Funu... 260626-29 Mark 10:1-31
If you are a stickler for detail, you probably noticed that Mark’s account does not align in its chronology with other contemporary guys who also wrote Gospels you may have read. This is because writers in that day were far less concerned with “first, next, and then” issues than we tend to be. They were concerned with getting the point across about what they saw as a cogent story. If an incident fit better in one place than another, that’s where it went. The overall story is true, and the Gospels are all consistent with one another, even though they are not verbatim copies of one another.
At the beginning of the tenth chapter of the Gospel according to Mark (another format that is often used as the name of each of the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—in other words, Mark 10:1), Jesus has just finished telling his disciples that life as a Christian will be tough, and that God demands serious followers. (You don’t have to either suffer or be a goody-goody to become a Christian, and neither suffering nor doing good will earn you acceptance by God and eternal life, but this passage does not declare these things. What it does declare is that believers are expected to behave.) Jesus and his disciples had been walking through Galilee, in the northern part of Israel, but in this account they have gone south to Judea.
Crowds surround Jesus, teaching as he usually does (“as he was wont,” the narrator says in 1611-English), and some Pharisees come close to test him. “ ‘Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife?’ ” they ask him.
Maybe Jesus senses that they must be up to something, but his reply is a straightforward question. “ ‘What did Moses command you?’ ” Jesus points them back to the law of Moses, which they claim to be so concerned about.
Without explaining at great length how ancient customs kept women in low estate, as some cultures’ laws still do today, Moses’ law was revolutionary. A man can’t just put his wife away, in other words, divorce her, leaving her alone and economically devastated. The Pharisees know the Mosaic law very well: Marriage itself is not questioned, and to end it, a man has to go through a legal process, giving his wife at least some rights if he “puts her away.”
Jesus knows the law of Moses too, but he is above that law. He affirms that law, including the concept of marriage as between one man and one woman, and at the same time straightens out their understanding with a powerful declaration: “Moses wrote you this precept because of the hardness of your hearts,” he states. “From the beginning of creation God made mankind male and female. For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. They are no longer two, but one flesh.” Jesus tells us it is God’s best purpose not to have divorce at all—to work things out—but because people are so corrupted in our fallen world that Jewish law—yes, given by God through Moses—allows divorce under certain conditions, and with restrictions that protect women. The question of spouse abuse is not addressed here, and based on principles that have been fleshed out in the centuries since Jesus spoke these words, it is surprising only that it took hundreds of years for Western civilization to decide that husbands are wrong to treat their wives (or anyone, for that matter) poorly.
Question: However the laws may treat marriage and the rights of women where you live, how do they stack up against Mosaic law, and against Jesus’ illumination of it? How about laws of other modern-day culture? What would Jesus say about this question in today’s world?
In verse 10, Jesus’ disciples ask him for help understanding this question. Jesus explains, “Whoever divorces (puts away) his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her (his original wife). And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” This may seem to be a tough standard to meet, especially in our American culture where “no-fault” divorce for any reason is acceptable. Beyond presenting Jesus’ perspective on marriage, look what has happened in this passage: Jesus makes his authority greater than that of the prophet Moses, and his interpretation of the law more valid than the law of Moses itself, let alone the Pharisees’ traditions about it.
Mark changes the scene. They (who, parents?) bring children to him. In many cultures, respect for children is even lower than for women. Jesus has been having adult conversations with other adults, serious stuff that children have no say about. The idea that the unity of a husband and wife is one of the greatest advantages a child can have, was as foreign to many then as it is to many now. “ ‘Just let him put his hands on them to bless them,’ ” they asked, but Jesus’ disciples rebuked them, turned them away.
“ ‘Suffer [allow] the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not,’ ” Jesus commands, “for of such is the kingdom of God.” Jesus seizes the opportunity to give a lesson. “Whoever doesn’t receive the kingdom of God like a little child will not enter it.” Here, Jesus declares that he has command over who gets into Heaven, at the same time he declares that being a hi-falutin’, sophisticated theological expert is not what it means to get right with God, but simply, like a child, folding yourself into the welcoming arms of God Himself. Jesus takes the children up in his arms, puts his hands on their heads or shoulders, and blesses them.
