GOSPEL MEDITATION # 203
Mark 9:30-37
Jesus Again Foretells Death, Resurrection &
Who is the Greatest
- Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
- Reread it. From memory, determine the central points.
- Now for a second time Jesus tells His followers that He will be killed and for a second time they did not understand. And why they were afraid to ask Jesus about it, we can only guess.
- The apostles were men of their time with the usual expectations of who the Messiah would be and what He would do. It would be much later that they would get it.
- Clues were all through the Hebrew Scripture and perhaps the best of it all are found in Genesis 22:1-14, Psalm 22, and Isaiah 53. The earliest hint is in Genesis 3:15.
- The writer of Hebrews (9:22) put it succinctly: “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”
- Since sin “brings forth death’ nothing is of greater importance. (see James 1:15)
- The “will to power” seems to continually ensnare us all. At the core of dangerous and cultic human affairs, including that which is religious and political and economic, is the lust for power. The apostles were not immune either.
- The religious leaders of Judaism saw Jesus as a threat to their power. The values of the kingdom of God run exactly counter to all else. The first is last, and even then the first are servants only.
- To receive a child was not highly regarded in that era, but was lowly work. This is what we are called to.