• Read Mark 10:1–12

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.

In a dimly lit hut on the edge of a nearby village, a man drips with sweat as he studies a meat cleaver resting on a rough table. He sends his left hand toward the knife, forcing his fingers to close over the handle. Through a sheer force of will, he holds his right wrist to the table. The cleaver shakes in his hand; the man bites his lip; and a scream comes as it hacks through his wrist. Blood pools on the floor. And the man is not finished. Next will come his right foot, and then—he stares dully at the tiny sharp knife across the table—his right eye.

Sixty miles away, a garbage dump smolders outside of a city, the refuse slowly burning away. A naked man lies on his side, his eyes half open, his neck broken. His consciousness returns. How long has he been here? He sees well enough to know that his lower body is rotting away. And then he feels it. A small patch of skin on his hip swells, then splits, a handful of maggots emerging from the festering wound. He would scream in horror if his voice could be raised beyond a croak. A rogue tongue of flame licks across his arm, singing the hair and peeling the skin. He can’t move; his death will be long and slow and hideous.

These images are vivid and cruel, and I didn’t make them up.

Jesus did.

• Read Mark 9:42–50

Last week, we read how Jesus had predicted his coming suffering, death, and resurrection. His disciples thought that he would be a conquering political Messiah, Glenn Beck on steroids, who would restore his people to their Jewish heritage and drive out the corrupting rule of the Romans. That the Messiah would suffer and die didn’t fit into their paradigm of how the world works. It wasn’t a part of their “glory story.” So Jesus scolded them for trying to look the greatest and for excluding other followers of his who weren’t a part of their little clique. He modeled a concern for useless people and valued the contributions of those who weren’t a part of the Twelve.

Now, Jesus issues a series of warnings relating to this elitist attitude. We’ve seen several times in Mark’s gospel that often, people who think they are “insiders”—faithful disciples of Jesus—are in fact “outsiders.” Jesus brings this topic up again and counsels those who think they’re on the insider track to God’s kingdom.

His first warning is the story of the execution—the stone and the lake. It would be better to undergo this awful fate than to cause “one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble,” Jesus says. The punishment for such a person will be extreme and horrifying. Similarly, he lays out a series of three parallel proverbs. He tells his disciples to cut off their hands, feet, and eyes rather than permit anything to cause them to stumble. “It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God” crippled or blind than “to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’” He quotes the final verse of the book of Isaiah, where God subjects those who rebel against him to eternal torment. Jesus is not afraid to preach hellfire and brimstone—not even against his own disciples.

The point is clear. Jesus’ disciples must do whatever it takes to cut off and tear out the proud, elitist attitudes festering in their hearts. If they do not, it will lead to their own downfall and possibly the downfall of other “little ones.” And God will respond appropriately with righteous, unquenchable fury.

As he dwells on the imagery of the fires of hell, Jesus utters a cryptic statement: “For everyone will be salted with fire.” He’s probably thinking of the sacrifices that the people of Israel were commanded to make to God, sacrifices that were seasoned with salt (Leviticus 2:13). Now, he says, each of his disciples must be “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1). But if someone who claims to be his disciple becomes corrupted with pride, his “salt” will have “lost its saltiness” and be useless as seasoning. The sacrifice will be ruined. Such a person cannot honor God.

So Jesus tells his disciples, “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” Their Lord will soon face suffering; they should not imagine that they are any better than he. They must do what the Holy Spirit commands through the apostle Paul: “Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be conceited” (Romans 12:16). There can be no rivalry, no one-upping, no boasting, no cliques in God’s kingdom. So beware of pride, a nasty and despicable sin. If you treat the lowly as garbage, you’ll quite literally be thrown out with the trash.

Jesus was lowly in his suffering, and in his suffering he served the lowly. If you are united with him, you too are a servant of the lowly and a “little one” yourself. Be glad that this is where true greatness is found.

2
Then if we whine, look pale,
And tell our tale,
Men are in pain
For us again;
So, neither speaking doth become
The lover’s state, nor being dumb.

3
When this I do descry,
Then thus think I:
Love is the fart
Of every heart;
It pains a man when ’tis kept close,
And others doth offend when ’tis let loose.

