Jesus isn't shy about telling us His fate in the gospel of Mark. In a forthright way, He tells that will endure suffering, and even death as He fulfills God's plan to redeem mankind. The tense used reflects the definite nature of God's plan. "Delivered up" also carries the connotation that ultimately Jesus' arrest, trial, and death are the activity of God.
On the heels of this proclamation the disciples miss the point, and they miss it by a mile. Jesus has just told them about what it is he must suffer, and the next thing we know the disciples are arguing over status and who is the greatest! Lest we be too judgmental, it is important to remember that as disciple's of Christ, we ourselves often forget that if we truly follow Jesus suffering and sacrifice will be involved. Jesus tells them that "if anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all." God's kingdom, the kingdom inaugurated by Christ clearly works in ways diametrically opposed to the ways of this world. Gaining power in our world today requires the backing of the people, but that is usually gained through some of the most self-promoting, and at times dishonest ways possible. It wasn't much different in Jesus' day, and in the next chapter of Mark Jesus will expound on what it means to become last and a servant of all:
“And Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” - Mark 10:42-45
Jesus statement clearly resonates down through the teaching of the church, as Polycarp, a martyr and leader of the church in Smyrna states that, "likewise must the deacons be blameless…walking according to the truth of the Lord, who was ‘the servant of all’", in his Letter to the Philippians. Deacons, as servants of the church were to model their attitude and behavior after the Lord Himself. To drive home His point, Jesus uses a child as an example of what He is trying to say. In Palestinian society, a child would have represented a non-entity. They would have no status, no legal protection, and would be completely at the mercy of those around them. In our service, Jesus is calling us to a sort of vulnerability that is uncomfortable, and yet necessary if our faith is going to flourish. Jesus made Himself vulnerable, and so we must as well. I like the way theologian Ernest Best sums it up:
"What does it then mean to follow Jesus? It means to drop in behind him, to be ready to go to the cross as he did, to write oneself off in terms of any kind of importance, privilege or right, and to spend one's time only in the service of the needs of others."
While it seems impossible that the disciples could misinterpret Jesus statement about humility and serving others, it clearly didn't sink all the way in, or at least not right away. My the end of the passage, they've gone from arguing about who is the greatest, to arguing over who is in charge, and who gets the credit. The disciples see someone casting out demons in Jesus' name and it perturbs them, largely because "he was not following us." Their pride is wounded, as they see someone else doing the very thing they couldn't do earlier in this chapter, cast out demons. Their frustration reveals more than their wounded pride, it also reveals that to some extent, they were following Jesus for their own glory. The glorification of Christ should always be our first priority. To that extent, rather than lament that others successes are not our own, we should rejoice when Christ is being given the glory. A similar thing happened to Moses during the Exodus:
"Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, 'Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.' And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, 'My lord Moses, stop them.' But Moses said to him, 'Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!'" – Numbers 11:26-29
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all have an attitude like Moses? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could put aside our self-seeking attitudes, and boldly pray that the Lord would put his Spirit on all of his people? In order to pray that prayer and to truly mean it, I think we have to take Jesus' words to heart and become as little children. In the words of Ernest Best we have to "be ready to go to the cross...to write oneself off in terms of any kind of importance, privilege or right, and to spend one's time only in the service of the needs of others." Only in the process of doing so will we come to the realization that it isn't about us, but about Christ's glory.
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