Would that God would give us the gift to see ourselves as others see us. (Robert Burns)

This well-worn saying applies to the man in our Scripture. God was giving him the chance to see himself as another saw him. However, in this instance the other was Jesus, and that made all the difference. Through the eyes of Jesus, the man was privileged to see himself in the best possible light, the light of infinite worth in which Jesus views us all.

Bartimaeus cried out for mercy. Rebuked by the disciples, he cried out the more. Finally, Jesus told those around him to call the man. “Take heart; rise, he is calling you.” Springing up, Bartimaeus ran to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked.

“Master, let me receive my sight.”

Then the marvelous words, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.”

Today this story tells me that Bartimaeus was given the chance, in confrontation with Jesus, to see himself as a man of faith. He asked for mercy, but Jesus did not just give him what he wanted. Jesus insisted on an investment by Bartimaeus. He did not take over his life and will to make him see. Bartimaeus cried for mercy, but Jesus enabled him to look into himself and see himself as Jesus saw him. Jesus helped him to see the place of a working faith in his life, and he was healed. God had, indeed, given him his sight and with it the chance to see himself as others saw him, especially Jesus. The best way for us to see ourselves is as Jesus sees us, for then we see ourselves in the best possible light!

Two stories come to mind which illustrate our text. The first is a play The Male Animal by James Thurber. A fortyish-year-old man managed to make a spectacle of himself at every party he and his wife attended. With the help of his buddies he re-enacted a famous touchdown he had made as a young man. Imagine: this man approaches Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” “Help me see.” Not “see” as with the eye, but see with the inner eye as others would see him.

Jesus tells him to wait a minute. “I can’t do that unless you invest yourself. You must accept responsibility for what is required of you in order to see.” Then Jesus leads him through the stages of seeing himself. First, he gives the man a chance to look at what’s happening around him and to see the facts. This man is privileged to look down, from a superior perspective, upon the actual physical events and observe others standing around. He then is able to see himself acting like a show-off, his wife sitting in a corner covered with embarrassment, and the guests suffering in silence, mortified for him if not furious at the way he has taken over the party. The man was given the chance no longer to be blind but to see through his own fantasies as others see him.

Second, Jesus gives him the ability to see into himself. Because he was seeing with great clarity, he could see back down the road and begin to work on those things that drove him relentlessly. In deep respect for the man, Jesus turned the request back to him. Instead of giving mercy, he gave the man power to see deep into himself, the “whys” and “hows” of his hangups, and a deep passion to move away from them.

Now let’s carry our imagining a bit further. The man sees the facts: how he behaves and how he looks in the eyes of others. He sees into himself: his unresolved childish needs. And then Jesus gives him the privilege to see for himself: if only he could tape his mouth shut and tie his hands by his side, then he might have opportunity to be there with others as the group enjoys itself and he along with the others.

Behind these stages, what the man faced when he saw himself through Jesus’ eyes was the destruction of the old self and the courage to accept responsibility for the new. He had gained a working faith. By approaching Jesus he was brought to make a heavy investment in his own redemption, to mean business. Jesus tells him that as his faith is put to work, he will come to see clearer and clearer. “Go your way.” The man does go, but “going his way” has taken on entirely new dimensions. It means “to follow Jesus.” To see himself in the best possible light was to follow Jesus.

The second story is of a woman who came to a counselor for help. Separated from her husband, she was living a life of pain and despair. Desperately she pleaded, “I want to keep my husband. I love him more than anything in the whole wide world. Life without him is not worth living. Help me get him back.”

The counselor knew that the husband also wanted a reconciliation. At the time, the man suffered from a feeling of rejection and intense jealousy. Actually, he was working his way around to asking her to come back. The counselor told the woman, “I think I can help you. Just keep to yourself. Don’t do anything in the least suspicious. Avoid any appearance of involvement with another man.” The woman left, evidently reassured.

A few days later she called for an emergency session. She came into the room glowing. She had met a high school friend. He wanted to take her to dinner. Couldn’t she go? “Under no circumstances,” the counselor advised. “If your husband heard of it, he’d be gone for good.”

Pause. “Well,” she said petulantly, “I have a right to a little fun like everybody else, don’t I?” The outcome: she went to dinner with her friend, her husband found out about it, and any possibility of reconciliation was destroyed.

