Breaking the Prison Door – Mark 10:35-45

A text – Mark 10:35-45    

³⁵ James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” ³⁶ And he said to them, “What is it you want me to do for you?” ³⁷ And they said to him, “Appoint us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” ³⁸ But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” ³⁹ They replied, “We are able.” Then Jesus said to them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized you will be baptized, ⁴⁰ but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to appoint, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

⁴¹ When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. ⁴² So Jesus called them and said to them, “You know that among the gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. ⁴³ But it is not so among you; instead, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴ and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. ⁴⁵ For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

A reflection:

We know that Jesus’s disciples get it wrong a lot of the time. This is one of those stories in which, when we hear James and John ask Jesus for preferred position in God’s kingdom, we know there is going to be a problem. How can Jesus show his sometimes slow-witted friends that the Kingdom of God is not about hierarchy and position?

He knows that they don’t yet understand (though he has JUST told them) what he must suffer and in fact that he will be killed. Yet they protest that they can undergo whatever he undergoes. He says that God has already prepared places for everyone, and it is God’s choice, not his. But then, to complete his teaching on this point, he turns hierarchy upside down and says that those who would be great must serve, and those who would be first must be last.

Then comes an interesting line: “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” I read some time ago that the word ransom here is not the kind of money-for-release payment we think of when hearing that word ransom. It instead means a kind God-deliverance by divine power and intervention: being saved from kidnapping by the forse of God. That would mean that Jesus’s death isn’t going to be paying for sins humans have committed over the years. Instead his death is going to be breaking the prison doors of the captivity we put ourselves into, time after time, by how we live our lives. Jesus is freeing us using the power of God just because God wants us to be free.

Wow. Our God loves us so much that Jesus, part of the Trinity, comes to break whatever is separating us from God, so that we can walk freely and of our own accord into the relationship with God that God has always wanted. God ends our suffering and separation by breaking in and rescuing us from our own prisons. When I think about that, I am amazed by our relentlessly loving God.

A prayer:

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for loving humans enough to break what holds us apart from you so that we can come to you freely. Help us always to choose to walk to you instead of choosing to stay apart from you.  Help us to be grateful for the freedom you give to your beloved creatures. Amen.