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Lectio Mark: The Way of Discipleship
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As Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem, three times he predicts his approaching Passion. In response to the disciples' rejection of his words, Jesus works to heal their understanding both of his kingship and of the true nature of Christian discipleship.
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Welcome back to our Bible study on the Gospel of Mark. Last time we talked about the mystery of the bread and Jesus. And we saw at the end of that story, as Jesus was teaching about himself being the true bread, he asked and questioned the disciples, are you deaf? Are you blind? Do you fail to understand? And he repeated that several times. And then he went back and he said, remember when we fed the 5,000, how many baskets left over? And they say, 12. When we fed the 7,000, how many baskets Left over? And they say, 7. And then he says, at the end of verse 21 of chapter 8, do you still not understand? So we get this theme of understanding. And then what happens next is an episode where Jesus is going to heal a man in Bethsaida. And we're told in verse 22, they came to the village of Bethsaida, and some of the people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. Now, before we dive into that scene, I want to highlight something. The way Mark's Gospel works, like many gospels, but Mark has this episodic feel to it more than any other Gospel. It seems like you're going from one little episode to the next little episode to the next little episode. And you can kind of, as you go from one story to the next, you kind of just focus in on that one little episode and you forget what followed, what preceded. And oftentimes what can happen is we miss the connections of these stories. And I want to highlight what oftentimes happens with these stories is that they're interwoven. They're kind of like. Think of each episode like a pearl, but they're all on a beautiful necklace, and they all string together, not separate. And we have to follow that narrative thread so that we can string these little episodes together and see how they cohere and how there's a beauty and a power to these stories as they all hold together. So when we go to the story of the blind man in Bethsaida and we just heard Jesus with the bread and the teaching about that, we would miss the primary meaning here as we see Jesus encounter a blind man if we just forgot that he just called his disciples blind. Now, that could be accidental, right? It could be. It could be accidental that Jesus is going to heal a blind man right after he called his disciples blind. But it's interesting that after the multiplication of the loaves to feed the 7,000, Jesus calls his disciples deaf and blind, and then the next thing he encounters is a blind man. But if you go to the story right before Chapter eight. We're right before the story where Jesus multiplies the loaves and the fish. And guess who Jesus heals at the end of chapter seven. Let's take a peek. Go to chapter seven, verse 31. And then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of the Decapolis, which, by the way, is the very region where Bethsaida is. So in other words, before and after the story of the bread, he is in Bethsaida, he's in the area of the Decapolis. And so then they brought to him a man who was deaf. So just like with the blind man, a group of people brought to Jesus a deaf man, just like they brought to him the blind man of Bethsaida. So you see a couple parallels here. And he was deaf, and he had an impediment in his speech, and they besought him to lay his hands upon him. So you remember, they asked him to touch the blind man. So again, the idea of they're beseeching him so to touch him and taking him aside from the multitude privately, which is exactly what he does in chapter 8, verse 22, following, he takes the blind man by the hand and leads him out of the town of Bethsaida, taking him aside from the multitude privately. He put his fingers into his ears and he spat and touched his tongue. Jesus will do likewise. He will spit and make clay mud that he puts on the eyes of the blind man. So you see another parallel between the two stories. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, apophatha, that is, be opened. And again we get that Aramaic. And again, I think this comes from Peter's eyewitness testimony. This was a powerful moment. And Peter holds on to that in his own tongue, that powerful word of opening that was so dramatic be opened. And his ears were opened and his tongue was released. And he spoke plainly, and he charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. So here's the point in between and framing the miracle of the bread, Jesus heals a deaf man. And on the other side, he heals a blind man. And then right after the healing of the miracle of the bread, he complains and upbraids his disciples for being deaf and blind. We too would be deaf and blind if we didn't see the connection here, right? So notice what Jesus does before he does the miracle of the bread. He heals a deaf man, and afterwards he heals a blind Man. And what he's trying to get us is he's trying to get his disciples and you and I to no longer be deaf and no longer to be blind, but to be open to the mystery of the bread, to be open to the mystery of who Jesus is in himself. The I am, the I am, because only I am can make the bread and transform it into himself. And so let's go back to the blind man and Jesus, and you'll see all kinds of echoes and allusions and all kinds of parallels to that story. And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village in chapter 8. Now verse 23. And then when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands upon him, he asked him, do you see anything? And he looked up and he said, I see men, but they look like trees walking. Now, you know, you go in and get a new prescription for your eyeglasses, right? And if you come out and you see people but they look like trees, you're going to try to find your way back inside to get a better prescription, right? And