Your Story Hour

Guest (Male): Hey sis, dad, mom, come on! Your Story Hour's on!

Guest (Male): Presenting Your Story Hour, building for a better tomorrow. Today's story...

Nathan: Alms, help a poor blind beggar. Help the blind.

Guest (Male): I have nothing for you. Help you? Why I need all my money for myself.

Nathan: Alms, help a poor blind beggar. Alms.

Guest (Female): You poor blind man. Here is all the money I have. Drop in your coins there.

Guest (Female): Yes, Mother. And you, Joseph. Yes, Mother. And be thankful, give thanks every day that you have your eyesight and pray to God for these poor sightless men. Yes, Mother. Goodbye, poor blind man.

Nathan: Oh, what a nice little girl that woman's child seemed.

Bartimaeus: Yes, so I heard. She was only about four, I think. Youth! Oh, if I were young again and if I could see, how happy I would be.

Nathan: Young or old, we must learn to be happy in life, Bartimaeus. Happy with what we have and with what we are. That is what my father, Timaeus, used to say to me.

Bartimaeus: Old Timaeus, may God rest his bones. He was a wonderful man, a good man, though rich, and a happy one. The only disappointment in his long, useful life was that I, his only son, became blind.

Nathan: You were twelve when you lost your eyes.

Bartimaeus: Yes, but I don't like to speak of it. I have so many wonderful sources of happiness left to me, like helping you, for instance.

Nathan: Bartimaeus, it is good of you to come here to help me beg alms.

Bartimaeus: Nonsense. I come because I enjoy your company.

Nathan: You come because you know how lonely I get, sitting here at this dry, dusty roadside alone, all day, every day. And you come because you know I cannot beg enough money by myself to feed and clothe old Nathan properly. Oh, may God reward you, Bartimaeus. Your good, good like your old dead father.

Bartimaeus: I am already rewarded, Nathan, when I feel your happiness each day as I arrive.

Nathan: Your sister, Mea, she doesn't like it. She threatened to have the authorities forbid me to beg, just because she doesn't want you to come here.

Bartimaeus: Now Nathan, that's all over. You have nothing to worry about. Mea means well. She hurts me, but she can't hurt you.

Nathan: Well, she says it damages her social position to have people see her brother begging for whatever cause.

Bartimaeus: Mea can't forget we once had money, much money. And now that our fortune is gone, she still has delusions of social importance, clings to them. I frequently tell her she has more social position than money. But if her health holds, she'll have money again. Oh, she's stingy.

Bartimaeus: Come, it's time to go. Take my arm. Here, be careful, careful. They're digging a ditch here somewhere. Oh, if only someone with eyesight would help.

Nathan: We blind persons can never utterly depend upon people with eyesight to lead us. They're too busy, busy with their own problems. Come here. Now careful, careful.

Bartimaeus: Just a few more steps this way. That—

Guest (Male): You see that, Jacob? The two blind men, one was leading the other and they both fell in that old dried-up ditch.

Uncle Dan: Hello boys and girls, I'm Uncle Dan.

Aunt Carole: And I'm Aunt Carole. We're so glad to be with you again.

Uncle Dan: Today's story is taken from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10. We call it "The Strange Case of Blind Bart."

Bartimaeus: Bart, Bartimaeus!

Mea: Yes, my sister. Down, down little dog. What did you knock over? We must find it and right it before Mea discovers.

Mea: Bart! Yes, Mea. What was that noise?

Bartimaeus: What noise, Mea?

Mea: You know perfectly well what noise. You're blind, but you're not deaf. Now, what's wrong here? What have you—oh, look what you've done!

Bartimaeus: The little dog, Mea. She was leaping into my arms as I sat sunning myself here at the window and she knocked something over. I don't know what it was.

Mea: I'll tell you what it was. My flowerpot!

Bartimaeus: Oh, I'm sorry, my sister.

