April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
WORD OF FAITH
Servanthood saves us
'Whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.' - Mark 10:44-45
On Sunday, we hear Mark's third, most painful way in which we're to die with Jesus (Mark 10:35-45).
Following the threefold pattern of prediction-misunderstanding-clarification which he introduced in chapters 8 and 9, the evangelist begins his narrative with Jesus' foretelling the passion, death and resurrection He'll soon experience in Jerusalem.
James and John immediately step up and make fools of themselves, asking for the "glory seats" - a complete misunderstanding of what Jesus had just said about dying. The brothers are asking for a "Plan B," a way of being another Christ without enduring the suffering and death of the first Christ.
After telling them they're not smart enough to even know what question to ask, Jesus clarifies in what His cup and baptism consist: "You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you.
Suffering servant
"Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many."
When I ask my students about the money value of a ransom, they logically answer, "There is none. The more important the person, the higher the ransom." When Jesus says he regards His life as a "ransom," He's saying He's only as valuable as the many He's ransoming are. His worth comes from their worth.
Reaching this frame of mind about one's life is Mark's third way of dying with Jesus. Nothing causes more pain and death than constantly trying to be the servant or slave of others. Nothing could be more counter to James and John's plan to one day sit on their glory seats and lord it over others.
Jesus demands we be counterculture in the most intimate areas of our lives: how we relate with and to others. How many of us would rather follow the misunderstanding than be committed to the clarification?
Jesus' pain
The author of our Hebrews (4:14-16) passage thinks it essential to the salvation Jesus offers that He not lord it over us, but becomes one with us: "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin."
Jesus values us enough to suffer the same human pain all of us are expected to endure. He doesn't look at us and the world from the outside in, but from the inside out.
Five hundred years before Jesus' birth, the disciples of Deutero-Isaiah, without our concept of an afterlife, were forced to explain why such a good man had suffered such a horrible death. Sunday's passage from the Fourth Song of the Suffering Servant (Isaiah 53:10-11) shows they eventually reached the conclusion that the prophet's becoming one with all of them during his ministry had eventually forced him to accept their own sinful weakness and suffering.
By dying, he saved them from death: "Through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear."[[In-content Ad]]
250 X 250 AD
250 X 250 AD
Events
250 X 250 AD
Comments:
You must login to comment.