"It is better to be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
I’m sure this never happens to you, but I can remember all kinds of situations where I just opened my mouth and stuck my foot in it. That’s because different situations require different responses.
There are some things you just don’t want to hear the doctor say while on the operating room table for example. Things like;
"Hand me that . . . uh. . . that uh . . . thingie."
"Darn, there go the lights again . . ."
"So what? The guy's got two of 'em."
"What's this doing here?"
"That's cool! Now can you make his leg twitch?!"
Different situations require different responses.
When a person tells you she’s getting married you’re supposed to say, “Congratulations!” not “Oh, I’m so sorry,” which is what someone told Marilyn when she told them she was getting married. And they didn’t even know me!
Different situations require different responses.
When your best friend and mentor tells you that he’s about to suffer an unjust and violent death, your response is not supposed to be the equivalent of, “So, do I get your big screen TV?”
But that’s pretty close to what James and John do in this morning’s reading. Jesus tells them in detail what is going to happen to him, and all they can think about is their own future. But we wouldn’t be surprised by that if we looked back at the disciples’ past performance, especially around the issue of Jesus’ death.
Last week we spent some time looking at Jesus’ call to the rich young ruler to “come, follow me,” and we saw that Jesus’ makes the same call to each one of us to come, and follow him. This morning we’ll look at where exactly he was going when he called that young man and what the call to follow Jesus means.
Mark’s gospel turns a corner in chapter 8.
Up to chapter 8 Mark’s focus is on Jesus’ ministry of teaching and healing. All
but two of the miracles in Mark’s gospel occur in the first half of the book. After
chapter 8 Jesus is preoccupied with getting to
Mark 8.31 He then began to teach them that the Son of
Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and
teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise
again.
Mark 9.30-31 They left that place and passed through
Mark 10.32-34 They were on their way up to Jerusalem,
with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who
followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was
going to happen to him. 33 “We are going up to
When you lay the three passages side by
side like this you can see that the passage we had read this morning is the
most detailed. The first prediction talks about being rejected by the religious
leaders, being killed and rising again. The second prediction says explicitly
that he will be betrayed. The third spells it out. It’s “The Easter Story for
Dummies.” “We are going up to
Of course, the sad thing is that the disciples didn’t get it. How do we know that? By looking at what comes immediately after each one of these predictions.
32 He
spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33
But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get
behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the things of God, but the
things of men.”
The first time Jesus spoke about his death was right after Peter had correctly identified him as the Messiah, God’s chosen servant to bring salvation. Peter thought he knew what that meant, and it certainly didn’t include a dying messiah, so his response to Jesus’ prediction of his death is denial. Peter took [Jesus] aside and began to rebuke him. “God forbid! This can’t happen to you. You’re the messiah!”
Denial is usually our first response when somebody points out something that challenges the way we see things. “That’s not right! That can’t be true!” It’s how we often respond to the news of severe illness, or death. It’s how many people have responded to the realisation that the gospel might actually be true and makes a claim on their life. And it’s how Peter responded in chapter 8 when Jesus challenged his idea of what a messiah would be and do.
Then in chapter 9, after Jesus had spoken
about his death again, it says that the disciples did not understand what he
meant and were afraid to ask him about it.
That’s understandable in a way. Imagine a friend of yours came up to you and told you that they were going to certain death. How would you feel? If it’s someone like Jesus who has shown that he knows his own mind you’d think twice about trying to dissuade him. I imagine that sometimes the families of soldiers who go to serve in wars feel somewhat the same: unable to understand why they would make such a decision, but afraid to talk about it.
But James and John take the prize for self
interest and crass insensitivity to Jesus’ situation. Right after he has given
the most detailed description of what will happen, complete with mocking,
spitting, flogging and killing, this happens. Then James and John, the sons
of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said… “Let one of us sit at your right
and the other at your left in your glory.”
Jesus is facing the hardest part of his
entire time on earth, and his disciples are worried about who’s on first! No
wonder they all fell asleep in the
But the insensitivity of the disciples has a silver lining, at least for us. In his responses to their misunderstandings and fear and self interest Jesus gives some of the most explicit descriptions of what it means to, as he said to the rich young ruler, “come and follow him.”
The first time Jesus spoke about his death Peter got on his case. I think Peter was like a lot of us. He didn’t like all this talk about death. What could be worse than dying? Jesus’ response is:
35 For whoever wants to save their
life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will
save it. 36 What good is it for a person to gain the whole world,
yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can a person give in exchange for
their soul?
