Barry Wayne Triffo Funeral Sermon - Mark 10:46–52 November 9th 2024 / Eyes to See and Ears to Hear

Mount Olive Lutheran Church / Pr. Ted A. Giese / Saturday November 9th 2024: Season of Pentecost / Mark 10:46–52 “Eyes to See and Ears to Hear”

And they came to Jericho. And as He was leaving Jericho with His disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” And Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart. Get up; He is calling you.” And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. And Jesus said to him, “What do you want Me to do for you?” And the blind man said to Him, “Rabbi, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Go your way; your faith has made you well.” And immediately he recovered his sight and followed [Jesus] on the way.

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Your sight O Lord. Amen.

Grace peace and mercy to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Good Christian Friends and family of Barry Triffo you’ve probably come across this phrase before “I’ll believe it when I see it,” and if you’ve come to pay your respects and to remember Barry you likely do so knowing that Barry was blind and from a very early age his eyesight had progressively grown worse. And yet for Barry when it came to his faith ‘seeing wasn’t believing,’ and when it comes to faith for you ‘seeing isn’t believing’ for you either. In Scripture we are told by Saint Paul that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”[1] So today listen and listen carefully, for what you hear today is of the greatest importance, much more than what you see.

In our Gospel today the blind beggar Bartimaeus didn’t see Jesus coming as Jesus passed by the city of Jericho on the way to Jerusalem; no Saint Mark, our Gospel writer, tells us that blind Bartimaeus heard that Jesus of Nazareth was coming towards him, and hearing that Jesus was coming, good old Bart started to cry out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Now if you’re in trouble, if you need something, if you need help, you don’t call out to someone you don’t believe in, you don’t cry out to someone you think won’t help, no you cry out to someone you have faith in and so we can say with confidence that Bartimaeus already had faith in Jesus before he’d ever met Jesus in person, before he ever cried out “have mercy on me.” Bart believed what he’d heard when it came to Jesus and so what Saint Paul says about ‘faith coming from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ,’ is true for Bartimaeus and it’s true for Barry and it’s likewise true for you. So whether you can see or not, or even if you needed sign language to ‘hear,’ whatever the case may be the Holy Spirit produces faith in our hearts by hearing the Word, not by seeing.    

Now the two obvious ways in which Barry and Bartimaeus are the same is in their shared blindness and their shared faith in Jesus, but there are ways in which they are different. Bartimaeus was a beggar, and beggars in that place at that time relied exclusively on the mercy and generosity of the community, they were not know to be entrepreneurs or hard workers, they were not know to be ambitious; Barry on the other hand, in the here and the now of our day, wasn’t a beggar in the way that Bartimaeus was. No Barry, as we heard, was ambitious, from a young age he was more than happy to work hard along the way, he started businesses, strove for the betterment and the improvement of his situation for himself and for Jean and for the family. He didn’t embrace any sort of learned helplessness as some with hardships are coached to do these days; he wasn’t the sort to shake his fist in the face of society, or God, angry about his condition. If that was the case Barry’s life might have sad, but it was no such thing. Barry’s life was full of accomplishments and joys. 

Now the Bible doesn’t tell us all the details of Bartimaeus’ attitude towards his blindness except to say that good ol’ Bart wanted to have his blindness healed, he wanted to be able to see. Barry and Bartimaeus shared this desire and while Bartimaeus received this healing before his death Barry, in his death, now shares in this healing too. Saint James says, “You do not have, because you do not ask,”[2] when Jesus healed Bartimaeus’ eye sight he said to him “your faith has made you well.” Every Christian with an illness or worsening condition will ask for healing and for some it comes quickly while for others, like Barry, it comes in their rest in Christ, and in their final resurrection from the dead. Their healing is not dependant on how much or how little faith they had in Jesus. Anyone who says ‘if your faith was stronger you would have been healed,’ doesn’t truly know Jesus and doesn’t truly understand the gift of faith in Jesus. The question then, for the Christian, is not “will Jesus heal me,” but “when will Jesus heal me,” ultimately we have Jesus’ promise that in the New Heaven’s and the New Earth of the Last Day all those prayers will be answered for the redeemed with a ‘yes,’ for Jesus says, “Behold, I Am making all things new.”[3] Head, shoulders, knees and toes and eyes and everything else all made new, for Barry for Bartimaeus for you.