—Sir John Suckling, 1609–1642

• Read Mark 9:30–41

In chapter 8, it was finally revealed to the disciples that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, the King sent from God to deliver his people. In the following chapters, Jesus tells his disciples three times that he has come to suffer, die, and be raised to life again. Each time he tells them, they respond by failing to understand. This is the second time Jesus warns them that he has come to suffer, and Mark records that “they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.” In their worldview, glory and victory are valuable, not by a lowly and suffering “Messiah.” What Jesus is saying might as well be gibberish; it doesn’t fit into their paradigm of the world God has made. What they do recognize is that whatever Jesus means, it doesn’t sound good. So they’re afraid to ask him what he’s talking about; they’d rather stay in the dark on this one.

Their ignorance of Jesus’ mission becomes clear once they arrive in Capernaum. After entering the house where they’re staying, Jesus asks them, “What were you discussing on the way?” Like a troop of guilty children, they keep silent, “for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest.” Who knows exactly what that conversation looked like! Perhaps Peter was showing off his charisma, or James wanted the other disciples to see that he was the most intelligent, or Nathaniel wanted to prove that he was the strongest. I suppose it’s encouraging that they feel ashamed. They’re beginning to recognize that Jesus isn’t too impressed when people start bragging on themselves.

Jesus sits them down for a teaching moment. He tells them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” His ethical system is a paradox, upside-down from everything they’ve been taught to believe. He proves his point by calling in a little child. In that culture, children weren’t valued until they became old enough to work. Until then, they were simply mouths to feed, a strain on the household budget. But Jesus picks up and holds the worthless little runt closely to himself. He tells them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”

Jesus identifies himself in a special way with the lowly, with the useless and worthless people around you and me. He says that true greatness is not found in associating with popular or charming or productive people; it’s found in serving the worthless people.

This isn’t just contrary to the mindset of the ancient world. It’s contrary to our mindset as well. In Western culture, we don’t value the unborn; they’re an inconvenience, particularly if they’re disabled. They’re prime targets for abortion. We view immigrants from Mexico as illegal scoundrels here to steal our jobs. We think of children as either a hindrance to our happiness or a tool to make us happy; we don’t value them for their own sake. We love the idea of sending money to Bono so he can help starving kids in Africa, but we skirt around the poor and homeless in our own neighborhoods. We avoid interacting with people who are stupid, unattractive, poorly dressed, or socially awkward. We believe that the key to greatness is to put such people out of mind; if we associate with them, others won’t think we’re great any more!

Jesus does a wonderful thing here. Because he was lowly, despised, and rejected, he identifies with the lowly in this world. What greater role could you and I play than to welcome him—and therefore welcome the God who sent him? Because Jesus came to suffer, he rerouted the path to greatness, ensuring that you need to serve the lowly to become great.

One of Jesus’ disciples, John, unintentionally provides another example of wrong thinking about greatness. He tells Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” Like many fundamentalist Christians, John loves the idea of separation—he has convinced himself that the only valid followers of Christ are the people in his elite clique. He looks down on this “lowly” exorcist who is not part of Jesus’ “inner circle.” But Jesus contradicts him, saying, “Do not stop him.” He gives three reasons why you and I shouldn’t stop another genuine follower of Christ just because he or she is from a different tradition. First, such a person will represent Christ favorably. We need as many people as possible to speak well of Jesus! Second, such a person is on the same team as you. As Jesus says, “The one who is not against us is for us.” Third, God approves of their genuine servanthood. They won’t go unrewarded. So if God approves, what right do you and I have to reject them? There is no room for cliques in the body of Christ. We should not enjoy separating from other believers; we should only do it (reluctantly) in cases where Christ and his gospel are under attack.

Because Jesus came as a suffering Messiah rather than a triumphalistic Messiah, his mission pierces the heart of our hubris. “He was despised and rejected by men” (Isaiah 53:3), and would we expect better for ourselves? Would we join the world in despising and rejecting the lowly? Will we despise and reject other believers just because they’re not in our cliques?

But what if Gary Faulkner hadn’t entered Pakistan as a one-man army? What if the U.S. Army had approached him and offered tactical support from satellites and drones, and equipped him with powerful weapons and hardware? His odds for success would have increased tremendously if he accepted. But to be empowered in this way, he would first have to become dependent on the U.S. government, and I imagine that’s not something that Faulkner would be willing to do.

Jesus’ disciples faced a similar dilemma when encountering an enemy far more powerful than any terrorist. Sadly, they didn’t fare much better at defeating this foe than Faulkner did at killing bin Laden.

