Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

© 2021, Dr. Tamilio

Now that the coronavirus is behind me, we were able to start our new Bible study last Tuesday.  We are making our way through the Gospel of John.  Tuesday night we covered the first three chapters.  We ended the night by delving deep into the verse that Martin Luther called the Gospel in miniature: John 3:16 — “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

We’ve read and heard this verse so many times.  We’ve seen it held high on placards at football games.  We’ve received pamphlets and tracts from streetcorner preachers with this message written on them.  I think we need to read the next two verses:

For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.  He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

This is not much different than what Jesus says (later in John’s Gospel): “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).  The claim he makes here is pretty clear and cannot be ignored.

I will confess: the claims that these verses make have long troubled me.  What does it say about people of other faiths?  Are they not saved if they do not accept Jesus?  Many mainline Christians are drawn to theological pluralism: the idea that we are all traveling up the same mountain, we are just taking different paths.  We all get to the top eventually, whether we follow the Christian path, the Muslim path, or the Hindu path.  However, that is not what Jesus says, at least not in John’s Gospel.  New Testament scholar William Hendriksen explains John 14:6 this way:

Since [people] are absolutely dependent upon Christ for their knowledge of redemptive truth and also for the spark that causes that truth to live in their souls (and [for] their souls to become alive to that truth), it follows that no one comes to the Father but through him.  With Christ removed there can be no redemptive truth, no everlasting life; hence, no way to the Father.[1]

There are plenty of passages from the Bible that are open to interpretation, and we accept and even value that.  These passages from John are not among them.  We have to decide whether we think they are true (as Jesus states them) or not.  They cannot be both true but not true.  That is a tough point to consider — and an even harder pill for some to swallow.  “Jesus is the only way to God?  What about my Muslim friends who are very good people?  What about my neighbor who is an atheist, but is one of the kindest souls I have ever met?”  These are by no means easy questions.  In fact, they make us feel uneasy.  Let me be clear about one thing: it is not our job as mere human beings to determine who is saved and who isn’t.  That’s God’s job.  Acting as if it is our responsibility is the height of blasphemy.  However, if we truly believe that Jesus is “the way and the truth and the life,” as he himself said, then our need to evangelize is crucially important.

Maybe we need to turn to today’s Gospel Lesson for a minute.

Bartimaeus is a blind man sitting at the side of a road in Jericho.  When he heard that Jesus was walking by, he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”  Why?  Because he believed that Jesus could heal him.  Maybe he heard about the miracles Jesus was performing.  He has already healed several people in Mark’s account, and word gets around fast, especially good news.  But it isn’t just that Bartimaeus heard of this; he believes it to be true!

One of the reasons Jesus performed miracles — whether it was walking on the water, healing the sick, or exorcising demons — was to prove that he was who he said he was.  It’s one thing to say that you are the Son of God; it’s another thing to perform miracles.  The proof is in the pudding, as they say.

Bartimaeus believes this in his heart of hearts.  He calls upon Jesus to heal him, because he knows that only Jesus can.  Let me repeat that: Bartimaeus calls upon Jesus to heal him, because he knows that only Jesus can.  N.T. Wright claims that “Bartimaeus is a model to imitate.  Unlike the disciples, who hadn’t really understood what Jesus was about, [Bartimaeus] is already a man of faith, courage and true discipleship.  He recognizes who Jesus is…”[2]

Robert Stein agrees.  He writes, “Bartimaeus is a paradigmatic example of what it means to be a Christian.”[3]  Like N.T. Wright, Stein claims that in this Gospel passage the disciples still do not get it.  Unlike them, “Bartimaeus ‘sees’ clearly and follows Jesus in the way.”[4]  How ironic: Bartimaeus was blind, but now he sees — in more ways than one.  Maybe he could have written that chestnut of the faith, “Amazing Grace.”  He now has vision, but he also possesses a deeper vision: he knows who Jesus is.

Do you know who he is?  Do you believe it?  When it all comes down to it, when you’re done singing and praying, and reading the Bible, and pledging to the church, and serving God in the service of others, and reading devotionals, and engaging in whatever spiritual practices that are central to your life and faith — when all is said done, and you are totally honest with yourself, what is it that you believe?

I know what I believe.  I know.  It is the faith that was planted in my heart by my religious forbearers.  It came to them through their parents and mentors, who received it from the saints, the martyrs, and the doctors of the church who interpreted that same faith with the utmost acumen.  I received it in my baptismal waters and confirmed them at the same church in the good ol’ Ryal Side section of Beverly, where I grew up.  It is the faith that I affirmed through my seminary education and doctoral studies.  It was the faith that was given to me with the laying on of hands when I was ordained in that same church over twenty-two years ago.  It is the faith I honed by serving three other congregations — being successful and making mistakes, as I have here, but knowing deep down that I will be forgiven, and so I have to forgive myself and others.  It is the faith that led me to Cindy.  It is that faith that I proclaim today — here in Canton, Massachusetts: Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, the Son of God, God made flesh that I received into my heart of hearts by the Holy Spirit.  He died to pay the price for my sins, and he rose from the dead to open the gates of everlasting life for me, and you, and the ones that will come after us.

This does not make me Bartimaeus.  Not even close.  But as Brennan Manning so eloquently said, “We are all just beggars at the doors of God’s mercy.”

That’s you, too.  That’s why you are here.  You heard the Good News.  Maybe you heard it 178 times before, but one day it clicked.  I cannot ask you to boldly proclaim the Good News unashamedly if I don’t say it loudly, proudly, and plainly from this pulpit once in a while.

The last thing Jesus said to the disciples in Matthew’s account is, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  Thank goodness he sent some of those people to Canton.  Amen.

 

[1] William Hendriksen, John: New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1953), 268.

[2] N.T. Wright, Mark for Everyone (Louisville: Westminster John Know Press, 2004), 143.

[3] Robert H. Stein, Mark: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 498.

[4] Ibid.