Mea: You're sorry, you're sorry. What good does that do? You're always sorry. The little dog, she meant nothing. It was an accident. You're going or that dog goes, one or the other. I won't keep you both.

Bartimaeus: Please, Mea. Don't hurt her. She's the only friend I've got besides Nathan.

Mea: There! There! Now out you go!

Bartimaeus: Mea, you don't have to be so cruel. She didn't mean to knock—

Mea: Cruel! Cruel am I? Well, I guess you don't know what it is for a woman of my social position to have a brother like you—slovenly, dirty, ungrateful, a plague on my life.

It was all very well for Father to go and die when he did. He was old. He spent half of our fortune on his wastrel charities. So naturally, he could fold his hands and die. But I'm saddled with a blind brother. My days and my nights must be spent attending you.

Well, let me tell you something, Bart. The new Galilean teacher with his twelve disciples will be in Jericho today. And after they leave the synagogue, they're coming here. The whole party of them with the town dignitaries, and I will not have you underfoot.

Bartimaeus: Oh, I'd like to meet him, Mea. I've heard so many wonderful things about him.

Mea: You meet him? You certainly will not. I'll not have you disgrace me.

Bartimaeus: I want to go to the synagogue too. I want to hear the Torah read.

Mea: No, no, I tell you.

Bartimaeus: But Mea—

Mea: You're not presentable. You never are. In spite of my best efforts to have you look decent, befitting our family standing, you always manage to appear shabby. You do it on purpose, I believe.

Bartimaeus: You should let me go to the synagogue. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob looks upon the heart. He does not judge men and women by either the richness of their garments or the meanness of their rags. Did not Timaeus our father teach us so when we were children?

Mea: I don't care how God judges. He lives in heaven, but I live in Jericho. And my friends judge one another by clothing and manners. We are society, Bart. The Timaeus family is important. We're not grubby little peasants. How often must I remind you?

No, you insist on going to sit in the dusty roadway every weekday to sit with that filthy beggar Nathan.

Bartimaeus: Today is Sabbath. I want to go to the synagogue. I want to meet the man of Nazareth, the new teacher, when he comes to our house.

Mea: Certainly not! I should die of mortification to have him meet you. Here, I have no more time to waste. Here's your lunch already packed for you. Take it, your old sandals, and your cane. Go out into the woods. And if you dare—if you dare return before nightfall, you'll rue the day you were born, blind Bartimaeus. Now go on, leave.

Now, I shall just barely have time to clean up this broken flowerpot before time for services. Oh, just imagine! The new teacher dining at my house. We may be poor as a result of Father giving away our money, but the family name of Timaeus still counts for something in this town. Jericho recognizes my social position, and that's what counts.

That's why the president of the synagogue is bringing the man of Nazareth from Galilee and his disciples here. That Elizabeth, my haughty neighbor, who fancies herself my social rival—won't she be jealous!

Jonathan: Hello, who are you?

Bartimaeus: Hello, I'm Bartimaeus, or just plain Bart if you like.

Jonathan: You're blind, aren't you?

Bartimaeus: Yes, I've been sightless since I was a very young boy, a boy like you.

Jonathan: I'm Jonathan.

Bartimaeus: Hello, Jonathan.

Jonathan: Is that your dog?

Bartimaeus: I wish she were. But my sister, you see, I live with my sister. And she's a very good sister, only a little old-maidish. She doesn't like animals. So this fine little doggy is going to need a home after today. She's only a mongrel, but a fine little doggy.

Jonathan: Let me keep her. I'm old enough. I'm eleven going on twelve.

Bartimaeus: Well, that's old enough. But would your mother and father let you?

Jonathan: Oh yes, they've been saying they're going to get me a dog. That's because I don't have any brothers and sisters and I get lonely. I like that little doggy fine.

Bartimaeus: Come here. Let me touch your face.

Jonathan: Yes, sir.

Bartimaeus: Ah, you're a kind boy. I can tell. A blind man can tell many things that sighted people can't perceive. He can tell character traits with his fingers. Yes, you may have my mongrel friend. She will be happy with you, I can see that.

