Month: September 2010

Jesus has come to be lowly, so you must be lowly like a child (Mark 10:13–16)

If you grew up in church, you probably know this children’s song by heart:

Jesus loves the little children,
All the children of the world!
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world!

Maybe you never stopped to ask why Jesus likes children so much. Well, today’s your lucky day.

Jesus is continuing his journey south toward Jerusalem. He has announced to his disciples that he will be betrayed, suffer, and die, and then rise again from the dead. His disciples are struggling to understand how someone who is God’s anointed Messiah could suffer and die like that. It doesn’t make sense to them. As a result, they’re not picking up on the way Jesus’ lowly mission should change their attitudes.

Yet another opportunity to show their spiritual dullness arises when some of the people around Jesus get it into their heads to have him bless their children. They recognize that this is a man sent from God, and they long for God to favor little Jonney and Susie. So they start bringing all their babies and toddlers for Jesus to touch and bless.

Now, this seems okay to us, but Jesus’ disciples didn’t think it was appropriate. At the time, children weren’t valued much in Jewish culture. Most people made just enough money to put food on the table; another child meant another mouth to feed. I’m sure there were many good parents who loved and valued their children, but for the most part, having a child was considered an unfortunate necessity if you wanted a future adult who could take care of you and pass on your family name.

That’s the way Jesus’ disciples are thinking of children, so it’s no wonder that they’re rebuking the parents for wasting the Rabbi’s time. But when Jesus sees their response, he gets ticked. He confronts them, saying, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them!” Rather than viewing children as a waste of time, he wants them to be with him. Why? He explains, “For to such belongs the kingdom of God.”

Apparently, Jesus believes that people who are childlike are the people who will be a part of God’s coming kingdom. So in what way must a disciple of Jesus be like a child?

Perhaps our first response would be that disciples should be good and innocent like children. We tend to think of children as being basically wonderful little creatures who are later corrupted by outside influences. However, any parent knows that you don’t have to teach your children to be corrupt; they learn that on their own. You have to train them to be good. No one is innocent from birth, as the Israelite king David wrote: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5). Besides, hasn’t Jesus invited wicked people like tax collectors to be with him (Mark 2:13–17)? It’s not moral purity that Jesus is looking for.

Neither is Jesus looking for a childlike naïveté. He doesn’t want his disciples to be unthinking and lacking in insight. On the contrary, he’s been frustrated at their dullness—“do you not perceive or understand?” (Mark 8:17).

No, there’s something about children that Jesus loves, and it’s the very thing that his culture hated about them. Children are helpless and useless. They seem to be a waste of time and resources. They tie you down and mess up your life dreams. They’re dependent and needy. That’s what Jesus loves about children.

Jesus isn’t looking for righteous people to be his disciples. In fact, he consistently rejects people who perceive themselves as “basically good people.” Neither is Jesus looking for naïve people. The truth is that Jesus wants useless, worthless, and lowly people. They’re the outcasts in this word, but when his kingdom comes, he will welcome them into it. Why? Because they recognize their need and cling to the one who became lowly for their sake. They are glad to identify with a lowly Messiah.

Jesus also delivers a warning to his disciples: “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” Anyone who claims to be a good person or who thinks highly of himself or wants approval from others will be shut out of God’s kingdom. Such a person doesn’t want to submit to Jesus’ authority. Such a person would never identify with a lowly Messiah.

Jesus shows his disciples what this looks like in practice. He welcomes the little children, picks them up, and blesses them warmly. He is not ashamed to be associated with the lowly.

Now, in Western culture, we do value children quite a bit. But we don’t value them for the reasons that Jesus did. We tend to value children because we perceive that they will be of some benefit to us. Typically, the child will become Mommy and Daddy’s little self-actualizing device. That’s why so many parents live their lives vicariously through their kids, obsessing over their soccer games and morphing into “helicopter parents” who hover over their children even when they leave for college. This also means that if a child is an inconvenience, he or she can be disposed of in a socially acceptable way. That’s why abortion is so common, especially in the case of mentally or physically handicapped infants. We hold the exact same attitudes that Jesus hated. We define people—even ourselves—by our usefulness.

You and I don’t want to be useless. We don’t want to be unpopular. We don’t want to be lowly. We want to be productive members of society. But Jesus is calling you to recognize your uselessness. You are weak; you are small; you are powerless. Embrace your true lowliness, and you will find yourself embraced by Jesus.

