An Imminent Death

The whole structure and flow of the Gospel change with this paragraph. “He then began to teach them...” The Gospel moved from John the Baptist to Jesus and all the encounters we have read since chapter three. Now we move to the culmination of the story that Mark wants to tell. The immediate future does not look bright.

Peter is front and center once again and will stay there for the next several years. Interestingly, he is quite emphatic that no leader he follows is going to experience such shame. Jesus sees a diabolical influence over Peter but he does not leave it there. The real issue is how he thinks. The whole orientation of his mind was tilted in the wrong direction.

When I first entered ministry in the mid-1970s, a wise man said to me, “If you want to act like a Christian, you have to first think like a Christian.” And that is exactly what Jesus describes in the last part of the paragraph. Jesus is calling his disciples and Mark is calling his readers to a radical denial of personal self-interest and behaviour that looks to the greater good of God’s rule.

As numerous passages in the New Testament story remind us, followers of Jesus will be rewarded for what they have done based on these criteria. The expressions are specific enough (vv. 34-35) and the questions clear enough (vv. 36-37), that one realizes that nothing counts like following Jesus. Are my thinking and life set in this direction?

Respond in Prayer

Lord Jesus, I often put self-interest before following you and doing what you ask. Please forgive me. I desire to follow you in word, deed and thought.

Glenn Smith