so, you know, the miracle doesn't seem to take the first time. So. Well, even Jesus has a bad day, right? What a consolation. Even God has a bad day where it just doesn't come off well, right? So why doesn't Jesus miracle take. Well, let's look for a clue. Then again, he laid his hands upon his eyes and he looked intently and he was restored and he saw everything clearly and he sent him away home, saying, do not even enter the village. Now, why doesn't the miracle take the first time? Because this man didn't believe. Wrong. But that's what everybody thinks. Everybody throws this poor blind man under the bus. You know, you've got Jesus and a blind guy who's at fault, the blind guy, right? But Jesus doesn't turn to him and say, don't you trust me? Don't you believe? In fact, he probably believes a little bit less. You know, the first I'm not taking, you know, and he's got myopic visions. He's seeing people, but they look like trees, but Jesus does it a second time. In other words, I believe that there's another option between you, Jesus failing at the healing or the blind man failing at faith. It could be that Jesus is healing this man in two stages, symbolically. And I believe that's exactly what's happening here. There's a partial recovery of sight, but not full 20, 20, because that's what Jesus is doing with his own disciples. At this moment, he said the disciples were blind and not seen. Well, they see partially, but they don't see 20, 20 about who the Messiah is and what he has to do. And that will be clear in the next episode. And we're going to see this story is going to continue because in verse 27, Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea, Philippi, and on the way. Ah, there is that key mark and theme. The way on the way. Now I want to highlight this because Mark is creating a bookends of the central section of his Gospel. From right here, we have a turning point in the story. So as Jesus is on his way to Caesarea, he's going on the way, and he just healed a blind man. At the end of this section, we're going to. We're going to see that phrase repeated where it says on the way. And that's going to be in Mark, chapter 10, verse 52, When Jesus heals, guess what? A blind man, Bartimaeus. And the blind man will follow Jesus on the way. The same phrase. So in chapter 10, verse 46 through 52, we have Jesus healing a blind man and going on the way to Jerusalem. Here we have Jesus in Caesarea on the way, after he heals a blind man in Bethsaida. So the theme here of the central section, from chapter 822 to chapter 1052 is the way section. It's the section of the way. And on that way, Jesus is going to try to cure the vision of his disciples about who he is and who and what the Messiah must be and do. Because they have a myopic vision of Messiahship. They think the Messiah should be a conqueror, a ruler who lords it over others. They think the Messiah should not suffer, should not serve. And Jesus is going to redefine for them the nature of his kingship, the nature of his leadership. But they have a myopic vision. They see the Messiah as glorious in light of their hopes and expectations and not in light of the scriptures of Israel that Jesus is going to try to enlighten them on. So we see this three times. Three times in this section, we're going to see Jesus predict his passion. And then in response to Jesus predicting his passion, the disciples are going to reject it or ignore his teaching and go the opposite way. Three times that's going to happen in a section of the way. Three times Jesus will predict his passion, and three times he will be ignored. So let's talk about the first one. The first one comes right after Jesus, who Do you say that I am? And Peter says, you are the Christ. And he charged them to tell no one about that in verse 30 of chapter 8. And then in verse 31, he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. So he predicts his suffering, his death, and his resurrection. And then what do they say? Wow, we never thought about Messiah that way. What happens is an important and powerful story with Peter. And he said this plainly. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him. And the word for Peter rebuking Jesus was the same word that Jesus rebuked the demons with. So it's, you know, Peter is rebuking Jesus, but turning and seeing his disciples, and Jesus rebuked Peter. Now, what I love about this in the Greek is Peter began to rebuke, but he doesn't get very far. Jesus is a strong man and a strong leader. He stops that rebuke and he rebukes Peter. Now, the next phrase is very powerful. And he said, get behind me, Satan, for you are not on the side of God, but of men. Now, I want to highlight what this means because the get behind me is a powerful apiso mu apisomu. And literally, that apiso mu is a powerful phrase. Now, we can think about this as a strong rebuke to Peter. And it is. But it's not such a strong rebuke as like a smack across the side of the head. It's a gentle reminder of the first calling of Peter in the story. Back in chapter one of the gospel of Mark, verse 17, when Jesus first called Peter, Jesus says to Peter, apiso mu fall behind me and come after me, right? Apiso means to get behind so that you can follow. And so when he says to Peter here, apiso moo. And he's reminding Peter of his first words to Peter. Peter, when I called you, I said you had to follow from behind a piece a moo fall behind me. It's not like, get behind me and get away from me. It's fall in line behind me and follow my lead. It's not a rejection of Peter. It's a reminder, stern though it may be, that Peter has to follow from behind Jesus, not getting out ahead of Jesus. And it's also a reminder to us because we like to tell God how he should do things. God, this illness shouldn't happen. Let me tell you how this should go, right? This problem shouldn't happen. Economically, financially, this is the way I've got it all set up for us to do your will. And Jesus reminds us, as he reminds Peter, Apiso mu fall behind me. Oftentimes we want to do something and we ask God to bless it rather than to look for what, God's blessing and get behind it, right? That