Blind Bartimaeus (10:46–52)
At Caesarea Philippi, Peter confessed:
“You are the Christ” (8:29).
To confess that Jesus was the Christ was to confess him as the son of David, the anointed king of David’s house for whom Israel had waited. Peter has the title right, but he doesn’t yet understand what it means. That’s why, as soon as Jesus says the Christ must be handed over, killed, and after three days rise, Peter immediately rebukes him (8:31–32).
The Way-section is intended to clarify what it means that Jesus is the Christ. In this section, Jesus predicts his suffering and death three times (8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34), and three times the disciples fail to understand him. Instead, they argue about rank and authority.
James and John ask for the seats of honor when the glory comes. They are waiting for a conquering king and cannot make room for the one walking ahead of them toward a cross. The whole section drives at one redefinition: the son of David is the one whose messiahship is made of suffering, death, and resurrection. And it makes that claim even as the disciples continue to misunderstand it.
But then, as the road reaches Jericho, a blind beggar shouts the title that no one else in the Gospel has yet spoken of Jesus.
“Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47).
Bartimaeus is the first in the Gospel to call Jesus the Son of David out loud. Like the disciples, he may not fully know what the title means, but unlike the disciples, he knows to ask for mercy, not a throne.
To make the contrast between Blind Bartimaeus and the disciples even clearer, when Jesus calls Bartimaeus over, he asks him the same question he had just asked James and John:
“What do you want me to do for you?” (10:51; cf. 10:36).
The words are identical. The answers are not. The brothers, who could see physically, asked to sit at Jesus’ right hand and his left in his glory, not knowing that those places would be filled by two crucified men (15:27). The beggar asks to see. He receives his sight, and then he “followed him on the way” (10:52). The Twelve have walked with Jesus at least since the Way-section began, but they continue to be blind. They need to learn from Bartimaeus and ask Jesus for mercy rather than positions of authority and power, and then their blindness would be healed too.
Baptism and the Cup (10:35–45)
Mark 10:35–45 marks the end of what many readers call Mark’s “Way section,” the lengthy middle part of the Gospel where Jesus is “on the way” to Jerusalem. This section develops the Isaianic quotation with which Mark began his Gospel, clearly showing that Jesus’ journey to the city signals the long-awaited return of YHWH to Zion.
The section is bookended by two miracles where Jesus heals blindness: the blind man at Bethsaida (8:22–26) and Bartimaeus (10:46–52). The Way section then formally begins with Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi (8:27–30), and it ends with Jesus responding to James and John’s request. As Jesus is “on the way,” he predicts his suffering and death three times (8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34), and each time the disciples react with similar misunderstandings. They can’t grasp a Messiah whose glory is revealed through a cross, nor can they see discipleship as a cruciform way of life.
That pattern reaches its clearest expression here. James and John come to Jesus with a familiar request:
“Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory” (10:37 ESV).
Their question concerns greatness as the world sees it. They seek power, prestige, privilege, and prosperity.
Jesus knows that his “glory” will come through a Roman cross, and so he says:
“You do not know what you are asking” (10:38a).
He then reinterprets the glory awaiting him in Jerusalem through two images.
“Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (10:38b).
With both symbols, Jesus is discussing his death. The cup probably represents the cup of wrath for the nations (Jer 25:15), and baptism, because it is a salvation-through-water event rather than a salvation-from-water one, strongly suggests that, unlike Israel at the Red Sea, Jesus will enter the waters of death, be covered by them, and then rise again.
Notice how layered this moment is. At the beginning of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is baptized as his ministry starts (Mark 1:9–11). By the end, he will take a cup and speak of his blood (11:22–24). Here, on the brink of his passion, Jesus gathers the entire mystery of his life, death, and resurrection into a single invitation. If you want to share in my glory, it won’t be through status and power as the world defines them, but through participation in baptism and the cup.
This clearly sacramental statement shapes the entirety of our Christian life.
Baptism and the Eucharist do not stand hand-in-hand with the world’s definition of power and status. They bury it. The sacraments mark us as people whose lives are shaped by another way: the way of self-denial, self-giving, and self-emptying. Jesus makes the contrast explicit while weaving in multiple allusions to Daniel 7:
“You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them…. But it shall not be so among you” (Mark 10:42–43).
Greatness in the kingdom of God is not about power or domination (like the trampling beasts rising out of the cosmic sea). Greatness in the kingdom of God is defined by servanthood. And this is true for a simple reason:
“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (10:45, weaving together Dan 7:13-14 and Isa 53:10–12).
James and John wanted power and glory, but a life defined by the sacraments points in another direction.
In the kingdom of God, the way up is the way down.
Jesus knows there is only one road that leads to Easter, and it goes through the cross, which is why he tells his disciples (bringing us all the way back to the beginning of the Way section):
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34).