• Read Mark 9:14–29

Jesus and his three closest disciples, Peter, James, and John, have just descended from the mountain where Jesus has given them a sneak peek of his glory in an event known as the Transfiguration. When they arrive at the foot of the mountain, they are snapped back into reality as they face a chaotic crowd riled up by fierce arguments between the rest of Jesus’ disciples and some experts in the law of Moses. Jesus asks what’s going on, and a man volunteers an answer. “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute,” he says. That’s just the beginning. The spirit also causes his son to fall into severe seizures. The man brought his son to see Jesus, but since Jesus was up on the mountain, the man had asked the disciples to cast out the unclean spirit. Now, Jesus had given them authority to do this (Mark 6:7), but inexplicably, they haven’t able to drive out the demon. Now all the religious teachers, looking for an excuse to discredit Jesus, are stirring up conflict against his hapless disciples.

Jesus is exasperated with the situation. “O faithless generation,” he says, “how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?” He knows why the spirit won’t be driven out. The pervasive unbelief of the religious leaders, the crowds, and even his own disciples has denied them access to his authority as the divine Messiah.

Jesus orders the father, “Bring him to me.” When he does, the unclean spirit defies Jesus by inducing another seizure, so that his battered body is thrashing on the ground, foam dribbling from his mouth. The father explains that this situation has continued since he was a little child. The demon has used these seizures to throw the man’s son into fire and into water in a cruel attempt to kill him. Watching yet another awful seizure, the man pleads with Jesus, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us!”

“‘If you can’!” Jesus is incredulous. “All things are possible for one who believes.”

That’s the real problem here, you see. All the man sees is the supernatural entity gripping his son; all he knows is that he is powerless to stop this malevolent force. He doesn’t see Jesus’ divine authority. He isn’t sure that Jesus has the power to put an end to the spirit’s control of his son. But at Jesus’ words, his eyes are opened. He finally sees what’s really going on here. He cries out, “I believe!” and then, “Help my unbelief!”

If there is a verse in the Bible that better captures the agonizing tension of a Christian’s walk with God, I don’t know what it is. You say that he has power, but you can barely bring yourself to really believe it, deep down. You’ve got nothing more than a tiny mustard seed of faith.

But Jesus is satisfied with even a mustard seed. The crowd is growing in size, and it’s time to act now. He says to the demon, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” The boy convulses and shrieks, then lies still, corpse-like. The crowd is silent. Finally, a few people begin to whisper their worst fears: “He is dead.” But Jesus reaches down and takes his hand; the boy revives and stands on his feet, as though he were rising from the dead.

The scene shifts to the inside of a house, later in the day. Jesus’ disciples are questioning him, “Why could we not cast it out?” Jesus replies, “This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer.” A demon of such power won’t leave on one’s own authority. A disciple of Jesus must rely on prayer to accomplish what he himself cannot do.

In the moment of crisis, the boy’s father had understood this. He had asked Jesus for help to end the oppression of his son, but Jesus showed him that his greatest need was not deliverance from oppression but rather deliverance from unbelief.

Our culture urges you and me with platitudes such as “believe in yourself, and you can do anything.” Jesus tells us that this is a lie. Anyone who is a disciple of Jesus will face spiritual barriers that he or she cannot overcome. You will face suffering and conflict that you cannot handle. When the chips are down, who do you rely on? Is it yourself, or is it Jesus?

Jesus demands that you depend on him by spending less time flattering yourself and more time praying. He is not demanding your dependence merely to subjugate you but rather to empower you. He’s proved his ability, so you can give up your illusions of your own ability.

Chronic misunderstandings can be hilarious when they’re happening on TV, but when you’re trying to communicate a message of vital importance to your friends, they bring nothing but frustration. It should be no surprise that Jesus’ disciples are once again going to play the role of the Clampett family—convinced they understand what’s going on, but in reality hopelessly confused.

• Read Mark 9:1–13

In recounting the event of Jesus’ transfiguration, Mark connects it with the message Jesus had spoken just six days prior. He has promised that his kingdom will soon come in power, and now he’s going to give his “inner inner circle” of disciples (Peter, James, and John) a sneak peek of this future glory. They ascend a high mountain together, and there, the layers of Jesus’ humble earthiness are peeled away; his glory as the Son of God breaks through, and he shines bright like the sun. Even his clothes glow “intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them.” And to top it off, two of the most pivotal figures in Israelite history, Moses and Elijah, appear out of nowhere and begin holding a conversation with Jesus.