is where we have to become a disciple. And then he goes on and he says, for you were thinking, not godly, not with God, but your thinking, your understanding. Peter is with men. And remember the opening phrase of Jesus teaching that I said would be kind of an interpretive lens for the whole story in verses Mark, chapter 1, verse 14 and 15, and in verse 15, where Jesus says, the time is at hand, the kingdom of God is near, repent. But that word for repent is metanoia, which means a transformation, a change of the mind. And here, what's Peter doing? Jesus says, you're thinking like men and not thinking like God. He's not metanoia. Metanoia is not simply, I'm going to be repenting of my sin. Metanoia is about changing my mindset, changing my mindset, my way of thinking. And Peter's way of thinking is a worldly way of thinking. Messiahs don't get crucified. Successful kings don't get defeated by their enemies, mocked and scourged. That is not the way to be a redeemer. That's the way to be a failure. And Peter's thinking the way men think, but Jesus wants him to think the way God thinks. And then Peter is warned that to fall into a worldly thinking is to fall into the way of the Satan, right? That's the temptation of the Satan. That's not the way of God, and it's not my way. And so you need to fall behind me. And you're not thinking like God, but thinking like men. You need metanoia. And then in verse 34, and he called to him the multitudes with his disciples, and he said to them, so Jesus has taught about his passion, right? And then you get a rejection of that passion teaching by Peter. And then you get Jesus teaching on the nature of discipleship. And that threefold pattern happens in all three cases of Jesus predicting his passion in the section on the way. So Jesus will predict his passion, predict the disciples will reject it or ignore it. And then Jesus has to do a Bible study to clarify, right? Jesus does a little bit of a teaching. So here the teaching is going to be, if any man would come after me, there's the apiso again, if anyone would come after, follow after, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Now we're used to that. That's very Christian language. Take up your cross and follow. But you know, that would be like saying, if anyone would come after me, take up your electric chair and follow me. Right? Because a cross was a way in which Romans crucified criminals and especially insurrectionists rebels. So this is crazy talk to say, you have to pick up your cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel's will, save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? For what can a man give in return for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation of him, will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels? So the lesson here is, take up your cross. So again, Jesus teaches about his passion. It's rejected and ignored. And then Jesus teaches, not again, that simply that the Messiah has to suffer. But those who would follow the Messiah likewise have to become cruciform. Jesus teaching that discipleship is cruciformity. Discipleship requires cruciformity. And this is crucial because there's a false Christianity, a cheap Christianity that has a cheap gospel that says health and wealth. Name it, claim it. Right? God wants you wealthy. God wants you happy and successful. Name it, claim it. You shouldn't be ill. If you had real faith, you could be healed. You shouldn't be poor. If you had real faith, you'd be wealthy. I've encountered that when I went down for an orphanage down in Guatemala, there was a community that was with this guy, El pastor, the pastor, and it was the name McClayman. And I remember this one woman, she was a lawyer, she was going to the community and she was like, God wants us to be rich. And then that parish took over an orphanage and they deprived the kids and they took the donations for the orphanage so that they could all become rich. That was the deception of the devil. That's the health and wealth gospel. Jesus never promises health or wealth. Those are temporal, fleeting goods. God's far more ambitious for us. He wants us not simply to have health, but to have the holiness that will last for eternity. He doesn't simply want us to have the wealth, but he wants us to know his love and his goodness and to have that as our treasure which will give far lasting and deeper happiness than the passing things of this world. Now, the second time that Jesus teaches on the Passion and his upcoming death is in chapter nine, verse 30. And they went on from there, and they passed through Galilee. And he would not have anyone know it, for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, the Son of Man will be delivered, literally handed over into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days, he will rise. Now, he's trying to be pretty direct there. He'll be handed over and he will be killed, and they will kill him. You know, he couldn't be more explicit. But they did not understand. Whoops, there's that phrase again. But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to ask him. Both really bad things for the Gospel of Mark, right? They didn't understand that's not a good sign. And then they were afraid, too afraid to ask, which again? Faith not fear, right? Not good. And then verse 33. And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house, he asked them, what were you discussing on the way? Right. So Jesus did his teaching on the Passion. They broke into small group discipleship groups, right? For their small group discussion. And Jesus says, okay, what were you discussing on the way? Gulp. Peter gulps. But they were silent. For on the way, of course, the way. The way of the Lord. The way of the Via Dolorosa, the way to the Cross is the way they're going. And on the way, what were they discussing? They discussed with one another who was the greatest, who is the greatest. They're all jockeying for positions amongst the 12. That's what their discussion is. Remember when Jesus talked about the parable of the sower that sows in the ground and it takes root and it grows up, but it can't bear fruit