Keep Shouting

Context

Bartimaeus is the man Jericho has stopped seeing. He's blind, he begs, and he sits in the same spot at the same gate while the crowd parts around him like furniture. In his world, blindness wasn't just a disability. It was treated as a verdict, and it cost him his standing, his prospects, his right to be looked at as a whole person.

Story

Then one ordinary day a crowd comes down the road, louder than the usual market traffic. He grabs a sleeve, asks who it is, and hears the name: Jesus. So he starts yelling for mercy. The crowd is mortified. They shush him, scold him, tell him this isn't his moment. So he goes louder.

"JESUS. SON OF DAVID. HAVE MERCY ON ME."

And the whole parade stops. Jesus, on his way to Jerusalem to die, halts the most important procession of the week for one man everyone else had written off. The same crowd that just told him to be quiet now says, get up, he's calling you. Bartimaeus throws off his cloak, stumbles forward, and tells Jesus the one thing he wants: to see.

What We Learn

Everyone had a plan for Bartimaeus, and the plan was stay small. Jesus had a different one.

• Mercy doesn't move at the crowd's pace.

• It moves at the volume of the person willing to keep shouting.

So if somebody told you today that this isn't your moment, keep shouting.