Jonathan: What's it like to be blind?

Bartimaeus: Why, Jonathan, we blind people try to be cheerful about it, but it's horrible—darkness. Never again to see the sky, the grass, the lovely things of the world.

Jonathan: There was a great physician in Jericho today. He could have restored your eyesight.

Bartimaeus: Oh?

Jonathan: Yes, he was in the synagogue. He healed sick people there. My father is the president of the synagogue.

Bartimaeus: Is he?

Jonathan: Yes. And my father had all the people with sick relatives bring them forward after the reading of the Torah. And the physician, a tall man with a kind face, healed them.

Bartimaeus: He did?

Jonathan: Yes. Nobody knew how he did it, but he cured them.

Bartimaeus: I see.

Jonathan: And later, everybody went to the house of a very important lady. Her name is Mea.

Bartimaeus: Mea? Why, you must be talking then about the new teacher, the man of Galilee, the man of Nazareth.

Jonathan: Yes, he's a teacher too, so they say.

Bartimaeus: He heals... he heals people.

Jonathan: Father told me I could walk here in the woods until sundown. Then I must return home to close the Sabbath. So I came and I met you, and now I have a new dog.

Bartimaeus: Then they must still be at my—I mean at the home of the great lady you spoke of, at Mea's house.

Jonathan: Oh no, they left there several minutes ago, Blind Bart, everyone, including the great lady Mea, who is socially important. I heard her say so. They went to accompany the new physician and his twelve helpers to the edge of town. I must go now. Thank you for the doggy. She'll be happy with me. See, she licked my face. She likes me. Goodbye, Blind Bart.

Bartimaeus: Can it be true? Can the man of Galilee help me? But I don't believe in miracles. I'm a cynic, a rational man. Oh, but to have my eyesight, to be able to see again. No, no, I can't permit myself to raise false hopes. If he did heal people, even if he did heal people today in the synagogue, it was people who believed. I don't believe. Oh, I can't believe.

Uncle Dan: Do you believe in Jesus? Do you trust him?

Aunt Carole: Well, let us introduce you to the best friend you'll ever have. Just visit our website at yourstoryhour.org, click on the "Adventures in the Holy Bible" and sign up.

Uncle Dan: The "Adventures" is a series of interesting stories and fun-to-do quizzes and puzzles.

Aunt Carole: Plus, as you finish your quiz sheets, you'll be collecting, free of charge, all of the audio stories from our "Life of Jesus" album.

Uncle Dan: In fact, everything is free, so get started today. Our web address again is yourstoryhour.org.

Aunt Carole: Now, if you don't have access to the web, don't worry. Just write to us at Your Story Hour, Post Office Box 8, Niles (N-I-L-E-S), Michigan, 49120. You can take the "Adventures" by mail.

Uncle Dan: That's Your Story Hour, Box 8, Niles, Michigan, 49120.

Aunt Carole: By the way, the "Adventures" are especially written for kids nine years old or older. But if your parents believe you're ready earlier and agree to do the lessons with you, then that's fine too.

Uncle Dan: Now, let's get back to our story, "The Strange Case of Blind Bart."

Bartimaeus: Can it be true? Can the man of Galilee help me? But I don't believe in miracles. I'm a cynic, a rational man. Oh, but to have my eyesight, to be able to see again.

Faith... faith... I... I will have faith. I believe! And I shall act upon my belief. Where's my cane? I must hurry! Hurry! I must catch him! I must! The road leading to the edge of town. Which way? This way, yes. Yes. It leads across a stream, I know. But I must reach him before he leaves Jericho.

So many bushes and brambles. I can barely—Luckily for me, I fell into the shallow end of that stream. I might have drowned otherwise. Tired, so tired. But I must hurry on.

President Elijah: Well, we indeed were honored, Nathaniel, to have your master in Jericho today. He healed, he taught, he stirred our hearts.