I’m not sure what Jesus’ three disciples were expecting to happen on that mountain, but this definitely exceeds it. They are unable to comprehend what is going on; it has overwhelmed their senses and they are petrified at first. Finally, Peter shouts at Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” Mark tells us what’s going on in his head: “He did not know what to say, for they were terrified.” Apparently, James and John are shocked into silence, but that’s not the way Peter handles the unimaginable. When he is flabbergasted, Peter responds by blurting out the first thing that pops into his mind. I guess he just wants to be useful.

Now at this point, the purpose of the transfiguration is revealed. A cloud envelops the mountaintop, and a divine voice speaks to them, saying, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” The cloud lifts, and the glory vanishes; only Jesus remains with them, as he was before. He leads them down the mountain and warns them not to speak of this event until he has “risen from the dead.” Until then, any announcement of Jesus’ glory is premature. This is the main reason why Jesus orders people to keep quiet about him—his glory is not to be fully revealed until he has died and risen again.

Once again, his disciples miss the point. When they caught a glimpse of his glory, and it was announced that he was the “beloved Son” of God, they should have understood that this was a wake-up call for them, intended to shock them out of their spiritual dullness. The transfiguration ended with the words, “Listen to him!” But they aren’t. They’re “questioning what this rising from the dead might mean” even though Jesus had said plainly what it means—that he will have to suffer first before his glorious kingdom comes (8:31).

Yes, Jesus’ disciples have misinterpreted the transfiguration. They’re high on what they’ve just seen; they’re convinced that the Messiah has come in glory, about to usher in a holy and righteous Jewish empire. Jesus’ predictions that the Messiah will suffer, die, and rise from the dead are just anomalous data points that his disciples have chosen to ignore. They only have one nagging doubt, which they bring up to Jesus: “Why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?” They’d just caught a glimpse of Elijah, but he hasn’t been traveling around Judea to prepare the people for the coming Messiah.

Jesus affirms what the Jewish teachers have been saying: “Elijah does come first to restore all things”—just as the prophet Malachi said (Malachi 3:5–6). But then he redirects the conversation, asking, “How is it written of the Son of Man that he should suffer many things and be treated with contempt?” That’s what the disciples are choosing to ignore, refusing to listen to Jesus. “But I tell you that Elijah has come,” Jesus says, “and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written of him.” With this curveball, Jesus shatters any last hope of a glorious political Messiah. In the Old Testament, Elijah suffered greatly, and the next “Elijah” suffered as well; he was John the Baptist, and he was beheaded by Herod. And the same will happen to the Son of Man, the Messiah.

This is the death knell for the “glory story” of those who promise prosperity and success in this life to you and me. If you are a disciple of Jesus, “Your Best Life Now” will not happen, not yet; anyone who promises it to you is deaf to what Jesus says. Jesus came to suffer, and to follow him (8:34) means that we will, too. Until we are raised to life again in glory, we will share the pain and hardship of our Lord. Expect nothing less.

• Read Mark 8:31–9:1

Today’s passage overlaps a bit with the passage we studied last week, because really it’s all one long story that we’re examining a piece at a time. After eight chapters in which Jesus’ divine authority is on display, his disciples begin to understand what’s going on. Peter realizes, “You are the Christ!” So finally we’re getting somewhere. Jesus is the king, anointed by God, whom the prophets had said would come to rescue Israel.

Unfortunately for Peter’s dreams of a glorious political kingdom, Jesus announces that his mission is to suffer, be rejected, be killed, and rise again. That doesn’t exactly fit into his disciples’ mindset of what glory looks like, so Peter takes him aside to rebuke him. But Jesus turns the tables on Peter and chews him out, calling him Satan and telling him, “You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”

Now, I think most of us would agree that what Peter said was wrong. But why does Jesus come down so hard on him? Well, we’re about to find out, because Jesus won’t let this teaching moment slip by. There’s a crowd following him and his disciples, so he calls them all together and tells them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

Apparently, Jesus isn’t trying to be Mr. Popular.