As Jesus goes out and along his way, a man runs up to him, kneels down in a worshipful way, and asks, “ ‘Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ ”
Jesus cuts to the chase: “Why do you call me good? There is only one who is good, and that One is God.” Jesus isn’t denying that he is good; it’s more like he’s needling the man, letting him call him good, then pointing out that only God is truly good. But Jesus goes on, to the heart of this man’s crucial question. “You know the commandments [the law of Moses again]: Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Don’t cheat, Honor your father and mother. Jesus joins the man in affirming six of the ten commandments, which you can find in the Bible book Exodus, chapter 20, verses 12-17 (and in Deuteronomy 5:16-21). I notice that Jesus tells the man not to cheat, but the verse in Exodus is about coveting. Isn’t there a close connection between cheating and coveting other people’s stuff? Has Jesus pre-empted the original words on his own authority?
Another thing about the commandments Jesus recites is that all of them concern interpersonal matters—how we are to deal with others. He skips the first four commandments on the tablets God gave to Moses, which are focused on how we are to respond to and interact with God. Jesus presses on. He looks at the man, Mark tells us, and loved him. “You lack but one thing,” Jesus tells him, “Go on, sell everything you have and give it all to the poor, and you will have treasure in Heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow me.”
What’s this about taking up the cross? Remember, the Romans were the Colonial masters, and under their laws colonials who committed crimes could be flogged or executed, as both punishment and to demonstrate Rome’s power, and you had better not break any of Rome’s laws. To execute someone, the Romans could chop off their head, but the more public—as well as the cruelest—form of execution was hanging or nailing the criminal to a cross made out of wooden beams, hoisting it up where all could see, and letting the criminal die a slow and painful death. This they called crucifixion, or crucifying. It was such a cruel punishment that it was against Roman law for Roman citizens to be crucified. To make it even worse and more public, the criminal was forced to pick up the cross and carry it from jail to the place he was to be executed. Anyone you saw who was carrying a cross was on his way to his own death. He knew it, and you knew it. So, taking up the cross illustrated a person’s surrender of any hope for a future, and that he would soon die.
I haven’t given all the gory and cruel details of this common Roman form of execution, but now you have some sense of what Jesus was asking, figuratively, for the man to do. And so does that man. Jesus tells him that the way to obtain eternal life is to sell and give away everything he has, then follow him, expecting no positive future. And the man is sad on hearing what Jesus tells him, Mark tells us, and goes away in grief, for he had great possessions.
Jesus looks around (I imagine with wetted eyes), and remarks to his disciples, “How hard it is for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” The disciples can’t make sense of this. Jesus explains: “It is so hard for people who trust in money to participate in the kingdom of God. It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to get into the kingdom of God.”
To the disciples, this is shocking beyond belief, and they ask each other, “In that case, who can be saved (from God’s wrath against sin)?”
Jesus lays out the truth: “Yes, it is impossible for people, but not for God, because anything is possible with God.”
Peter speaks up (in verse 28): “Hey, we have left everything, and we’re following you.” It looks to me as if he is trying to justify himself, using that man who wouldn’t give up all his wealth. But maybe he was honestly trying to make sense of this confusing teaching.
Jesus assures Peter, “ ‘there is no one who has left house, brothers or sisters, mother or father, children, or fields because of Me and the gospel, who lill not receive 100 times more, now at this time—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and eternal life I the age to come.’ ” Jesus promises great benefits, and at great cost, to those who follow him. Just think of the thousands who are being killed in Nigeria and other places, just because they are Christians. In a sense, Jesus does promise us a rose garden, but one with unavoidable thorns. “ ‘But many who are first,’ ” Jesus adds, “ ‘will be last, and the last first.’ ”
I think this means that there will be some ranking, some hierarchy, in God’s kingdom, but that He decides the ranking, and we do not. Getting and being in God’s kingdom will be of great reward, but, in this life at least, it will come at great cost.
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(Just a reminder: Scripture quotes are from the King James translation of 1611 (copyright expired) when the English language of Shakespeare’s time is not too archaic, as its beauty and familiar phrases demand. Verbatim quotes use quotation marks “like this.” When I paraphrase, I use italics like this; “Paraphrased speech in quotes.” I don’t always point out the chapter and verse, because each post usually deals with a short portion, and I trust that you as a reader will read Matthew’s and Mark’s original accounts for yourself; in case I do err, and misrepresent what the Bible actually says, I ask that you point that out to me so we can civilly discuss our different views.)
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