Plymothian

⁴⁶ Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (which means “son of Timaeus”), was sitting by the roadside begging. ⁴⁷ When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

⁴⁸ Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

⁴⁹ Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.” ⁵⁰ Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.

⁵¹ “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him.

The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

⁵² “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road

What Do You Want Jesus To Do?

I am angry today.  It started as sadness yesterday, but as the day wore on it became anger.  I tried to reach out to someone but it didn’t seem to work well.  It seemed that they were ignoring me or just preoccupied with their own agenda.  If Jesus comes to me through this passage and says, “What do you want from me?”  I would ask for him to open the other person’s eyes.  I would maintain my victim stance and have him change the world around me and not me.  As I lay in bed stewing in my own juices, I thought of how immature I was being.  Yet something in me embraced the destructive emotion as a kind of control.  This negative emotion was something I had against the other person.  In my twisted state, it gave me dignity.  I once saw a victim of physical abuse refuse to give up her anger against her abuser because it was the one thing she had over him.  However, the perpetrator was dead and the only one her hatred and unforgiveness was hurting was herself.

Do you really want to be healed ?  You are suffering from the effects of sin.  Do you really want the sin to be gone?  Does your spiritual blindness allow you to do your job like the blind beggar Bartimaeus?  He would have to face a new life.  Do you avoid your life being renewed each day?  Do you, like me, look for relief rather than real change?  Do you embrace entertainment and business or the savior?  Today it feels easier to embrace the sin of my unrepentant anger.  It masks my pain and relieves my despair.  Do I really want to enter into the bold action of following Jesus if he will truly heal me and take away the sin I know so well?  Which sin seems to serve you well?  What do you want Jesus to do for you?

Blind Bartimaeus sees what the seeing disciples do not.  He sees that Jesus is the Son of David and if he is given all that he wants he will have sight and follow Jesus.  If Jesus’ disciples get what they want one will sit on his right and another on his left as they embrace power and prestige.  What do you want?

Prayer

My anger is fading because I am in your presence for devotions.  I know that you would have discussion and forgiveness.  More than that, you would heal whatever pain this broken relationship is triggering.  You would reveal to me the source of the pain within myself and remove my need to blame another.  I want relief.  I want to stuff it and cease to feel it on the surface.  I want to lock it in the primal part of my brain.  I want what is short sighted and foolish.  Work in me to grow me up.  I want to have my way.  I want recognition.  I want respect.  I want to feel good.  But I think more than what is on the surface this morning I want to cast aside these things, like Bartimaeus cast aside his cloak, and I want to follow you.

Questions

1. What does Jesus ask Bartimaeus?
2. Why are we told that a beggar throws aside his cloak (hint:he would not be wearing it)?
3. What do you think Bartimaeus became?
4. What do you want Jesus to do?
5. What will happen if Jesus gives you what you want?

³⁵ Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”

³⁶ “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.

³⁷ They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

³⁸ “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

³⁹ “We can,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, ⁴⁰ but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.”

⁴¹ When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. ⁴² Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. ⁴³ Not so with you. Instead, 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.”

Servitude

Servitude doesn’t sit to well in the land of the free.  We are called to become servants.  We follow the servant king and like James and John we hope he will make a name for us.  We want him to give us a leg up on the corporate ladder.  We want him to stimulate our minds so that we get ahead.  We want Jesus to be our stepping stone to greatness.  We follow Jesus because he makes our lives better.  How could we accept that slavery and servitude is better than freedom?

Firstly, Freedom is an illusion.  I am free to view pornography in the States, but in fact many feel the tendrils of darkness permeate their heart and mind and bind them in addiction when they sit in my office.  I am free to drink as much as I please, but many find themselves craving their next drink.  I am free to be a gamer, but games can become enslaving as I grind through the levels on my computer games.  All these false tales of success enslave us.  I gain pleasure, relief, or status but it is like an upper that accelerates the system only to leave the body with a vacuous downer that plummets the soul further into hell.  So I am born a slave to passions and I learn a desire for recognition acceptance and power.

To become the servant of God and of others is to empty the self of this toxic delusion.  The most glorious hours are the ones where you forget your ambitions and lay aside your lusts and lose yourself in service to a child.  The most fulfilling moment is when you listen to someone and you lay aside what you were going to do tomorrow and you embrace where God has you for today.  When you die to your ambition, you attain success beyond your dreams.  When you accept the way God has designed you and move in his plan, you find undreamed of self-acceptance because you are fully accepted by Him.

