January 30, 2005

Moving Toward Greatness

by Pierre Gilbert

Mark 10: 32 - 45

Read: Mark 10: 32 - 34:

[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 betrayed to the chief priests and 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."

Of all the gospels, I think the Gospel of Mark is my favorite. It's full of action—Jesus is always going somewhere or arriving from somewhere. He makes shocking statements. He tells riddles. It is in the gospel of Mark that we see best the humanity of Jesus—we get the full Jesus. He is clever like 10. Funny! Decisive. He tackles demons, storms, diseases, etc.

But we also see the more difficult side of human experience. In the garden of Gethsemane, the Son of God wrestles with fear, anguish, uncertainty. Jesus was no robot. He experienced the whole gamut of human emotions. And frankly, it's good to have that side of Jesus shown to us, for I too often get anxious over things. I sometimes anguish over decisions I have to make. To know that the Son of God himself experienced intensely what it is to be human is a profound encouragement to me.

Another remarkable aspect of Mark's portrait of Jesus is the frustration that Jesus often expresses towards his disciples. In Mark, the disciples are consistently portrayed as bumbling idiots. They just don't get it. They don't get him. And at times, Jesus gets quite annoyed with them. To the point where the disciples just don't want to answer any more questions—for fear they will look like idiots again. In two instances (Mark 8 and 10), Jesus tries to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem, die a horrible death, and then he will rise again. Those are pretty significant statements, if you ask me. They are as shocking as they come. How do the disciples react? On both occasions, it's like they are on another planet. They don't get it at all.

There are two things that strike me about that! One, it's just like us. We often don't get Jesus. The world certainly doesn't. They either don't think about him at all or they think he is just some irrelevant historical character. Even Christians sometimes don't get him. And you know what, it's not surprising. Those who actually lived with him for three years had a hard time understanding who he was. His own parents thought he was a little strange. For whatever reason, and especially when we are not careful or become too steeped in bad ideology, we will tend to reduce Jesus to something more manageable. When I was a kid, Jesus to me was either baby Jesus—or he was the suffering Jesus forever hanging on the cross. Both images did not at all capture the power of Christ.

In some Christian circles, they now give us the politically correct Jesus: the gentle teacher! He is nice, non-violent, non-judgmental, inclusive, kindly disposed towards everything and everyone, recycles, and drives a Honda civic. I call him Teddy Bear Jesus. Teddy Bear Jesus may be heartwarming, cuddly, and cute, but he is not the Christ of history.

Jesus Christ is the living God, who came in the flesh, lived amongst us for 33 years, died for the sins of the world, and rose again from the dead. He will one day come back and establish his Kingdom forever. Then, we will all get it! (651)