LENTEN READINGS AND REFLECTIONS

DAY 8

Reading: Mark 5:22-9:13

What do you ask Jesus for? How do you spend your time in prayer.

I think many people, not wanting to be “selfish” spend their time praying for the needs of other people.

This is a good and wonderful thing and I do not in any way wish to discourage these prayers. They are essential and necessary. God uses them to heal, move, and build up those for whom you pray.

At the same time, I hope that is not all you do.

It is not at all selfish to pray for yourself and for those things you think you need.

Notice, in today's reading from the Gospel of Mark, the contrast between blind Bartimeus and the rich young man.

Bartimeus is blind. He knows he is blind. He sees that he needs help for there is no way that he can help himself out of his blindness.

But, though blind, he “sees” that his only hope rests on Christ.

The rich young man does not come to Christ asking for anything. He does not want Jesus to go out of his way. He can handle things himself. All he needs, or so he thinks, is for Jesus to tell him what he must do on his own to “earn” eternal life.

When Jesus tells him to give away all of his possessions, to become utterly dependant, and become his disciple, the man cannot do it.

His wealth has blinded him to the truth: that despite his wealth he was in fact as dependant on Christ as blind Bartimaeus.

It is, in fact, this false sense of security that can make it quite impossible for a “rich man” to enter the kingdom of Heaven .

But it is just as difficult for the self-satisfied; the independent; the utterly self-reliant; the prideful; because all of these lack both the insight and the humility to come to Christ in full recognition of their utter dependence on him.

And that is precisely what true Christian faith requires; that we come to the foot of the cross of Christ fully aware that apart from His person and work, we would have no hope for salvation.

But that sense of utter dependence is not just a one time act whereby you invite Christ into your heart and go on about your business. We need Jesus daily like a blind man needs to see.

When we refuse to come to Christ with our desires and needs, imagining that somehow he is too busy or that we are quite competent on our own, we say, like the rich young man, that we do not need Christ…that our own “wealth” will suffice.

But when we come to him with all that we want and need, believing and trusting that if it is his will he can do all that we ask, then we open the way for God to act and to act miraculously.

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