1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The mystery of the cross holds everything together. In our Gospel lesson today from Mark 9, Jesus takes that which is overlooked and unappreciated and celebrates this child as the place where God is at work. Today in the message from God’s Word from Mark 9:30-37, for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost, “Jesus Teaches Us What is Great,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. In 1502, Raphael painted, “Madonna and Child with Book.” It’s a simple painting. Nature and the civilized world fill the background, while Mary and the baby Jesus dominate the foreground. Mary and Jesus are intimately close. But, rather than feed Him with milk, Mary hands Jesus a book. The act is strange. In an age when books were a precious commodity, why would you hand one to a child, a baby for that matter? Jesus is too young to read. What can He do with it? But, Jesus receives the book from his mother, even pulling it closer to Him with His hand. If you look closely at the painting, you will notice the book Mary hands Jesus is a personal prayerbook. Not only that, but she has also opened the book to a particular page and placed her thumb on it. The page is for the office of prayer at the ninth hour; 3 pm. It’s the hour Jesus died.
3. Suddenly past, present, and future are woven together in this painting. Mary hands Jesus a prayerbook from the future where the Church remembers His passion. Jesus, still a baby, receives the book in His present before His passion occurs. God the Father’s promise of salvation, to forgive sin and to defeat Satan, is the past which holds it all together. God’s saving promise from the past is joined to the infant Jesus of the present through this prayerbook of the future. The mystery of the cross holds all of it together.
4. I thought of Raphael’s painting when I read our passage from Mark’s gospel. Jesus is handing His disciples a teaching (Mark 9:32) which they don’t understand. He says in Mark 9:31, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” But, within the teaching is the mystery of the cross that will shape their lives and ours.
5. At this point in Mark, the disciples have witnessed the amazing ministry of Jesus. He has healed the sick, cast out demons, walked on water, fed thousands of people, both Jews (the five thousand) and Gentiles (the four thousand), and raised the dead. He has brought the beginning of the Kingdom of God to earth. But, it would be easy for them to misunderstand the Kingdom of God. The disciples could see God’s Kingdom as a present deliverance from all evil, the temporal reign of peace and prosperity on earth.
6. Such misconceptions are still present today. Some believe God is to be tested by the amount of good He brings. Prayers becomes wishes for God to answer and should suffering come, then people are tempted to walk away. But, Jesus, opens His disciples’ eyes to a deeper meaning of the Kingdom of God. Jesus confronts them with the deepest mystery of His Kingdom: Jesus came to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Suffering will not be avoided by Jesus but strangely and lovingly embraced. Through His suffering, Jesus will bring life out of death, light out of darkness, and forgiveness of sins for you from His death on the cross. No wonder Jesus is letting His disciples know in advance. This mystery changes how we see our lives on earth.
7. It’s important for us to know the context of what is taking place here in Mark 9. Jesus’ disciples were coming off a letdown. In a village a few miles back, they had not been able to cast out a demon possessing a young boy. They were frustrated because our Lord had commissioned them to heal the sick and to cast out demons (Mk 6:7–13). But for a much-afflicted boy, they were helpless. They couldn’t get it done. Jesus salvaged the situation. By his great power, he drove away the demon. The Lord rescued the boy and restored him to his parents. After that incident, Jesus went on with his disciples through the territory of Galilee. They were on foot. The disciples couldn’t easily move beyond their frustration and embarrassment in that recent village. They couldn’t cope with that letdown. It was more soothing to think about the powers they had been given and had used. It was great, and they began to discuss who among them was the greatest.
8. Their conversation was taking a wrong turn. Some distance into their journey, Jesus reminded them he was on another journey of servanthood. Not many days ahead, the Son of Man would be delivered into the hands of men. He wouldn’t resist, and they would kill him. And when he was killed, after three days he would rise again (Mark 9:31). The disciples didn’t understand, and they were fearful to ask further with Jesus about the meaning of his “death talk and walk,” the cross, suffering, and dying (Mark 9:32).
9. It’s interesting how Mark tells us they argued about this (Mark 9:34) and yet, when questioned by Jesus, they remain silent. This is a debate they were passionate about and yet didn’t want to share with their Lord and teacher. Discerning that which is great is not something prohibited for us. No. We need to know what is great. It helps us shape our lives, set our priorities, gauge our service. But, trying to discern that which is great without talking to Jesus is a problem. In this world, greatness isn’t self-evident.
10. The ancient mind had a fixation. The German expositor Adolf Schlatter remarks: “At all points, in worship, in the administration of justice, at meals, in all dealings, there constantly arose the question who was the greater, and estimating the honor due to each was a task which had constantly to be fulfilled and was felt to be very important” (Adolf Schlatter, Der Evangelist Matthäus [Stuttgart, 1935], 543)
11. We know how the ancient mind worked. We know because nothing is more aggravating than taking number 39 in the lobby of the Post Office when the person being served at the counter holds number 26. Such frustration when others get ahead of us is called the Type A personality. We’re agitated when people get ahead on their personality or their good looks or their gender while we work and hone skills and gain experience only to be passed over. “Nice guys finish last,” we grumble and complain, because we want to finish first, we desire to be waited on, we want the promotion, the better pay, we want to advance. We want to be first.
12. For this reason, Jesus intervenes in a conversation to which He wasn’t invited and shines the light of the cross upon that conversation. He sets a child in their midst. He takes that which is overlooked and unappreciated and celebrates this child as the place where God is at work. Jesus says in Mark 9:35 & 37, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all… Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.”
13. How disarming of the fattened ego, is such a child. Whoever receives, listens, and fulfills the need and serves a little child, says Jesus, serves me, and the heavenly Father who sent me. The child is Jesus’ object for learning the lesson of true greatness, becoming last and the servant of all. The child is unassuming. He has needs, wants. You can’t ignore his cries. And the little child, once you do for him what needs to be done, once you serve him, will he ever repay or return the favor? No! So soon the little one forgets and merely goes his way. And there you are—having worked, provided, given, you get no thanks because you dared to place yourself last and the child first. But the person who does just this for a child honors our Lord and our heavenly Father who sent him (Mark 9:37).
14. In the Kingdom of God, that which is least becomes greatest, that which is last becomes first. When the Lord whom you follow is one who was crucified, there is no one so small and no act so humble it can’t be filled with the greatness of God. Such is the power of the cross. God works in mysterious ways.
15. In our churches today, Christ still comes to remind us of the power of the cross. One way He does this is during a baptism. At the baptism of an infant, Jesus places a child in our midst. When the pastor receives the child from his or her parents, he does something strange. He makes the sign of the cross on the child’s forehead and chest. This child is marked as one redeemed by Christ the crucified.
16. Past, present, and future come together in this moment. The past work of Christ, forgiving our sins and claiming us as God’s children, is brought to the present as this child is received into the Church and marked as one of the redeemed. The future of this child is then promised to be one of experiencing God’s greatness. Though the child may not receive honors in this world, though the child may be shamed and dishonored because he or she is a Christian, this child will live in the greatness of grace, the mystery of the cross.
17. As Jesus said earlier in Mark, “If anyone would come after Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me” (Mark 8:45). Regardless of what comes, God’s grace guarantees that this child’s life of humble service will be one small part of the great works of God. Amen. Now the peace of God, that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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