Mark 9:30-37, NLT - Leaving that region, they
traveled through Galilee. Jesus didn’t want anyone to know he was there, for he wanted to spend more time with his
disciples and teach them. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be
betrayed into the hands of his enemies. He will be killed, but three days later
he will rise from the dead.” They didn’t
understand what he was saying, however, and they were afraid to ask him what he
meant.
After they arrived at Capernaum and settled in a house,
Jesus asked his disciples, “What were you discussing out on the road?” But they didn’t answer, because they had been
arguing about which of them was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve disciples over
to him, and said, “Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the
servant of everyone else.”
Then he put a little child among them. Taking the child
in his arms, he said to them, “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this on
my behalf welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not only me but also
my Father who sent me.”
The
disciples, who are still struggling with what Jesus has been saying many times
about His death, are afraid to ask Him to say more. Maybe it’s because He has just chastised them
for having so little faith (Mark 9:19).
Maybe it’s because they really don’t want to hear more about a
possibility that seems so hopeless to them.
Maybe it’s a combination of reasons. Nevertheless, they remain silent
instead of asking for more clarification. Mark highlights the difference
between Jesus’s desire to teach them and His disciples lack of desire to learn
more.
Jesus
allows them to percolate and talk amongst themselves for a bit until they
arrive at the house where they are staying in Capernaum. The disciples are surprised and embarrassed into
silence to when Jesus (aware of their private discussion) asks them what they’ve
been discussing. He doesn’t pile on the
shame concerning their argument about who is greater, but uses the moment to
teach them what they were reluctant to ask about earlier. Jesus schools them on
the nature of true greatness:
“Whoever
wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.”
Driving the point home, Jesus welcomes a child into their
midst. He equates welcoming the child
with welcoming Himself. Children in first-century Judaism were NOT welcome in
such a discussion between grown men and so the comparison of Jesus to a child
would have been quite jarring. Children
had no status or ascribed greatness, yet Jesus compares Himself to them. While many will reject the status or
greatness of Jesus just as they would a child, will the disciples (or we) do
the same?
The
miracles, healings, and exorcisms have been plenty since the beginning of Mark,
but from here on out, they will be few and far between. Instead there will be one difficult teaching
after another all aimed at making the true nature of Jesus’s greatness known. It isn’t His wonder-working that makes Jesus the
greatest among them; it is His willingness to be a servant to all. Even when that means He will be rejected,
suffer, and die, He submits His all to all for the sake of all.
Question: How do you
define greatness?
Prayer: Jesus, teach
us how to live the life of greatness, as defined by You. Amen.
Song: Be Born in Me –
Francesca Battistelli
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