What does this woman’s plight have to do with our text? The counselor meets the woman and says, “What do you want me to do for you?” “I want you to have mercy on me get my husband back.”

“Wait a minute,” the counselor replies. “I can’t do that unless you make an investment of yourself. What I can do is help you see yourself as I see you.”

First, the counselor gives the woman the opportunity to look and see facts. She sees a person full of contradictions, thinking one way and acting another. She sees herself unable to be systematic and dependable, even to gain her own wishes. Then the counselor gives her the chance to see into herself. If her husband is Number One in her world, then all she does and thinks and values fits into a program to keep faith with him. Had these gifts been genuinely received by her, the counselor would have helped her gain a working faith.

Now, let’s imagine a bit more. The woman sees herself in the eyes of the counselor the facts are that she is a bundle of contradictions, a childish, spoiled fifty-year-old. How ridiculous she must look to others. Then she sees into herself, the unresolved needs of a middle-aged teenager. Finally she sees for herself. “If I keep faith with all the things that matter to my husband; if I invest in whatever is required to reach my goal, then I stand a chance of getting what I believe to be the most important thing in the whole wide world.” She apprehends how her faith-at-work spreads itself into the future.

Now imagine again that she comes to the counselor: the counselor sees that this time she means business. “Well, you’re already on your way; you already have the ability to see. Go, for your faith is working healing in you.” Now for this woman “going” means to follow the counsel given her.

In both illustrations the people in order to see, to be made well must surrender their self-wills. Someone else grants them the privilege of seeing themselves as others see him: facts, seeing into the self, seeing for the self, and finally faithfully following.

Encounters like these happen to each of us in a wide variety of ways. In fact, they happen in the sharpest light whenever you and I go to Jesus. “Jesus, help me; do me good; get me what I want. Have mercy on me.” “What do you want me to do for you?” Well, for starters we wish to be well, we wish to get out from under the monkey on our backs be it drink, or anger, or abusiveness, or excuses, or vanity, or laziness oh, hundreds of burdens too heavy to bear. By ourselves we do not know how to get free of them. “You do it for me,” we call out to him. “Have mercy!”

Jesus says, even as he said to Bartimaeus, or would say to the man or the woman above, “I can’t do that unless you make an investment of yourself. Whatever of faith you have must be put into working order.”

Then it is that Jesus gives us the chance to see ourselves as he sees us. So we see ourselves in the best and truest possible light. We look at the facts, and this time we see them. We look upon ourselves, objectively, as though out of our bodies having one more drink, one more abusive behavior, one more lying, cheating, deceiving, and on and on. The fact is that we claim one thing for our “better self” and do something other with our real self. The better self never has a chance to show its merits. Our faith in the self is a willful fantasy and not a working one.

Jesus has permitted us to see into ourselves through his eyes. What are we working out? Some left-over resentments from youth? Some perceived shortages in life such as poverty, mistreatment, unfulfilled desires. We begin to see how we are always in a slow burn, cutting off our noses to spite our faces. Primarily we see that the self is always at the center, always self-protective, on the defensive.

Jesus enables us to see for ourselves. Though we are our own worst enemies, we can become our best friends. What we do matters; therefore what we refuse to do matters also. We come to see the difference. It is we who need to be putting to work the faith we claim to possess. Freed from fantasies, our faith gets down into the everyday concerns of our lives and starts to work.

Facing these insights, we know that the old self must be discarded and a new one dared. When the faith we have gets to work, it becomes “worked into” everyday matters and decisions. We see ourselves in the best possible light. We know, at last, that we are able to do and can do for ourselves. Our faith makes us well, but it is Jesus who recognizes it and gives us courage to put it to use.

Faith is the world’s most powerful instrument. We tend to use Jesus to soothe our consciences rather than offering ourselves to be used by him. After many delays and false starts we are inspired to change when we see ourselves as Jesus sees us. At last we know what we really long to be; and, at last, that becomes our primary purpose, our all-consuming drive. Faith is at work. We know, through his favor, what we are really like and what we must do to become the person we long to be.

As a result of meeting Jesus we gain power. Because our faith is put to work we have impetus to do more. Our working faith is being confirmed as we move along. “Go your way,” Jesus says, “for your faith has made you well.” And what is the way we now choose to go? We know for sure that whatever of life and privilege is given us, the best way we can go is to follow him.