5th Week of Lent

Mon. – Mark 9:30-41
Tue. – Mark 9:42-50
Wed. – Mark 10:1-13
Thurs. – Mark 10:17-31
Fri. – Mark 10:32-45
Sat. – Mark 10:46-52

In our liturgical time, and in the time of Mark's Gospel, the cross looms. With the healing of blind Bartimaeus on Saturday, Jesus will enter Jerusalem, just as we will enter Jerusalem next Sunday and begin the death march. Ain't that cheery. Jesus knows that, and tells his disciples that in today's reading. But those who want to follow his way are either too dense, or too frightened, to understand what he's telling them. I suspect that it's the latter. They have given their lives to Jesus, and don't want Jesus to abandon them.

So, much of Jesus's "last will and testament" to his followers is centered on the importance of community, or to use a more churchy word, communion. We can't follow Jesus on our own, we all need each other. On Monday, we hear that we don't just need the powerful but the children as well, because it is through the children that we see Jesus's trust in his Father. Husbands and wives need each other. Children need their parents. We don't, contrary to the Rich Man, need money. But we do need to be mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers to each other.

Money and power will be of no comfort on our death beds. What will be of comfort is if we are not alone. And also the assurance that what we have "done and left undone," has been forgiven and forgotten by the Dad (or "Abba") of us all, through Jesus Christ who "came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many" (10:45). He who knew no comfort on the cross will be our comfort. Thanks be to God!