Mea: Yes, and I was happy that all of you came to my home to be refreshed with Sabbath dinner.

Nathaniel: The people of Jericho have been most gracious to us, President Elijah.

Mea: Oh, do come again. We, the social leaders of Jericho, are always happy—what is that noise? President Elijah, there's a terribly unkempt beggar of some sort standing in the roadway just ahead. He's crying aloud and waving a stick of some sort.

Disgraceful! I suppose he's begging, of course. Beggars! I do hope, Nathaniel, that your master will not think ill of Jericho over one beggar. Quickly, some of you men run ahead and tell him on pain of a sound thrashing to be still. Oh, absolutely vulgar, these common people, Nathaniel.

Nathaniel: Madam Mea, I believe—

Bartimaeus: Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me! Jesus, thou son of David!

President Elijah: Here, fellow, you must be quiet. There are dignitaries—

Bartimaeus: Have mercy on me! Jesus, thou son of David! Oh, no! It's Bart! Quiet, Blind Beggar, quiet! Have mercy on me!

Mea: How mortifying!

Nathaniel: All right, stop everybody, stop! This poor wretched blind man has called to the Master. The Master hears. He bids us stop so that the blind man may approach.

Mea: Quiet, I say, you can't—oh. He calleth for thee. Rise, be of good comfort, he calleth for thee.

Bartimaeus: Bart, how could you do this to me?

Nathaniel: Bring him forward. Why, he's caked with mud and he's lost one shoe. Poor man. Lead him gently.

Jesus: What wilt thou? What is your name?

Bartimaeus: Bart. I am called Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus.

Jesus: Timaeus, the revered elder of the city of Jericho?

Bartimaeus: Yes, sir.

Jesus: He was a fine and an honored man, a great man. His good works for the sick and the poor live after him. All Jericho is indebted to his memory.

Bartimaeus: Thank you, sir.

Nathaniel: But I am Nathaniel, a disciple of the man of Galilee.

Bartimaeus: You are among those who follow him! Simon Peter, James and John, the sons of thunder, Levi Matthew, and the rest.

Nathaniel: Yes, we are all here. Why do you weep?

Mea: Well, you see, sir—

Nathaniel: Oh woman, can you not keep silent as the Master questions this poor wretched man?

Mea: He is my brother!

Nathaniel: Your brother?

Mea: Yes, you see, sir—

Nathaniel: Your brother? Yes. Then why is he here like this?

Mea: Well, he... he doesn't always look like this. Fix your clothing upon you, Bart. Your tunic is all awry. He... he must have fallen somewhere in the mud. Stand up straight, Bart. Where is your robe? Oh, why must you always disgrace me? Look at you, and those old sandals, those old sandals! Didn't I tell you this morning to wear your new ones? My... my brother is blind.

Nathaniel: Yes, we can see that.

Mea: He... he isn't always the most presentable-looking individual in the world. I mean, it's difficult, you see, for a woman to care for her brother if he's blind.

Nathaniel: Is it?

Mea: I do my best.

Nathaniel: He needs help. He is your brother. You have spent an entire day with the man of Nazareth, the man of Galilee, who can help as none else can, and yet you never mentioned your brother. You never spoke of him. Why?

By accident he has now found him of whom the prophets foretold. Arriving torn, bruised, and weary. Why did you not bring him to the Master?

Bartimaeus: I asked her to bring me to Jesus, but she would not. She said I was too ill-kempt and unmanageable. She said I was a disgrace, a disgrace to her social position, a burden and a humiliation. But sir, I just want to meet him. I just want to find Jesus.

Nathaniel: You have indeed found him.

Bartimaeus: Where is he?

Nathaniel: He is here, Bart, standing before your sightless eyes. My master ever waits thus. He stands before many, before the entire world of men with sightless eyes, waiting to heal them, waiting to help, waiting to bless. And now, Bart, he bids thee ask what thou wilt. What wilt thou? What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?

