04-02-25

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
April 2, 2025
In Mark 9, we have one of the Passion Predictions, or to say it another way, Jesus tells his followers where this story is headed. Jesus said to them, “‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him (vs. 31-32). Jesus points to that part of the story that we already know, though imagine hearing Mark’s Gospel being read aloud, and it is the first time you’ve ever heard the Jesus story. “What! Are you kidding me! He dies? That can’t be true.” Of course, what is often missed is the meaning of the phrase, “The Son of Man.” For far too long, people have read it as a title exclusive to Jesus, and though that’s sort of true, we cannot miss the primary purpose of those words. A better translation could be “The Ideal Human,” thus implying that Jesus is setting a standard, or what might be understood as an expectation of those who claim to follow Jesus. And so, to speak of Jesus as the Son of Man, and in the same breath claim oneself as a follower of Jesus, then it only comes to reason that as a follower of the Ideal Human, we must take seriously what it means to give it all away. Now don’t get nervous! This is not where I make a pitch for you to send me $10,000 and God will repay you 20 fold. But what does it mean when Jesus told his disciples, and in doing so, told us how the Son Man will go through miserable suffering for no other reason than he loved at such an extraordinary level that the systems of the world felt threatened. What would it look like for the systems of the world to be threatened today by that kind of love? Where would that threat come from? I think the answer is baked into the story.

I first learned about you, Amazing God, when I learned that Jesus loved me. And then I learned about the responsibility that I am accepting when I claim to be a disciple of the one they called the Son of Man. In your grace, help me to strive toward such an ideal. Amen.