“The Son of Man is to be handed over to men
and they will kill him,
and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”
But they did not understand the saying,
and they were afraid to question him.
There was suddenly a shift in the tone of the mission on which Jesus continued to lead his disciples. Previously they had seemed to move from one success to another. There were healing miracles, teachings, disputes with religious opponents in which Jesus was victorious, and hints and even confirmations that he was the promised messiah. From what had been happening all around them and even through them they probably assumed things would only get increasingly better until Jesus took the throne of Israel and began his reign. When Jesus began to prophesy his death they did not immediately understand. And in fact they did not want to understand. They could have asked and began to clarify how Jesus was the messiah but also the lamb of God and the suffering servant from Isaiah, how he was the one foreseen by Solomon in the book of Wisdom, and how none of these things was a contradiction. There were clear prophetic indications of his destiny.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death;
for according to his own words, God will take care of him.
When Jesus deviated from telling them only what they wanted to hear they began to focus on their own ideas, their own aspirations, their own thoughts about what would be for their greatest benefit. They set aside entirely the the idea that their friend and teacher was going to die to focus instead on how they could ride the success they had experienced so far into the greatest possible positions of prominence. At one end of the spectrum was Jesus, who attempted to reveal his plan to die in order that the world might be saved. At the other were the disciples, who ignored their teacher and closed their hearts him, seeking only their own fulfillment.
They had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest.
The fact that the disciples were ambitious or that they desired greatness wasn't the main problem. It was that they desired these things in a selfish and worldly way. Jesus did in fact need disciples who would be sufficiently motivated to go out and transform the entire world. Those too content to do nothing and be nothing wouldn't be able to accomplish that task. Jesus wanted the Twelve to learn that true greatness involved being of the greatest possible service to others. It involved doing the most for those who were the least able to offer payment in return. There might be others content to stay at home on their couches suggesting that their laziness was justified by the fact that they didn't need to be anyone important. But Jesus wanted his followers to be world changers. There was a sense in which they must be content to do nothing and accomplish nothing. But there was a greater sense in which they must desire with all their heart that God would accomplish his will through them. Their own contributions might look mostly like mistakes and failures. In what they themselves did there might not be much for which they would desire to take the credit. But they needed hearts that would persist and remain open to whatever God might desire to accomplish through them even when it seemed like he only managed it in spite of them.
Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;
and whoever receives me,
receives not me but the One who sent me.
Welcoming a child was one of those acts of goodness that seemed to offer no tangible reward or benefit. Welcoming suchlike was not going to make one famous, popular, or powerful. But in seeking greatness according to the mode of the Kingdom there was nevertheless a reward to be found greater what the world could offer. The reward was Jesus himself. The more the disciples emptied themselves and sought to act as servant leaders after the example of Jesus the more they would find true joy and delight. This was because they would find the world more and more suffused with the presence of their teacher and friend.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart (see Psalm 37:4).
Jesus was leading his disciples to the cross. But the cross was not going to be the end of his presence or of their impact on the world. In the small ways in which they welcomed the lowest and the least they would discover Jesus again and again. And each of these encounters would point toward the resurrection, ascension, and return of Jesus himself in which his presence would and power would fill the world. The way he would reign was quite different from the worldly power struggles which the Twelve seemed to regard as normative. But every time they welcomed even the most insignificant child they could discover how much better it was than anything the world could offer.
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