Prayer

I am a slave to destructive thoughts and I pursue pleasures that are bad for my body and mind.  I just ate an extra cup-cake.  It was chocolate.  I know that I can eat chocolate, but I find it hard not to be its slave.  I pray that our passions would be for wholesome things.  I pray that our ambition would be to see you lifted up.  May we not scheme about higher salary or status.  May we be grateful for what we have and dependent upon you for what we lack.

Questions

1. What did James and John ask Jesus?
2. Why did Jesus answer as he did?
3. What were the other disciples thinking?
4. How do you try and ride on Jesus’ coat tails?
5. What does being a servant mean for you?

32 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 Jerusalem,” he said,“and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law.They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, 34 who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.”

Dull As Dirt

I took a test that was meant to measure how smart I am today.  It is called the Miller’s Analogy Test.  As I took it, I was not quite sure what I was doing.  I hadn’t really studied how to take it and it didn’t work like I anticipated.  Fortunately the scores are on a curve and I seem to have done okay.  We tend to measure how smart we are by comparing ourselves to others.  When we compare ourselves to the disciples in Mark, we tend to think of them as dull as dirt.  Why don’t they understand when Jesus warns them that he is going to die?

One of the explanations that we might look at is that we think of them as dull because Jesus did die.  We know the end of the story and he dies and is resurrected.  Another explanation is that Jesus had taught with a lot of metaphorical language and analogy.  The disciples might have thought this ‘death’ language had a deeper meaning.

The positive side is that whether my score gets me into a doctoral program or not, Jesus has a history of using the foolish to confound the wise.  These dimwits did get it in the end and by their dedication and martyrdom we have received the faith.

Prayer

Dear God all our understanding is limited.  Enhance what we have and take it further.  Help us to love you with our minds as well as our soul and strength.

Questions

1. How many times has Jesus laid out that he will die?
2. What is his purpose in doing this?
3. Why do the disciples not understand?
4. How is your understanding limited?
5. Ask God to show you an area where you lack understanding.  Make a plan to grow wiser in this area.

¹⁷ As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

¹⁸ “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. ¹⁹ You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’^[d]”

²⁰ “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

²¹ Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

²² At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

²³ Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”

²⁴ The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is^[e] to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

²⁶ The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?”

²⁷ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

²⁸ Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!”

²⁹ “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel ³⁰ will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. ³¹ But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

We Are Cluttered And Distracted

We live a cluttered life and should simplify and develop gratitude for our overfull stomachs and overlarge houses.  Because we clamor for more – always more – we will over reach.  We rape the earth, consume its resources and cry ourselves to sleep in a nightmare landscape from which we will never awake.  Consumer societies devour widows’ houses, take food from the mouths of the poor, and clothe themselves in the labor of impoverished children.  Best not think about it too hard.  Two and a Half Men is about to start, we giggle at lewd humor and laugh at the same joke re-wrought by progressives who moved away from sanity four score years ago.  We embrace the truth that there is no truth.  We have toppled authority with self-referenced smugness.  We will set our pyre alight and laugh at la lune, unprepared to give account to our maker of our unmaking.

One sure way to being rich is to develop gratitude.  Our consumer culture keeps telling us that we deserve more and more luxury.  However, after our basic needs are met, we do not become more happy because we have more stuff.  Of course, movies and millionaires will tell us otherwise.  But too many of the millionaires are on their umpteenth marriage, or seem deficient in terms of their character.  If we are grateful for what we have, we do not expend our energy trying to get ahead.

The rich young ruler in the passage above would be a model American.  He was influential and wealthy.  Now he comes to the good teacher to make sure he has his heaven taken care of too.  He doesn’t.   The ruler has to give up the security that he has constructed and find his security in Jesus.  His wealth and status are a mask for the bankrupt soul.  Many busy and affluent Americans, like this man, are empty inside.  They think that their life means something because their schedule is full and their ‘net worth’ is growing.  Macbeth speaks well of such a life:

Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

Prayer

I accumulate.  I store up in my storage locker things that I have forgotten.  Let me know what to surrender to you and how.  All my possessions are crafted from your resources.  I am often distracted by the clutter.  Let me wake, pray, eat and sleep whilst teaching my children to walk in devoted simplicity and gratitude.

Questions

1. What question does the rich, young, ruler ask Jesus?
2. What is his motive?
3. How would Jesus’ loving answer change the ruler’s life?
4. What clutters your life and why have you embraced it?
5. What would it take for you to move further into simplicity and gratitude?

Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.

² Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

³ “What did Moses command you?” he replied.

