faith. The fact that he called him “Son of David” was a sign he believed Jesus was the Messiah. The word St. Luke uses means basically an animal cry, something coming deep from his woundedness. Hhis crying out for Jesus, however, was annoying those who were trying to hear Jesus’ teaching. So the first people in the group rebuked him and told him to shut his trap. But that only led him to cry out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me!”

Jesus stopped and ordered that Bartimaeus be brought to him. For Jesus, caring for this man was more important even than what he was teaching at that moment, because frankly it was an illustration of the why-behind-the-what he was communicating. He had been tellingout, it would have been very easy for Jesus to come to meet him exactly where he was begging. Instead he got close, but then he had Bartimaeus get up to come to him, to engage Bartimaeus’ freedom more, to stoke his desire, to exercise his faith, to give him greater participation in the miracle Jesus himself was about to accomplish. It takes courage to get up and leave our comfort zone to respond to the Lord. Bartimaeus had that courage and did. St. Mark tells us, “He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus.” The cloak was his outer garment that kept him warm at night. It was in a sense his security blanket. It was quite valuable to him and part of his