I'm on Retreat today and reflecting on Holy Daring - what it is to live our lives in obedience to God and allow him to nurture us into being the people he has called us to be, to take us out of our comfort zones - so that we might lose our lives and gain them - in abundance.
Of course, the one in whom we see the greatest example of 'Holy Daring' is Christ - whose obedience takes him both to the cross and to the triumph of Easter Day.
Reflecting on this through the story of Blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10.46-52) - who shows great Holy Daring in his crying out to Christ to be healed - I have written the following poem:
The Holy Daring of Christ
Blind beggar at the side of the road,
Unseeing. And unseen.
Surely this is not the one – the chosen one, the
Anointed?
The one they told to be silent?
To keep his voice down.
But, ‘Take heart; get up, he is
Calling you.’
The one who calls is the same one
Who calls out for mercy,
The one who is
Chosen,
Who is raised from the ground.
Who throws off his cloak, the
Grave clothes of his life.
And springs up and
Bursts from the tomb,
The tomb that has sealed up his eyes,
And extinguished the light.
So Love asks him, ‘What do you
Want, what do you lack?’
And the all seeing one asks
For the gift of sight, for
Recovery of sight to the blind.
And Love says, ‘Go. Your faith has made you
Well. Your trust has raised you and
Opened your eyes.’
Go and see and
Follow me.