoling and leading His people home is underscored further by the mysterious assertion that Ephraim is first-born of God. Though neither a son of Jacob nor a first-born of his father Joseph, Ephraim is listed along with the tribes of Israel. It was through adoption by Jacob that he received his inheritance, and like Jacob he was granted the privileges of the first-born in lieu of his older brother (Genesis 48:5-20). In this passage, Ephraim grafted onto the family tree through God’s choice fittingly represents the remnant through which God gives the people a new start. The entire restoration is God’s work.

When the blind sees

The Gospel account is also a narrative about a call to discipleship. The blind man Bartimaeus followed Jesus after the miraculous healing although Jesus did not ask him to do so; he thought so, however. The man seemed to have become a well-known disciple of Jesus, familiar to the author. That would explain why his name could and was given in the retelling of the event, which was unusual in stories of healing only. The man who was blind actually already had the eyes of faith. He believed that Jesus could heal him. He also believed that Jesus was the anointed of God who has come to establish the reign of God.

He addressed Jesus insistently as “Son of David” with its messianic connotation. The people around him tried to silence the blind man, so unlike other healing narratives where people bring the sick and the afflicted to Jesus for healing. They seemed opposed to having Jesus addressed that way. Nonetheless Jesus heard the cries proclaiming faith in him and asked that the blind man be brought to him. Hearing this order, the beggar threw his cloak aside, his means of begging usually spread out in front of him. He set aside what alms he may have collected already and left behind his life of begging, to respond to the call of Jesus.

Alálaong bagá, in Mark’s Gospel account up to this point, Jesus has been recognized and proclaimed for what He really was only by demons and evil spirits. The people who had eyes to see and hearts to believe, including His disciples, were poignantly blind and uncomprehending. But outside Jericho on the last leg of his journey to Jerusalem and almost at the climax of His career, a blind man recognized and proclaimed Him. Bartimaeus, healed by Jesus and confirmed in His faith, became a follower of Jesus on the way to the finale of total love in Jerusalem.

We are all called to return home to God from our captivity in evil and our exile in darkness. Have our eyes been opened already? If last week James and John, misconstruing the mission of Jesus, asked for a share in his glory, we now have Bartimaeus asking for sight. He was told by Jesus, “Be on your way.” And he made his own the way of Jesus. Have we, from captivity to freedom, from blindness to sight?

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