The Gospel of Saint Mark says that Bartimaeus upon receiving his sight didn’t sit back down to continue his life as a beggar; no Bartimaeus followed Jesus on the way. On the way where? Well in the early church “The Way” was a name given to the Christian faith; Jesus, in the Gospel of Saint John, says of Himself the night before His crucifixion, “I Am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”[4] In the Gospel of Mark ‘the way’ Jesus was going that day was to Jerusalem and to His cross and passion, to His death upon the cross of His crucifixion. That ‘way’ then, through Jesus’ death upon the cross and Jesus’ empty tomb, is The Way to Eternal Life in Christ. In faith Bartimaeus followed Jesus on that Way and our dear Barry in faith did the same. By the grace of God, Barry was able to get past, get over, get through whatever obstacles were strewn along that Way. With Saint Paul then Barry could say, “I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through [Jesus Christ my Lord] who strengthens me.”[5] 

On Jan 20th 1959 Barry received a brail copy of the Gospel of Saint John, you may have looked at as you entered the church, if not you can check it out after the Service. On the cross when Jesus died His eyes went dark and Jesus in death was as blind as a stone but Jesus didn’t stay blind in His resurrection from the dead. Saint John in His Gospel explains how Saint Thomas,—who would have been there earlier when Jesus had healed Bartimaeus on the way to Jerusalem—Thomas who was apparently a “I’ll believe it when I see it” type of guy, who had said, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe,”[6] was confronted with the Truth. Barry’s fingers would have traced over these words from the Gospel of Saint John, “Eight days later, [Jesus’] disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then [Jesus] said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see My hands; and put out your hand, and place it in My side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” To which John adds “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.”[7] Jesus’ Good Friday death and Easter Sunday resurrection has given life and healing to Bartimaeus; and Jesus’ Good Friday death and Easter Sunday resurrection has now likewise given life and healing to our dear Barry; and Jesus’ Good Friday death and Easter Sunday resurrection likewise provides life and healing and the promise of ultimate prefect healing to you as well. Barry believed this.

Finally in the promised resurrection from the dead, in the promised eternal life in the New Heavens and the New Earth I’m sure there will be a time in that endless Day when Bartimaeus will see our dear Barry walking up to him, probably with Barry’s brothers Arthur and Leonard tagging along, and they will likewise see Bartimaeus with their own two eyes, and the four of them—who had once been blind but who now can see—will, as brothers in Christ, take off together to get into whatever God pleasing shenanigans they can find in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

Dear ones, take it to heart and listen carefully, today a man like Bartimaeus may seems like a person from a distant past, and we may even be tempted to think of Jesus in that way as well, but Bartimaeus and men like Saints Paul and Mark and James and John and Timothy while you cannot see them today are all closer to you than you think. And in The End the faithfully departed in Christ will know them all as family, as fellow brothers in Christ. And the faithfully departed will likewise see Jesus face to face, the one you have only heard of; today we believe not because we have seen with our eyes but because we have heard with our ears the Good News of Jesus, we who believe all share this faith in Jesus with Barry and the rest.

At the beginning of the Sermon today I said Barry was blind, I said that because Barry isn’t blind anymore, neither does he have cancer any more or any ailments, everything that ever caused Barry trouble or difficulty in this life has now passed away from him and in Christ Barry now has not only ears to hear but also eyes to see his Lord and Saviour Jesus. Barry, by the grace of God, “your faith has made you well.” What does this mean for you? When you remember Barry remember his faith in Jesus, remember his strength and patience in the face of challenges and don’t forget where these virtues came from, don’t forget that they were a gift from God. The Lord gives you gifts too; not least of which, has been the chance to hear about Jesus today, and the encouragement to cry out to Him in faith “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Dear ones, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ,” listen, you are being called to faith as Barry was; and for those of you with faith already, listen, the Word of the Lord comes today with healing and comfort. Hold fast to the Good News given to you and you will find rest for your soul and eternal life in Christ Jesus as Barry has. Amen.    

Let us pray: Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us, “take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire; for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

[1] Romans 10:17
[2] James 4:2
[3] Revelation 21:5
[4] John 14:6
[5] Philippians 4:12–13
[6] John 20:25
[7] John 20:26–31

Photo Credit: Main photo suplied by Mount Olive Lutheran Church and the Triffo Family all other photos of Barry supplyed by the Triffo Family; Photo of the healing of Blind Bartimaeus by John Martin - Christ Healing a Blind Man from wikimedia commons.