Nothing happens by chance in the Bible. So the fact that the miracle in today's gospel takes place in Jericho is no accident.
Jericho had powerful Old Testament resonances. It was there that Joshua and the people of Israel began their conquest of the Promised Land by circling this seemingly impregnable city seven times with the Ark of the Covenant, and then seven times on the seventh day, with trumpet blasts. These are the trumpets and the perseverance of prayer. The walls of the city fell of their own accord and Israel took the city (Jos 6).
Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem to suffer His passion and death. This miracle in Jericho shows that he is beginning his conquest. Satan was the strong man who thought that his walled city was impregnable (see Lk 4:5-6; 11:21-22). But all the walls of sin fall before the power of Christ (see Eph 2:14).
Jesus performs another miracle in Jericho, curing Zacchaeus of his greed (Lk 19:1-10), just as that formerly sinful woman, Rahab, was cured of her prostitution and helped the Israelites in the conquest of the city (Jos 2). Zacchaeus had been a bit like a prostitute, selling his honor and his people for profit.
A blind man sits by the roadside. But we are told his name and his lineage: Bartimaeus, son of Timaeus. To God he has a name and a dignity, like all the beggars we see on the street. He sits on the roadside of life, prevented by his blindness from participating fully in society, but he is sensitive to Christ's passing and, in his humility, cries out for his mercy. For us, the opposite can happen: our own immersion in society and activity can lead us to be blind to the presence of Christ. We are spiritually blind, so blind that we do not even recognize our need.
Bartimaeus is great because of his insistence. He calls out to Christ and only cries out louder when some try to silence him. So many factors and forces today are trying to silence us: "do not speak of Christ", "don't express your need for it". Bartimaeus will not be silenced. Neither will we.
But there are good people who encourage him. How we would like to be among them (and we must ask ourselves where we stand in today's gospel: are we Bartimaeus, those who try to silence him, those who encourage him, or one of those who were not even there, because they had "more important things to do"?) What a blessing it is to be among those who encourage people to come to Christ: "And they called to the blind man, saying to him, 'Courage, arise, for he is calling you'.".
Homily on the readings of the XXX Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)
Priest Luis Herrera Campo offers his nanomiliaA short one-minute reflection for these Sunday readings.
