Year 8, Day 157: Mark 10

Theological Commentary: Click Here

As we draw closer to the cross in the Gospel of Mark, we get more of the identity of Christ.  He is still a teacher.  He is still a healer.  But he is also God’s Messiah. He is the one who will save the world.

I’ll start at the end of the chapter today.  What does the savior of the world do?  What is His example for us to imitate?  Jesus listens to those the world would shush.  Jesus has compassion on those that the world overlooks.  Jesus invites those whom the world would discard.  God’s Messiah looks to the fringes and fills them with love.

What else does God’s Messiah do?  God’s Messiah handles the silly idiotic humanity of His disciples.  Two of them want Jesus to promise them positions of power.  As anyone who knows the human heart would guess, that starts off a feud between those two and the other ten disciples.  Everybody is being irrational, acting out of the desires of their own heart.  What does Jesus do?  Jesus speaks to them rationally.  He calms the scene.  He teaches them all about servant nature.  Jesus deals with human irrationality by being rational in return and reframing the perspective causing the irrationality.  God’s Messiah is about changing perspective, not allowing poor perspective to persist.

Speaking of changing perspective, look at how Jesus works with the rich man.  Jesus tells the kid, who confesses to being perfect in the eyes of the Law, to go and sell everything that He has.  I used to think that this passage was a condemnation of wealth. On some level, especially combined with other passages such as “the poor will always be with you,” it is.  However, I think this is actually an attempt to show the rich young man that his perspective is wrong.  Since the rich young ruler wouldn’t rise to the humbleness required by the comparing our life to the Law, Jesus shows Him that he also won’t rise to the generosity of giving things to people who are in need.  It isn’t that there is any greed sin behind having some money – although the love of money is the root of all evil.  The problem is that the rich young man thinks he is perfect.  His perspective needs to be challenged.

This is God’s Messiah.  Jesus challenges those who are arrogant, proud, or otherwise human.  Jesus teaches the humble.  Jesus heals the needy.  Jesus meets with the outcast.

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