Now, normally you would question a statement like this, whoever wants to save his (or her) life will lose it, except that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, where he will choose to lose his life rather than save it. That lends some weight to this. Maybe he knows what he’s talking about. Maybe he really has thought through the options and come to the conclusion that the best one, is to do what he came to do, die on a cross for all of humanity.
Value statements are pretty popular these days. Along with mission statements you see them everywhere from web pages to coffee shops. I randomly searched the internet for value statements and one that I found was from Maple Leaf Foods. Their values are: doing what’s right; being performance driven, having a bias for action; continuously improving; being externally focussed; daring to be transparent.
Here is Jesus’ value statement 36 What good is it for a person to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Nothing is as valuable as your soul, the you that makes you, you. In fact Jesus would say that your soul, and mine, is worth dying for. And he did.
The second time Jesus talks about his death,
in chapter 9, the disciples go off and start arguing about who is top dog. 35
Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “If anyone
wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
If you want to live, you have to be willing to die. If you want to be successful, you have to be willing to take the lowest place.
[I know I use a lot of examples from YWAM, but that’s my background, so I hope you’ll forgive another one.
Today, the mercy ministries arm of Youth
With A Mission is a respected relief and development agency. But in 1979 there
was no mercy ministries arm. Then a YWAMer went to visit
“The smell came first. The brown stench of raw human waste hit us before we entered the place. As we walked in the main entrance, into an inner passageway, we found the source. The lower floor of the building was eight inches deep in human waste. We picked our way around the perimeter as best we could, camp officials pointing to some broken sewer pipes along the side of the wall. There was not enough money to hire a plumber from the city and no one there who was qualified, or willing, to tackle the huge mess.”
The call went out for people to come and make a difference, and they came. About thirty young people from YWAM bases around the world came, put on waders, and did what even the refugees had been unwilling to do: shovelled out the human waste, repaired the broken sewage pipes, fixed the toilets.
A mercy ministry was born, not by coming in with western expertise and equipment, but by shovelling out human waste. “If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.”]
In chapter 10 Jesus predicts his death one last time. One last time the disciples don’t get it. Instead James and John start trying to manoeuvre for position. And one last time Jesus uses the opportunity to teach.
43 …whoever wants to become
great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be
first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come
to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
It’s very trendy to talk about servant leadership, and even corporate directors point to Jesus’ model of leadership as one to copy. But Jesus was more than a servant. His whole life was shaped by the cross that awaited him at the end of it. He talks about being a servant, and then moves right on to talk about giving his life as a ransom.
Again, he knows what he’s talking about. When he went to his death on the cross he really did become the least. He was raised to the highest place, the greatest place, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, but to get there he died a criminal’s death.
Jesus’ whole life was shaped by the cross. From Mark 8 onwards it is in his face. He can see it coming. So close he can almost taste it. When he calls the rich young ruler in the first half of Mark 10 to follow him, he knows that he’s on his way to his death. He was about to prove that the only way to gain your life is to lose it; that the only way to be the firstborn of many sons was to become the least and last; that the way to greatness was to give your life in serving others.
The disciples didn’t get it. Three times Jesus spoke of his death and three times the disciples were off in their own worlds of denial, fear and self-interest, unaware that Jesus was explaining to them the way forward as his followers. You can’t follow someone unless you’re willing to walk along the same road. We can’t follow Jesus if we’re not willing to walk the same path, and that path leads to a cross.
Paul got it. In Galatians 2:19 he says, 20 I have been
crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I
live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave
himself for me.
He got it. He understood that if he was going to
experience Christ’s life in us he had to go through the cross.
Do we get it? Are willing to lay down our lives for those around us? Are we willing to allow the cross to shape our lives the way it shaped Jesus’? What does that look like? Well, all three times he talked about his death, he ended up talking about taking the low road, the role of a servant. He talked about sacrifice and laying down his life for others.
We can’t give our lives for the sin of others, that was Jesus’ unique calling. But if we truly identify with him in his death we’re set free to live out a life of service without having to worry about who gets the credit, or who’s top dog, or who gets the corner office.
Having a life shaped by the cross isn’t just about having your sins forgiven, it’s about living life as Jesus did, pouring yourself out for others and for God’s kingdom.