⁴ They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”

⁵ “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. ⁶ “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’^{[a] 7} ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,^{[b] 8} and the two will become one flesh.’^[c] So they are no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹ Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

¹⁰ When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. ¹¹ He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. ¹² And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

¹³ People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴ When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. ¹⁵ Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” ¹⁶ And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

The context of this teaching on marriage is one where Jesus is being asked a trick question.  It is not asked by someone who genuinely wants to know, but by someone who has an agenda.  Herod had beheaded John the Baptist because of Herodias’ hatred of him.  Herodias hated John the Baptist because he opposed her divorce from her first husband.  Somehow, the Pharisees had managed to allow divorce for more and more reasons.  The question being asked by Israel was “How far can we go?”  How lenient can we be on divorce?  The Pharisees had developed a lenient stance because Moses had allowed for divorce.  It is in this context that Jesus is asked what he thinks.  He then exposes a hardness of heart that was prevalent in Moses’ day and was also prevalent in Jesus’ day.  People couldn’t stay married and some legislation needed to be put in place to protect outcast women and children who were discarded like used garbage.  Moses’ law did not make divorce good, it handled the evils that arose from people who were going to divorce.

Divorce Is Wrong

Divorce is an evil.  Those who are divorced would agree.  They permanently have scars and pain from the relationship that failed.  Some live in denial and move on, others take years of counseling to heal.  In my opinion people come into marriage forgetting all their sin and baggage they carry.  Their spouse triggers their unresolved issues.  because they feel their own pain when their spouse acts, they tend to grow resentful of their spouse.  They distance themselves from their spouse and blame them for the pain.  However, the spouse is not the cause of the pain.  The cause of the pain is deeper and complex.  It takes years to deal with it healthily.  So, a couple gets divorced and the hurting spouse takes the pain forward until they realise they have bad luck in meeting the same pain in their next relationship.  If only they had realised that they are the source of their own pain, they may have found healing rather than isolation.

Jesus does not condemn divorced people.  He answers those who would advocate divorce by declaring that divorce is evil.  The alternative is not addressed here.  Also, what to do with people who are divorced is not addressed here.  The context is rather like the Obama administration asking evangelical churches whether they support same-sex marriage.  The context would show that they already have a position and really do not want to understand, they want to entrap.  The response from evangelicals would be that the Bible is clear that marriage is monogamous and between a man and woman.  The question of how to relate to those who have been in a same-sex marriage or are in one, is a different question.  Jesus may seem harsh if we take this passage out of context.

Prayer

People are angry and upset.  They carry a lot of pain.  After the infatuation of romance fades, people do not know how to transition to a forgiving, self-sacrificial love.  People project on their spouse all their unresolved issues and then add divorce.  Help us to own our baggage and to see that most times our anger at our spouse is becausde they are triggering some unresolved hurt and pain in us.  Give us the wisdom to seek you to identify the real issue and have you heal us.

Question

1. What was the context for a question on divorce?
2. Why does Jesus seem to lack compassion for divorced people?
3. What is a biblical position on marriage?
4. How might people’s experience of family life and past trauma set them up for future divorce?
5. How might a spouse deal with blaming their partner for their own unresolved issues?

38 “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”

39 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, 40 for whoever is not against us is for us. 41 Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.

42 “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea. 43 If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. [44] [b] 45 And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. [46] [c] 47 And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48 where

“‘the worms that eat them do not die,
and the fire is not quenched.’[d]

49 Everyone will be salted with fire.

50 “Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

Causing To Stumble

The disciples thought that they were being faithful when they corrected people for using Jesus’ name who weren’t disciples.  Jesus seems to welcome the positive press, but it raises the question.  Was he condoning the acceptance of other religions which do not follow Jesus but revere him.  For example, Islam reveres Jesus as a prophet.  Hinduism accepts Jesus as an avatar in some circles.  Secular humanists often acknowledge Jesus as a good teacher.  I think Jesus’ reply that his disciples should support positive press, means that we should welcome that people speak positively of Jesus in other faiths.  However, we should use it as a platform for dialog and not as an end in itself.  Where Jesus is talked about in a positive but incomplete sense (for example, he is a prophet), we should use that as a basis to share the good news that he is the ultimate prophet, priest, and king.  He is more than an avatar, but he is the incarnation of the one true God.  If these people are saying good, but incomplete things about Jesus, they are not going to say something evil about him in the next breath.

In our approach to Jesus, there are many things that hold us back.  Weaknesses in our own nature can cause others around us to struggle.  The approach to our weaknesses needs to be uncompromising.  We often allow a habit or a flaw in our character to continue and ruin us inch by inch.  We all have imperfections in our character and Jesus suggests that for the health of the community, we seek them out and nail them.  We do not just save ourselves, but we also help the community around us to cease stumbling.

