He was teaching his disciples and telling them,
"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.
The disciples were sure that Jesus must not have meant what it sounded like he meant. Perhaps this death was merely another parable that they hadn't yet fully grasped. They just couldn't square the idea with their preconceived notions about what the messiah would be. By the definition they understood he would meet with victory, not defeat. And yet the conditions that would allow for such a victory became increasingly unlikely and Jesus didn't seem to be bothered. The disciples seemed increasingly aware that such a victory was unlikely and that his prediction of his death was not merely metaphorical, as they showed by their unwillingness to ask him any questions. They were afraid of the answers, afraid that his meaning was exactly what they feared it was.
"What were you arguing about on the way?"
But they remained silent.
For they had been discussing among themselves on the way
who was the greatest.
They had hitched their wagon to Jesus and it now seemed to them that they were careening together toward a ditch. In such situations the selfish ego has survival strategies as we see with the argument among the disciples about who was the greatest. Was this outright willful blindness of the reality of the death of Jesus? Or even worse, was it fighting over the scraps that would be leftover in his absence? In either case we see that their focus was not on Jesus, their friend and their leader, as he shared difficult and distressing news. It was rather myopically upon themselves, on their own power and prestige. But make no mistake, we do this too when we are called to a new level of dying to self and living for others. It is especially then that we try to get what we can for ourselves, to demand, if not power or wealth, at least recognition. The moments when we are invited to think of others it is often difficult to think of anything but ourselves.
"If anyone wishes to be first,
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all."
Jesus was only calling them to imitate himself, who came not to be served but to serve (see Mark 10:45). He would later demonstrate this profoundly by washing his disciples feet, which in turn was an interpretive key for understanding both the Eucharist and his Passion. There was no way to true life that didn't involve this path of self-forgetful service. There was no resurrection without first embracing the cross. Jesus not only performed this service for our sakes, but desires to live in us so that he can reproduce it on our lives.
"Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me;
Receiving and embracing children was the epitome of thankless service at that time. Children were not valued by society in the way that they later came to be in the Christian west. They were seen as a drain of resources until they could be put to work and made productive. The child itself could offer nothing in return for the affection Jesus demonstrated. Neither would society praise him for it. Instead, society in general would probably have responded as the disciples did when people were bringing children to him and having him touch them and they rebuked them (see Matthew 19:13). For all of these reasons, the way Jesus embraced children was both a demonstration of his love for the lowest and the least and also a demonstration of his love for us. Like children, there is nothing we can give to Jesus that he does not already possess. From all eternity he was fully content in the heavenly exchanged of Triune love. And yet, as he did with the child so too does he choose to embrace each of us. We must not be too proud to reject him on the pretense that we can't pay him back. We can't, but he doesn't ask us to do so. He only asks our love.
and whoever receives me,
receives not me but the One who sent me."
Because he and the Father were one, receiving Jesus meant receiving also the Father who sent him into the world. Rejecting him therefore meant a rejection of God, of goodness, of truth, and of beauty. But in becoming a child himself and welcoming children Jesus sought to make his divinity as approachable and nonthreatening as possible, as proof of his love for us and his desire for our love.
You who fear the LORD, hope for good things,
for lasting joy and mercy.
You who fear the LORD, love him,
and your hearts will be enlightened.
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