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Jesus has come to be lowly, so his disciples must submit to God’s will for marriage (Mark 10:1–12)

Mark records many of Jesus’ teachings that make you and me feel awkward and uncomfortable. Today, Jesus is going to say something that would deeply offend almost everyone in the world.

Jesus doesn’t pull any punches, does he? When his disciples want him to explain his teaching, hoping that he will add a few caveats, he only gets more extreme.

This is hard stuff. Anyone who has seen nasty marriages and family conflict must feel sympathy for people in those situations. How could anyone object to such a divorce? We all want our friends and family to escape suffering, don’t we?

This was the way Jesus’ countrymen thought as well. They turned to Deuteronomy 24:1–3 to demonstrate that God permitted divorce if a man “has found some indecency” in his wife. While some (more conservative) Jews argued that this meant adultery was the only ground for divorce, most agreed that these verses allowed divorce for any reason. Regardless, all agreed that divorce was permissible.

Some of these Pharisees must suspect that Jesus holds radical views on this issue (and boy, are they right). They want to undermine Jesus in some way, and they know that if he places any restrictions on the right to divorce, he’ll become unpopular with the crowds. So they ask him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Jesus replies, “What did Moses command you?” Of course, they refer him back to Deuteronomy.

Now, here’s where Jesus brings down the hammer. The Deuteronomy passage didn’t command divorce; it acted as damage control in case of divorce—which it assumed was already taking place. It prevented God’s people from being defiled by forbidden forms of remarriage. Jesus tells the Pharisees, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.” In other words, Deuteronomy doesn’t reveal God’s ideal plan for marriage. God was being flexible with his stubborn people; but Jesus hates hardness of heart, and he holds his disciples to a higher standard. So he tells them what God really thinks of divorce.

In order to establish God’s original plan for marriage, Jesus goes back earlier than Deuteronomy. He goes all the way to the creation accounts of Genesis 1 and 2. He reminds the Pharisees that “God made them [man] male and female” (Genesis 1:27). They were created incomplete; God intended for them to be paired together. “Therefore,” Jesus says, “a man will leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” He’s quoting Genesis 2:24 here and establishing it as the foundation for marriage. God created man and woman to be paired together, and marriage is what weaves them together. It’s an act of God’s creation. For this reason, Jesus warns, “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

In other words, divorce is man’s attempt to undo God’s work of uniting husband and wife. It’s an attempt at uncreation, at tearing apart God’s created order. Jesus insists that divorce is an act of rebellion against God, an attempt to usurp divine authority. Jesus has come to serve and submit to God, so he is adamant that his disciples not participate in such a power play that stands in total conflict to his mission.

What makes this teaching so hard is that divorce doesn’t feel like rebellion; it doesn’t feel like a power play. It feels like a painful and desperate attempt to escape an awful situation. That’s why Jesus’ disciples question him afterward. They’re shocked by how radical and insensitive his teaching is. But Jesus only gets more extreme: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” Apparently, divorce is not only an attempt to usurp divine authority, but it’s a failed attempt to usurp divine authority. God refuses to accept man’s efforts to undo his act of creation. From his perspective—the only one that matters—a “divorced” couple is still married. He will not permit man to be victorious over him.

As Christians argue about divorce, the debate often centers around possible “exception clauses” found in Matthew 19:9 and 1 Corinthians 7:15. These are important discussions. However, it’s easy to make the mistake the Pharisees made, to focus on finding a loophole to get out of a bad marriage. Jesus calls his disciples to be willing to suffer as he suffered. Divorce is an easier path, but Jesus has not called his followers to an easier path. He wants them to explore other options.

This may be the most difficult saying of Jesus for me to stomach. It seems cruel not only for people in bad marriages, but also for people who are already divorced. Are they doomed to remain lonely if they aren’t able to return to their previous spouses? The fallout from Jesus’ teaching is terrible. It would have been just as terrible in his day as it is now. Yet he said these words anyway.

This leads us, I think, to the question, “Would Jesus ask his followers to suffer for his sake?” Would he dare to ask them to suffer through painful marriages? Would he dare to ask them to remain single for the rest of their lives if need be? I think we can say that yes, he would.

Jesus wants disciples who, like him, will remain in suffering if that’s what it takes to follow him. “If anyone would come after me,” he says, “let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). He was willing to suffer if that’s what it took to submit to the will of God. If you join him, he will be glad to call you his own when he comes in glory.

Posted on by Dave 0