Then He Took a Child
Seventeenth Sunday After Pentecost
Jesus’ face was turned toward Jerusalem; he was on his way to meet death. Things were different now. He didn't want to mingle with crowds; he wanted to go deep with his friends, to teach them the most important lessons at all. Time was short and the days were desperate. Jesus knew if he didn’t get his message across to these twelve, his mission had failed. He was desperate to see some measure of understanding in the disciples’ eyes.
“The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.” Jesus scanned their faces—there was a traitor among them, and he knew it. “They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.” He announced it as fact, a warning, maybe even as an appeal.
Not a glimmer of insight showed on the faces of his friends. His words didn’t fit their plans or dreams; they grew quiet and began to fidget. The Master’s sense of gloom, his talk of death, cast a shadow on them all. They were like a patient who receives a dreaded word from the doctor: “We’ve found something in your x-rays…” There are times when you don’t want to know more.
“They did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.” Fear kept the disciples from asking hard questions. Peter already made one attempt to manage Jesus, and earned the name “Satan” for his trouble. Maybe it was just easier to keep quiet. If they could have worked up the courage, what questions do you suppose the disciples might have asked?
Why must you suffer? What kind of a Messiah dies? Will you leave us? What will happen to us?
Pause for a moment and ask yourself: What questions am I afraid to ask of Jesus?
Jesus’ frustration bubbled out after they found a place in Capernaum to spend the night. “What were you arguing about on the road?” he asked them, and a guilty silence filled the room. They glanced at one other, hoping someone would come up with a decent answer. On the road they had been working out seating arrangements for the ticker tape parade that awaited them when they hit Jerusalem with the Messiah in tow. They had squabbled over who got the office next to the boss, who was the alpha disciple? You can almost hear Jesus pray: “O Lord, how can the keys of the Kingdom be entrusted to these guys?”
Do you demand proper respect? Do you enjoy the titles and trappings of your position? Are you driven to succeed in your field, to rise to greater levels of authority or respect? Do you long for recognition, fame, wealth, security? Does being stuck where you are stick in your craw?
If so, join the circle of the twelve. It may be hard to find a place; everyone is elbowing in for the best seats. The morning session has already begun.
He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, "Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all." Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, "Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me."