30They left that place and passed through Galilee. Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were, 31because he was teaching his disciples. He said to them, "The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise." 32But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it.
Who is Greatest?
33They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the road?" 34But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.
35Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all."
36He took a little child and had him stand among them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them, 37"Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."
BACKGROUND READING:
Jonah 1:17-3:10
Matthew 12:38-42
Luke 11:29-32
Dig Deeper
Shortly after graduating from college with a degree in secondary education, I was asked if, as a favor, I could come in and substitute teach at an elementary school for a day of summer school. I agreed and showed up the next day for my one-day as the third-grade teacher of the class. To this point, I had never worked with children of that age, and had no idea of what I was in for. Two particular incidents that I will highlight that day both involved unfortunate choices of language on my part. In one instance, an especially rowdy student asked if he could move his desk. I responded that he could take it wherever he wanted. On another occasion, a student asked me if they could get a pencil, to which I said, "sure, knock yourself out." On both occasions, the rambunctious little souls found it amusing to take my words quite literally.
A great deal of confusion and frustration can result if there is a misunderstanding between speaker and listener as to whether the message is to be received as literally or figuratively. This is the problem here as Jesus again tells his disciples that he will be killed and then raised from the dead. He has been speaking so often to them in parables, that when he does finally speak plainly, they are trying to figure out what he means. The assumption is that he is giving them another parable, but they don’t want to risk looking foolish and asking yet another question. They are quite possibly assuming that the three days is a reference to the story of Jonah, to which Jesus has alluded in his teaching (Matthew 12:39; Matthew 16:4; Luke 11:29). Perhaps Jesus is saying that he will be swallowed up by the authorities in Jerusalem for three days, before bursting out into his glorious kingdom and preaching repentance the way John did with the Ninevevites. The idea of one person experiencing the resurrection before God came fully in his kingdom just would not have been on the radar screen for a Jew in the first century. So, if they did think he was talking about literal death, they would have likely taken the phrase, after three days he will rise, to be a code that they didn’t understand.
We can, of course, sympathize with the disciple here. Taking in the radical new message of Jesus, and deciphering between his literal and figurative language was no easy task. In our own lives, think of how often we see something new in Scripture, or hear it in a sermon and we just aren’t prepared to have our old way of understanding something taken apart so that a new way of understanding can be opened up?
A sure sign that the disciples still weren’t completely seeing and understanding the new concepts Jesus was announcing with his kingdom is shown by the disciples on the way to Capernaum (pay special attention here because it is often this same kind of response in us that demonstrates that we haven’t grasped the new way of understanding what God wants form us). The disciples have a disagreement about who is the greatest among them. This is a clear indicator that they understand that Jesus is the Messiah, the king, but they still haven’t grasped what his kingdom is about. They think they have won the lottery, and the only thing to be decided is how to split up the power and glory of Jesus’ kingdom.
When Jesus confronts them about what they were talking about, they realize that there is no honest response that they care to give Jesus, so they simply don’t say anything Jesus must have been disappointed that all they were thinking about was themselves. That’s usually the problem when we only understand half of the message; it’s usually the half that benefits and concerns us. At this point, however, they think that they are going to be the inner circle of the true king of the world. It will be awhile yet before the truth dawns on them.
Jesus tries to shake them out of their backward thinking here, by using a child as an example. Children were seen quite differently in the first century than they are now, which often leads 21st century readers to misunderstand Jesus’ words. Children had no real status or social rank in the ancient world; they were not highly thought of, nor were servants. So when Jesus says that must become like a servant or like a child, his point is not that hey need to hear the teaching of the kingdom with great innocence. His point is that being associated with Jesus means that they will not be thought highly of in the world. They need to get visions of glory and grandeur out of their head and realize that being kingdom bearers in this new type of kingdom means being the servant of all and accepting people into the kingdom that are not the sharpest, best, and brightest by the world’s standards.
Devotional Thought
Many people seem to think that becoming a Christian somehow means that all of their needs will be met. Jesus made it very clear, however, to his first disciples that this should not be the focus of being a disciple. He wanted his disciples to realize that their needs would be met but not at all in the way that they had imagined. What are the areas in your life in which you tend to focus on yourself and your needs rather than being a servant?
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