Remember from a while back that to be a disciple of Jesus means that you need to be with Jesus and you need to imitate him. To be with Jesus, you need to know who he is—that he’s the Messiah. To imitate him, you need to know his mission, and his mission is to fulfill all that God the Father has in store for him—his suffering, rejection, death, and resurrection. He has come to submit to God’s will. Now, Jesus is also calling his followers to submit. He tells them that they need to deny themselves; they don’t get to choose for themselves how they will live. Every disciple must “take up his cross.” This is a vivid and repulsive image in the mind of the crowd. They’ve seen crucifixions take place at the hand of their Roman overlords. The main point of crucifixion isn’t to torture a person to death; it’s to present that person as a public spectacle of what happens when you defy the might of Rome. A man going to his crucifixion would be led through crowded streets, bearing the crossbar of his own cross. On his public death march, he is no longer acting as a rebel; Rome has won, and he has submitted to its authority. In the same way, Jesus is telling his disciples, “If you want to follow me, you must join me, abandoning your old mindsets and old ways of life. You must come alongside me in absolute submission to God.”

Now, that’s a tough pill to swallow, so Jesus tells us why it’s necessary. “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Counterintuitively, a disciple must give up his entire life to God in order to save it. Like the oil in the jar of the prophet’s widow (2 Kings 4:1–7), it can’t be renewed unless it’s entirely poured out. A disciple can’t hold back a few corners of his life for himself. He can’t play it safe. He must devote himself exclusively to his Lord, take risks for him, wear himself out with the Lord’s work. If he tries to hold back, he’ll give up the very life he’s been trying to keep for himself, because God will take it away from him.

You’ll lose your life if you try to keep it for yourself; you’ll save it if you let it go. Jesus explains this paradox: “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” If you keep yourself back from God, it won’t be gain at all, even if you got all the approval and money and comfort and pleasure and self-esteem you could dream of. You’ll lose your soul, and you won’t be able to get it back. “For what can a man give in return for his soul?” Jesus asks, and the answer is, “Nothing.” All that honor and luxury you’ve gained won’t be enough to buy it back.

Why can’t you buy back your soul? Jesus warns, “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.” You can’t buy your soul back because Jesus will be too embarrassed to be seen with you. He’ll be too ashamed to be around someone who prefers “this adulterous and sinful generation” to “the glory of his Father” and the presence of “the holy angels.” No amount of contaminated money or worthless prestige that you can offer will ever wallpaper over that shame. Jesus can’t be bribed.

But then, Jesus delivers a guarantee to the crowd. “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.” Jesus won’t allow you to buy your way into his kingdom; he offers it freely. And there are some in that crowd who will consider the cost and still choose to be his disciples. And three of them are about to catch a glimpse of the King with his veil removed and his glory revealed. This kingdom is of supreme worth, more valuable than any earthly kingdom.

So Jesus has come to submit himself to his Father’s will, and his disciples are called to do the same. If you tend to be a self-ambitious person, Jesus is warning you not to seek earthly glory but to submit to God, devote yourself to him, and in this way receive the glory of his kingdom. If you tend to be a lazy person, Jesus is warning you to stop holding back and to start pouring yourself out for God. Go all in. And then…then you’ll begin to see a radiant sliver of the glory that awaits you.

Real friendships take work. They take investment. You usually have to maintain them over time. Keeping someone as your friend is an active process; you have to, like, spend time with people and talk with them. On the other hand, to lose a friend, all you really have to do is…nothing. Just don’t keep in contact, and over time you’ll drift apart.

Facebook friendships are the opposite. They take no work. They take no investment. You don’t have to maintain them over time. Keeping someone as your friend is a passive process; you’ll stay friends forever as long as neither of you does anything. On the other hand, to lose a friend, you have to hunt for the obscure “Remove from Friends” link on their profile page, click it, confirm that you don’t want to be friends anymore, and then wait for the other person to send an angry message demanding to know why you removed him or her from your friends list.

Notice how that’s not the way real friendships work.

For this reason, it’s impossible for your “Friends” list on Facebook to accurately reflect your real friendships, even if you do your best to maintain that list (as I do). Facebook encourages a false and shallow model of friendship. And that’s why Facebook is singlehandedly responsible for the decline of Western civilization. Yeah, that’s gotta be it.

