Are You Astonished at His Words?

"And the disciples were greatly astonished at His words..." Mk. 10:24
Jesus had just watched the Rich Young Ruler walk away from His invitation to follow Him. Then, listen to what He tells His disciples: "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the Kingdom of God..." We should be astonished at these words too. Here in America we call ourselves His disciples, and yet we are so rich. Oh yeah, we are rich. Even the poor in America is richer than most of the rest of the world. If you have a car you are among the top percentage of the rich in the world. We depend on so many other things: cars to take us places; health care; insurance; houses with heat and air conditioning; big box stores to provide us with food. There are so many things that we simply take for granted. Could it be that these are the very things that keep us from truly experiencing the Kingdom of God. Earlier in this chapter Jesus said in order to enter the Kingdom of God we must become like a little child. Think about it. A child is dependant; a child has not ammassed a great deal of material possessions; a child has no daytimer or blackberry to dictate his schedule; a child must trust another to take care of her. Aren't you astonished at His words? Or do they just float over you like so many sermons you have heard in the past? We ought to be challenged by them. But no, we like our stuff. And, we have heard enough messages designed to make us feel better in our state of material comfort. "You can have your stuff," we are told, "as long as your stuff doesn't have you." How do I know if stuff has me or not? I must experience being without it for awhile. But really, what if it was true, that it really is more difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom than for a camel to go through the eye of the needle? In the "eye of the needle" only a camel can go through -- anything carried on its back will fall off. The question hangs in the air like dust mites in a sunbeam: Do we really want to enter the Kingdom of God, or are we content to live in the Kingdom of Comfort?

Encountering Eternal Life

In Mark chapter 10 a rich young ruler came seeking eternal life, i.e., the kind of life a rich young man in authority would envision living. Someone who is young and rich and has ruling authority might envision one type of life, but Jesus seems to have other things in mind. First Jesus questions the young man's definition of the word "good". What is good to Jesus? Or perhaps a better question might be, Who is good? Don't you just love how Jesus answers questions with questions? Listen to what He says: "Why do you call me good? No one is good but One, that is God." First let's define our terms, Jesus seems to be saying. What is it exactly that you mean by these things? Jesus could have just as easily asked: "What do you mean by eternal life?" This is what the young rich man was seeking. LIsten to his question: "What must I do to get eternal life?" Well, Jesus might be asking, what exactly do you mean by eternal life? Are you talking about a life that continues on pretty much as you live it now? If so, then this is not the type of life I can offer you. Eternal life is not just some duration of time in which we live some kind of ideal existence. Eternal life is a person. Read 1 John chapter 1:1-3, see for yourself. Jesus is eternal life. Jesus offers Himself. And to get Him we must not have anything that gets in the way. Listen: "Sell all you have and give it to the poor, you'll have treasure in heaven, then come follow me." We can't follow Jesus with stuff dragging behind us. We can't have eternal life while weighed down with our stuff.

Losing My Life

"For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the Gospel's will save it." Mark 8:35

It's hard to lose something when we are consciously trying to lose it. I can hide something from myself -- but alas, I know where I hid it. I try to hide money from myself so that I will not spend it, but, since I know where I hid it, I will go right to it in a pinch. How do I lose my life? One way is to be so involved in something else that I forget my self. What about pain and suffering? Does this help me lose my life? Is that what Jesus it talking about? Pain and suffering only causes me to think more about my life. A tooth that does not hurt is a tooth whose existence is unknown, but a tooth in pain only asserts itself all the more.

Love will cause me to forget myself-- love that thinks about someone else. There is a love that is a selfish love-- a needy love; a love that desires to be loved because of pain. But, the love that causes one to forget oneself; to "lose one's life" in love -- that is the kind of love that applies to what Jesus says here. A love that finds its fulfilment in following Jesus. A love that is not for one's own sake but for the sake of another, namely, Christ and His Gospel.

Ok, now, what is the Gospel? It is, according to Paul, the "power of God for salvation..." There is a power that God shows in miracles; for awesome things like parting the Red Sea. This power may make us say "wow," but does it lead to a lasting inner change? How quickly we forget the miracles. But the Gospel is the power that works inside a person for genuine change -- for real, continuing change.