Bartimaeus: Lord, Lord, I want to see. I want to see birds and grass and sky. I want to look upon the beautiful faces of little children, those tiny faces I have touched with my fingers and know to be lovely.

I want to view this great, wide, wonderful world that God has made. Rain and rainbows, trees, rocks, the color of the sea. Oh Master, man of Galilee, thou of whom the prophets foretold, grant me this. Lord, that I might receive my sight.

See how Peter turns aside to hide the moistness in his eyes? And James and John stare fixedly at the ground. Even his disciples are touched. And look, see the compassion in the face of the Master. He does not move. He merely gazes in love at Bart, at Blind Bartimaeus. Shh, he speaks.

Jesus: Go thy way. Thy faith hath made thee whole.

Guest (Male): Look! Why, it's remarkable! He's groping about! Staggering as though he's—he's going to fall! Don't touch him! His face turned up, turned up to the sky that way! Look at him!

Bartimaeus: Bart! Bartimaeus! He's writhing! I can't bear it! I can't bear it! Like white-hot flames tearing, tearing and burning my sockets! Oh, I can't bear it!

Images... images... like shadows. Dark shadows. Moving... moving... Oh, what are they? What are they?

Not so black now. Not so black now. Not so dark, but... but brighter. Brighter! Colors... color... oh! I can see! I can see! Mea! Mea, I can see! I can see! I can see! I can see! Oh, I can see!

Nathaniel: What do you see, old Nathan? Tell us.

Nathan: Nothing, nothing at all.

Nathaniel: No, try again. Concentrate. The Master has spoken. Your darkness is past. The darkness which has afflicted you from birth is broken now. His power is upon you. Now tell us, what do you see?

Nathan: Oh, images... images, like shadows of the mind. Dark shadows, moving, moving. I can see! I can see! Nathan! I can see! I can see! Why... why this... this is a flower. I see a flower! And this, this is the blue sky. The blue sky the poets sing of. Oh, Bart, Bart, you... I can see you! And trees and everything!

Bartimaeus: Yes, Nathan! The Master has cured you too. Now you can go home to live the rest of your days in happiness. But I, I am going to follow the Master. Wherever he goes, for the rest of my life I shall be with him. I shall follow him, serve him.

Nathaniel: My friends, my master tells me and his other disciples we must be on our way. We bid you goodbye and take our leave of Jericho. God bless you. And old Nathan, may you truly live the rest of your days in happiness. Use your new gift of sight to the glory of God.

Nathan: I shall, Nathaniel. Oh, I shall indeed, I shall.

Nathaniel: Come, Bart, we must leave.

Mea: Bart! Don't weep, Mea. I love you. I'm sorry to leave you, but I know that you will be well. I must follow the Master now. Can you ever forgive me, Bart? Can you ever forgive me for treating you as I did?

Bartimaeus: Of course, Mea.

Mea: Thank you, Bart.

Bartimaeus: Go now. I know you will be well and safe following the man of Nazareth.

Nathaniel: We've fallen behind the others, Philip.

Philip: Yes, Nathaniel. There's something on your mind, something occupying your thoughts.

Nathaniel: Yes.

Philip: Well, what is it?

Nathaniel: It's... it's just, Nathaniel, that I don't understand faith. What is it? The Master said both to Blind Bart and to old Nathan, 'Thy faith hath made thee whole.' What is faith? Philip?

Nathaniel: Yes, Nathaniel. Why don't you ask our new convert about that?

Philip: You mean, ask Bart himself what faith is? The faith that enabled the Master to cure him?

Nathaniel: Yes. I will. I think I will.

Aunt Carole: That's all for now, so goodbye everybody.

Uncle Dan: And may God bless you till we meet again.

Guest (Male): This has been Your Story Hour, building for a better tomorrow.

Aunt Carole: This is Aunt Carole and Uncle Dan saying...

Uncle Dan: Goodbye everyone. See you again next time.