190. Explanation

Short Meditations in Mark’s Gospel: 190. Explanation

Mk 9:31,32   He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it.

We said in the previous meditation that the gospels don’t tell us what Jesus taught his disciples in such times away from the crowds but that is not strictly true – we just aren’t told much! What we are told is that on this occasion he started to tell them about what was going to happen to him when they reached Jerusalem, although he doesn’t actually mention Jerusalem but we now in hindsight that that was what he was referring to.

Note the clarity of Jesus’ understanding. He hasn’t just got this vague feeling that he is going to have to give his life; he is quite specific. His death will come about because he will be betrayed and given over to the authorities. That implies that someone is going to give him up to them. We say the ‘authorities’ because no one else had the power to take life and this doesn’t have the feel of just, “I will be murdered by lawless men.” No, this will be carried out by the authorities and they will kill him. But it won’t end there: after three days he will rise from the dead. Now if the first two statements – betrayal and death – were amazing enough, talk of resurrection was just way too much.

Whether it was the talk of resurrection or of the whole concept of being betrayed and then being killed, the disciples just couldn’t cope with this. After having watched him for three years being God’s blessing to that country, and being in total command of every situation, whether it meant walking away from hostile people (Lk 4:29,30) or calming storms (Lk 8:24), Jesus had been in control. There was no way this was all suddenly going to go pear shaped and get out of his control.  It takes quite a lot to comprehend how difficult it must have been for the disciples to understand this.

Perhaps we need to make this very personal. How often do we find it difficult to accept things that God says? If we live in the part of the Christian world that doesn’t believe in prophecy or ‘now’ words, this won’t apply to us, but how many of us have received words of love and acceptance from the Lord and thought, “Surely not.” Or how many of us have received words that spoke of great things in the future for us and thought, “Surely not, they must have got the wrong person.”

Jesus speaks of the things he plans to do in the future and, of course, they are things that only he can do and bring about and we need to remember that so that our answers may be like Mary’s, “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.” (Lk 1:38)