Prayer

Jesus, I have flaws which I am aware of and many of which I am blissfully ignorant.  I want them removed painlessly and in my sleep, but then I am unaware of your power and the extent of your grace.  Let me be brave so that I will walk a straighter path and let me love others enough to change and cease tripping them up.

Questions

1. What were disciples trying to stop children from doing?
2. What was the status of the child in ancient Roman living?
3. How did people cause each other to stumble in Jesus’ day?
4. Which of your selfish habits causes others to stumble?
5. How might God work on that sin?

³⁰ They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, ³¹ because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” ³² But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it.

³³ They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” ³⁴ But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

³⁵ Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”

³⁶ He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷ “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”

The First Must Be Last, and The servant of All

Jesus has a concerted effort to communicate the coming events in his life with his disciples.  He has used metaphors, parables, and cryptic questioning, but having found these covert methods difficult, the disciples are still flummoxed by direct statements of Jesus’ death.  The idea that someone would rise from the dead during the present age goes against the Jewish tradition that people would be raised at the end of time.  They are as baffled as we would be if one of our friends told us they would die next week but be raised after three days.  They believe their teacher is supernatural, but there are limits that the disciples have because they are steeped in Jewish tradition and understanding.

Most people are wondering through the world working out how to be significant.  We are often competitive.  In education we realise that competition is destructive when compared to collaboration.  When people compete, they fight each other.  When people collaborate, they fight the problem.  The disciples are fighting each other.  Their relationship with Jesus is one where they ride his coat tails in the hope of finding personal greatness.  In fact, the disciples need to stop clamouring for the attentions of the mighty and keep embracing the naive, uneducated, downtrodden, and neglected in society.  Teaching basic principles to children may not seem lofty, but it has eternal rewards.

Prayer

You have walked on ahead and I walk in the dust behind you.  I wish you would turn around and talk to me.  When you do, it is to tell me that I have lost focus.  I am squabbling with my peers and I am fighting to get ahead in the world.  Let me be content with those moments when I get to hold you and wrap my arms around you.  Let me keep walking the path we have trodden because I remember that at the end of the day, I get to recline and put my head on your chest.  In you the weary find rest from all of our efforts to fight for recognition and significance.

Questions

1. What does Jesus try and teach his disciples?
2. What do the disciples fight about?
3. Why do accounts of the disciples arguing come up repeatedly in the last few chapters?
4. How are you fighting to get ahead?
5. How are you fighting to be last?

¹⁴ When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. ¹⁵ As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.

¹⁶ “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked.

¹⁷ A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. ¹⁸ Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”

¹⁹ “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”

²⁰ So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.

²¹ Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”

“From childhood,” he answered. ²² “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

²³ “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”

²⁴ Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

²⁵ When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”

²⁶ The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” ²⁷ But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.

²⁸ After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

²⁹ He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.^[a]”

I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!

I think that many of us can associate with this desperate man.  Just like Jairus he is thrown upon Jesus as a desperate attempt to obtain healing for his child.  Just like Jairus, he has met with disappointment.  Jesus’ disciples couldn’t do the job.  They were probably using some of the incantations and methods Jesus had used, but they were not using them with a prayerful reliance on God.  The opposition to Jesus in the spiritual realms has increased and faith must increase to match it.  Faith is shown through prayer and petition, but the disciples and the desperate man lack the belief that their own methods are sufficient.  Belief in methods and behavior can accomplish a little of the good we are looking for.  However, faith in the person of Jesus is the source of a powerful life.

“I believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”  gives us hope.  From some of Jesus’ response to unbelief, we might be led to believe that only 100% assent to a proposition means that we believe it.  However, J.P. Moreland spoke at a gathering I was at once about strength of belief.  He challenged the idea that we believe one thing and not another.  When he is asked whether he believes in an old earth or a new earth, he comments that he believes 60/40 in favour of the old earth.  However, this may fluctuate depending on with whom he has just talked.  In a similar way, I often believe something but am conscious that I believe other things that contradict that thing.  I believe that God loves me, but I also believe that I am unlovable at times.  I should pray that the faithful belief wins out.  I can also identify the ‘faithless’ belief and uproot it.

We have this cognitive dissonance all the time.  It is not always in the front of our mind, but sometimes our fears and doubts are buried in wordless chambers of forgetting deep in our subconscious.  Jesus allows events to bring these enemies of faith to the fore and we see them when we are surprised by our own reactions to things.  Then we should see those times as an opportunity for growth.  The desperate man in the passage did.

