191. Argument

Short Meditations in Mark’s Gospel: 191. Argument

Mk 9:33,34   They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.

Sometimes we say or do things that we think we get away with, but God has a habit of waiting until the time is right before confronting us with our misdemeanours! The truth is that God loves us and so at some point WILL confront us with our bad attitudes or our wrong thinking. On a bright sunny day when everything is going well, we may think we’ve made it, that we are good Christians perfect in every way. Well, the Bible does say the heart is deceitful above all things (Jer 17:9). So there we are thinking that everything is fine when the Lord turns up with circumstances that face us with our bad attitude etc. and we suddenly find we are having to face an unpleasant truth about ourselves and repentance is the only way out.

As the disciples had travelled along the road, I can only assume that Jesus was either a bit ahead or behind the main group of them, perhaps talking with someone while the rest of them talked about things that had happened. Whether Peter, James and John had been basting about being special, having been chosen by Jesus to go up the Mount of Transfiguration with him, or whether there were other instances not recorded where different ones had been ‘used by God’, we just don’t know, but we do know that “they had argued about who was the greatest.”  The more we are involved in what we glibly call “Christian service” the more there is the temptation to think we are different, special, above others who are only doing “secular jobs”. There is always a grace temptation in the kingdom of God to compare ourselves with others – and to elevate ourselves. When God turns up and uses us in some particular way so that we have a special ‘testimony’ there is this same temptation to elevate ourselves above others. We can carry on thinking like this, thinking that we are special until one day Jesus has the conversation with us. “Oh, by the way, my son or my daughter….”

And when Jesus asks a question, such as, “What were you arguing about on the road?” realise that he already knows the answer! So why is he asking the question? That’s his gentle way of confronting you with the problem you have in your life, it’s his way of getting you to face it, because the moment he asks, you know the answer, and the moment you know the answer, you know that the thing was wrong. You may have covered it up or settled with the idea, but suddenly, now Jesus has asked, you know it was wrong. Time for repentance.