• Read Mark 8:22–33

What’s interesting is that Mark introduces this story with another healing account. Jesus shows up at the town of Bethsaida, where a blind man is brought to him. He leads the blind man out of the village, spits in his eyes (!), and lays his hands on him. Then, instead of pronouncing a word of healing, Jesus asks him a question: “Do you see anything?”

Now, coming where it does in Mark’s account of Jesus’ life, this question is not just posed to the blind man. Jesus has rebuked his disciples for their spiritual dullness, asking them, “Having eyes do you not see?…Do you not yet understand?” (Mark 8:18, 21). This time, he’s questioning a physically blind man about his sight.

The man looks around and replies, “I see men, but they look like trees, walking.” His sight has only been partially restored. Now, this is a surprise! Jesus has cast out demons, calmed a windstorm, walked on water, and raised a girl from the dead; yet here, the blind man’s sight hasn’t been fully restored. Why not? Why does Jesus choose to give the man partial, distorted eyesight before he finishes healing him?

Our answers come at once. The scene shifts to the road leading to the Roman colony of Caesarea Philippi. Jesus has begun quizzing his disciples. “Who do people say that I am?” he asks. They report the speculation that has been swirling around Galilee: “John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others, one of the prophets.” In the popular opinion, Jesus is a great man, perhaps even one of the great prophets. He could even be the second coming of Elijah, a forerunner to the Messiah, God’s anointed king who is to reign over Israel.

Even today, people from all religions and ethnic backgrounds seem to respect Jesus. They agree that he’s a great teacher, a righteous man, possibly even a prophet. But is Jesus satisfied with this response?

The next question Jesus asks his disciples is a lot more personal. He isn’t interested so much in what other people think of him. He wants to know what each of his disciples is thinking. Jesus demands a response from each and every person. “But who do you say that I am?” he asks them, and you and I must consider this question as well and give him our answer.

In his customary manner, Peter blurts out, “You are the Christ!” And at once, everything changes. Now the veil has been removed. Peter and the other disciples have been observing Jesus’ divine and exclusive authority, and they’ve followed the bread crumbs to the only reasonable conclusion: this man is the long-awaited Messiah, sent from God. Like the blind man from Bethsaida, they’re finally able to see the truth. Jesus is more than just a great man, and he won’t settle for that label.

What’s funny is that Jesus strictly orders his disciples to keep his identity a secret. Remember that he asked the blind man to stay out of the village as well, rather than reporting the news of his healing. This has been a consistent pattern throughout the gospel of Mark. Why doesn’t Jesus want the general public to know he is the Christ? Well, again our answers come at once.

In a shocking turn of events, Jesus finally reveals to his disciples what he, the Messiah, has come to do. He hasn’t come to overthrow the Roman government and set up an independent Jewish state. He hasn’t come to reestablish the law of Moses or to bring social justice to the beleaguered people of Israel. Instead, he has come to suffer, to be rejected by the Jewish leaders, and then to be killed. And though Jesus also predicts that he will be raised to life again, Peter is so shocked by the idea of a suffering and dying Messiah that he doesn’t seem to notice this final prophecy. He takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him. Jesus has it all wrong! The Messiah is a conquering hero, not a suffering wretch! How are they supposed to follow a man who offers only these gloomy delusions? What about the victorious life all the televangelists are promising? (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one.)

Jesus looks over at the rest of his disciples. They’re watching to see what he will say; no doubt Peter is speaking for all of them. So when Jesus chews out Peter, he’s speaking to them as well. “Get behind me, Satan!” he orders him. “For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” In trying to derail Jesus’ mission, Peter is sounding an awful lot like Satan. He has his own plan for how Jesus should be glorified, but it isn’t God’s plan.

Like the blind man at Bethsaida, Peter and his fellow disciples aren’t seeing clearly. They do at least recognize that Jesus is the Christ, but they are confused about what that means. They don’t understand that he is to be a suffering Messiah, who will give his life “as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). As Edwards puts it, they’ve moved from non-understanding to misunderstanding. That’s why Jesus wants them to keep quiet about who he is. Lies circulating about him are bad enough; half-truths are even worse.

The story of the blind man helps us understand what the Holy Spirit is teaching us through this passage. Jesus doesn’t want us to misunderstand who he is. Yes, he is the Christ, and you and I can’t really know him unless we believe that. But neither can we know Jesus unless we understand what his mission is. And that’s what Mark will be explaining as he continues his story.