because the cares of the world, the thorns and the thistles, choke out the fruit. They're not hearing the word of God because they're so concerned about their cares and temporal positions and power and prestige. And they don't hear the word of Jesus. I mean, my goodness, Jesus just talked about how he's gonna die. He's disclosing this to the 12. And they're not saying, lord, that's terrible. Why is that gonna happen? How is that gonna happen? We care about you. No, they're so focused on themselves. They don't see Jesus suffering. How astonishing. But how often do we go to mass and we don't hear the readings of the Scriptures because we're thinking about work and we're thinking about our problems. We're wondering about all the different things that all the cares and concerns, where we're going to have brunch, who's coming over later that day, and what the football game is, and where we are in the playoffs or whatever it is, right? The cares of the world choke out hearing the word of God and hearing the word of the one who loves us, who suffers for us, who dies for us. And then Jesus, of course, Jesus taught on the Passion. They rejected it. And what's the third thing that's going to happen? He's going to teach on the nature of discipleship. And then we're told in verse 35, he sat down and called the 12. And he said to them, if anyone would be first. So he's going to take where they're at and work from there, right? They all want to be first. If anyone would be first, he must be last of all. And a Doulos of all, a slave, a servant of all. And he took a child and put him in the midst of them. And taking him in his arms, he said to them, whoever receives one such child in my name receives me. And whoever receives me receives not me, but him who sent me. And so what do we have here? Jesus describes discipleship as service and as being childlike. Childlike. Now, I want to move to the third occasion of Jesus teaching about this. And that comes in chapter 10, verse 32 and following. So in chapter 10, verse 32 and following, we read, and they were on the road, which the Greek word is hadas, the way. And they were on the way again, right? And they were on the way, going up to Jerusalem. And Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed. And those who followed were afraid. Again, not a good sign of disciples. And taking the 12 again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, behold, pay attention. He's saying, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered into the chief priests and to the scribes. And they will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles. And they will mock him, spit upon him, scourge him and kill him. Jesus knows all that's going to happen, and yet he still goes. It's astonishing. And the closer he gets to the cross, the more this weighs on his heart. And unfortunately, the less the disciples can understand and perceive. They're not getting it. They're not listening. And their lack of compassion comes from their own selfishness. It's selfishness that creates the hard heart that Jesus talked about earlier with the bread. Remember, they didn't get it about the bread, but their hearts were hardened. Faith is a matter of the condition of our hearts. And then Jesus goes on and says, after, they will kill him after three days, he will rise. But we shouldn't be surprised that they're not getting the resurrection part because they're not getting the dying part right now. They're not getting. They're just oblivious to it. They're ignoring it. So again, Jesus teaches about the Passion. We're going to see how they reject it. So what's the next thing that happens? That's going to be the rejection. And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, we're really troubled by this Jesus. What can we do to help you in your suffering? No, they come to him after that teaching, and they say, rabbi, we want you to do whatever we ask of you. Do us a favor. And he said, what do you want me to do for you? Good question. And they said to him, grant us to sit one on your right hand and one on your left in your glory. We're not thinking about his glory in heaven because they're about to go to Jerusalem, and Jerusalem is the capital, and the capital is where the king reigns. And they know that Jesus is the Messiah, which means king. And they're thinking, when Jesus gets to Jerusalem, he's going to begin his reign. And what they're thinking as they get closer and closer to Jerusalem is they're thinking more and more about a regime change and who's going to get the best cabinet positions, who's going to be Secretary of state, who's going to be enthroned on your right and who's going to be on your left. And the two brothers decide amongst themselves, well, let's divide between us, the left hand and the right hand. I don't care if I'm number two or number three. We'll just leave it to Jesus. How big of them, Right? How big of. And this is. Even the beloved disciple John is thinking this way, right? And of course, then Jesus is going to have to rebuke them and teach them. He says, you do not know what you're asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I'm to drink or to be baptized with, the baptism with which I'm to be baptized? In other words, they don't get that on Jesus right and his left, when he's enthroned in glory are two thieves crucified because Jesus enthronement will be on the cross, and that will be a bitter cup for him to drink. And are they ready to drink that cup, these glory seekers? Are they ready for the suffering? Are they ready for cruciformity? And then Jesus has to gather the 12 again and teach them that the Gentiles lord over when they have authority over each other. But it cannot be so amongst you. But whoever be great among you must serve and be like a servant, like a slave. And so we see Jesus again, predicting the Passion, and they don't get it. Jesus is going, but he's going to be enthroned on a cross. And the question for us as we end this episode is, are we ready to follow Elpiso? Are we ready to follow after Jesus? Because if we worship a crucified Lord, our discipleship and our following must likewise become cruciform.