SITTING NEXT TO THE ROAD
In its beginnings, Christianity was known as «the Way» (Acts of the Apostles 18:25-26). More than entering a new religion, «to become Christian» was to encounter the certain path of life, walking behind Jesus’ footsteps. To be Christian for them meant «following» Christ. This is what’s fundamental, decisive.
Today things have changed. For the past 20 centuries, Christianity has known a very important doctrinal development and has generated a very elaborate liturgy and worship. It’s been a long time now that Christianity is considered as a religion.
That’s why it’s not strange to meet people who feel themselves to be Christian simply because they’re baptized and fulfill their religious duties, though they have never figured out their life as a following of Jesus Christ. This fact, fairly generalized today, would have been unimaginable in the first days of Christianity.
We have forgotten that to be Christian is to «follow» Jesus Christ: move ourselves, take steps, walk, build our life following his footsteps. Our Christianity sometimes remains a theoretic or ineffective faith or a routine religious practice. It doesn’t transform our life into the following of Jesus.
After 20 centuries, the greatest contradiction of Christians is to try to be one, without following Jesus. They accept Christian religion (just as they would be able to accept any other), since it gives security and tranquility in the face of «the unknown», but they don’t enter into the dynamic of the faithful following of Christ.
We are blind and don’t see what’s essential in Christian faith. The episode of the healing of the blind man of Jericho is an invitation to leave behind our blindness. At the beginning of the story, Bartimeus «is sitting on the side of the road». He’s a blind and disoriented man, outside of the path, unable to follow Jesus. Healed of his blindness by Jesus, the blind man doesn’t just recover light, but he becomes a true «follower» of his Teacher, since from that day on «he followed him on the road». It’s the healing we need.
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