Prayer

I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!

Questions

1. From where was Jesus coming?
2. What kind of prayer do you think Jesus required?
3. What does ‘cognitive dissonance’ mean?
4. When have you experienced a doubt and faith at the same time?
5. How would you address cognitive dissonance?

² After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them. ³ His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them. ⁴ And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.

⁵ Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” ⁶ (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)

⁷ Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”

⁸ Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus.

⁹ As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. ¹⁰ They kept the matter to themselves, discussing what “rising from the dead” meant.

¹¹ And they asked him, “Why do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”

¹² Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah does come first, and restores all things. Why then is it written that the Son of Man must suffer much and be rejected? ¹³ But I tell you, Elijah has come, and they have done to him everything they wished, just as it is written about him.”

The Transfiguration

To this point, Mark has not been careful about transitions in time.  He has used simple time markers like ‘immediately’ or ‘then’.  Now we have the passage of six days listed quite accurately.  Why the change?  Jesus goes up a mountain and God speaks to him through a cloud.  Does this sound familiar?  The time marker takes us back to the accounts of Moses going up the mountain to talk with God in the book of Exodus.  Moses was changed by the experience, but the presence of Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus shows not only the connection with these figures but that Jesus transcends them.  Jesus fulfills the Law and also fulfills The Prophets.  God the Father verifies that the disciples should listen to him.  How have the disciples not listened to him?  They have not embraced the way of the cross, the path of suffering, the road of death as a path to resurrection.  They need to listen to this message that they have been told immediately prior to this account in the passage and that they will be told again after they descend the mountain.

In the book of Micah it is alluded to that Elijah would come before the Kingdom of God is established on earth.  Being familiar with that passage, Jesus’ disciples ask him about it.  He says that Elijah has come in the person of John the Baptist.  It seems odd that they just had an encounter with Elijah.  Maybe they were wondering if this was connected to Elijah coming back permanently.

The original recipients of this gospel were beginning to encounter great resistance and persecution.  They would have been encouraged to see how Jesus was transcendent and was glorified before knowingly walking a path of suffering.  If the glorified Jesus would welcome them home, they could walk the way of the cross as he did and then be with him in glory.

Prayer

Sometimes I see You as a man and sometimes as God.  It is hard to hold those two ideas in tension.  Help me to see you as both God and man and to embrace the life of suffering that I may have on earth so that I can also rejoice in sharing Your glory.

Questions

1. What event in the Old Testament does this event mirror?
2. Why would Mark emphasize the parallel?
3. Why did the original recipients need to see that Jesus was glorified in this way?
4. How do you remember to hear that Jesus calls you to walk the way of the cross?
5. How do you remind yourself of Jesus glorified?  How does that change how you live?

Questions

³¹ He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 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 concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

³⁴ Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For whoever wants to save their life^[b] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. ³⁶ What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? ³⁷ Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? ³⁸ If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.”

And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”

Will You Die For Jesus?

The Messiah wasn’t who Peter thought he would be. Peter thought Jesus would transcend the prophets like a king transcends a duke:  He would be an authority, but ultimately a bigger version of the same.  Jesus would be a king of some earthly realm who ruled with supernatural power and invincible armies.  Peter wanted to be there for that.  When the kingdom of God came with power, he wanted to be commanding the armies, waving his sword, slashing off ears.  Jesus tries to cut that idea down.  Jesus shows power through sacrifice.  Jesus will embrace death and embrace power in doing so.  Peter could not allow such a fool-brained plan from his rabbi and lets Jesus know.

We see then, Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah but has no idea what the Son of Man is really about.  He loves the man but rejects the plan.  He rejects a way of self-deprecation and sacrifice for others.

We live in a world that strives for gain.  We accumulate toys before we can speak.  We accumulate land, transportation, notoriety.  But Jesus calls us to live for him.  He is not a means to a white-picket-fence life of conformity and high-tea.  He demands complete sacrifice.  There is no Jesus-and option:  We can not have Jesus and our career, our family, or our church all sharing priority like many Americans try and redefine superlatives by having several best friends.  There are never several bests in God’s kingdom.  He is best and he does not share his glory.  Why have we so trivialised God?  Do we want to see power?  Then we must embrace the life Jesus has prepared for us and discard the life we have designed for ourselves.

Prayer

Jesus, may I die in the ways you ask.  I am fearful but you are faithful.

Questions

1. What role does Jesus say the Messiah must play?
2. Why do you think Peter objects?
3. Why is Jesus so harsh on Peter?
4. How would you have reacted in this scenario?
5. Will you die for Jesus?