Day 26 : Mark 9:14 – 32
If you can?
Following on from yesterday, one hymn reads,
‘Stay, Master, stay, upon this heavenly hill; a little longer, let us linger still’. It goes on: ‘No! says the Lord, the hour is past, we go; our home, our life, our duties lie below’.
Ordinary everyday life is the place of following Jesus, yet sometimes would-be followers of Jesus falter!
Perhaps there might be a temptation to seek the ‘glory’ moments rather than the calling of the valley and everyday life. We cannot stay in those places, as there is the business of following Jesus in our daily experience. Sometimes, just like those disciples of old, we do not always fully understand the way of Jesus.
In this passage we read of a man seeking healing for his son, and of the disciples in the valley below trying to defend themselves. Jesus replies by addressing this ‘faithless generation’ (NRSVA). Is Jesus talking about the disciples? The father? The Pharisees? The crowd in general? In a sense they all misunderstand who Jesus is.
Despite Peter’s ‘confession’ in Chapter 8, there’s still an inability to understand what Jesus being a Saviour would mean. Verses 30-32 make it clear that there will be suffering and sacrifice, albeit leading to resurrection.
I do not know about you, but for me, there is some sense of reassurance in seeing these followers of Jesus flounder; we know that many of them became the foundation of the early church. We too, like them, must learn the ways of understanding Jesus.
