You’re treading water.  The world is moving fast around you but you’re not.  You’re not wallowing in depression or drowning in despair, but you also realize that you’re not swimming towards shore – or swimming towards anything else for that matter. Life is good, sort of.  There are no tragedies to overcome or sufferings to endure. You have an average job, that provides an average income to support your average family.  But you wouldn’t say that life has been overly kind to you, even though you can’t say that it’s been unkind to you either.  You’re not happy with many of your career and life choices, but you haven’t done anything catastrophic either.  Though many of your youthful dreams have evaporated into the ether of your ignorance and laziness, you’re still young enough to make a course correction – assuming you can find something worthwhile to pursue.

It’s the repetition that’s wearing you down.  It’s the day in, day out that’s killing your soul.  It’s death by a thousand trivialities. The monotony of doing pretty much the same things each day that has drained your heart of hope and robbed your soul of inspiration.  Sure,  you still modestly enjoy the pleasures of life.  You meet with friends.  You meet with family.  You catch a movie and take in a ballgame now and then. You’ve even visited some of the most beautiful places on earth. But there something weighing in just plodding along in a trivial life, something that feels like you were made for something bigger, something more meaningful.   Something transcendent.

You tried going all in on pleasure.  Parties, trips, sex, mixing a reasonable work life with a wild personal life.  None of that worked and fortunately you came to your senses before an addiction (or worse!) set in.   You tried taking up various social and political causes after that, but your heart wasn’t in it – and ultimately you got nothing out of it.  Advocacy against endless misery and strife, and for what?  No solutions, a ton of bickering and ultimately they each boiled down to a bunch of people yelling alongside you at a bunch of people who were yelling back. Meanwhile, the poor and disadvantaged keep coming and apathy is bliss.

You’ve dabbled in all sorts of things lately, from exercise to mediation and it all left you void.  None of them filled you up once the nostalgia of trying something new thing wore off and you were left with yet another monotony to maintain – and all to escape that greater unshakable monotony of your uninteresting, mundane life.

But suppose I were to suggest that Christianity was the answer to your mundane life?  And suppose, that specifically, I said that Jesus is not only the most fascinating individual ever to live, but the Door by which a truly rapturous life can be had and the only Way from the doldrums of your otherwise stagnant life?

You’ll pass, you say.  You’ve flirted with a little eastern mysticism and it never took.  In the end, you only found you at the bottom of all that humming and incense inhaling.  You say that Christianity is no different, and that it has nothing unique to offer your diverse appetites.  Besides, you say, you haven’t given up on the idea that there still isn’t something for you in this world, that is, in the real world – not the make believe worlds that religion tries so hard to create.

But suppose I ignored your objections and said that when you look clearly at the heart of Christianity, the cross of Jesus Christ, you will see an unmatched beauty combined with an unequaled holy ambition.  You’ll see a Savior who willing died at the peak of his career, with all the wisdom and power at his disposal to avoid such a death, and all to give you life – boring, uninteresting you the opportunity to live with the King in his kingdom.

And what if I said that if you were to look at the cross with fresh eyes, you will see a God who died for creatures who were either too cowardly to stand with him on that fateful day, or too angry with him to do anything but pound the nails into his wrists – creatures just like you and I?  What if I said that at the cross, you will also see the seriousness of the offer that Jesus extends to you?  An offer that is anything but mundane or monotonous.  An offer that has been given by the God that who, for today, looks past your sins to give you the opportunity to have freedom from them – forever.  An offer that promises an eternal life with a God who breathes galaxies into being. An offer that brings with it an indescribable peace and joy that will shift your perceptions about this world from “this is my one shot at happiness” to “a permanent happiness awaits me in the world to come, on the other side of this mundane life.” It’s an offer that will cost you everything, but then again it’s this everything that is strangling the life out of you anyway.  Why not turn and grab hold of the only truly interesting Person in the cosmos who not only made it, but has designs for something far greater in the age to come?  Why not part with this mundane life for true life?

You’re struggling financially.  You have tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt and just as much in unpaid student loans.  You have a mortgage too and you owe more on your loan than the worth of your home.  Your income isn’t keeping up with your bills either and you’re facing an increasingly hostile economy should you lose your job.  You’ve tried not thinking about your situation, but it isn’t working.  You know you have to deal with your debt, and yet the thought of seeing a credit counselor or filing bankruptcy gives you hives.  You’ve made cutbacks, but you know they aren’t deep enough.  You made some sacrifices, but you know they don’t go far enough.You’ve finally conceded the problem, but you don’t want to obsess over it.  You can’t help it.  Anxiety greets you when you wake up in the morning and despair is waiting to tuck you in at night.  Every dollar you spend feels like putting  down another chip on the  blackjack table where you are already very deep in the hole and the odds are growing astronomically longer against you that you’ll win it all back.

You’ve grown convinced that there will be no good end here.  You’ve also grown fearful that you may never recover from it.

You ask yourself: How did this happen?  You’ve always been pretty careful about spending your money, though not so careful about tracking it.  But it’s not like you have lived extravagantly.  Sure, a few clothes purchased here, an ipad there, a trip to the beach now and again and dinner with friends.   The problem crept up on you slowly and when you saw your account balances rising you always vowed to do something about it.  You always planned to add a few hundred dollars to your monthly payment next month or to use your year-end bonus to pay down a big chunk of it.  Plus you could always refinance your mortgage to consolidate your debts. But then the economy turned the job cuts came, and though you survived the cuts you still had to take a decrease.  With the poor economy, the housing market also collapsed and with it went the opportunity to refinance your house to get control of your debts.   So now you’re faced with either the shame of divulging your financial woes to family and friends (and probably through bankruptcy) or to be shackled with your debt until you catch a break in your career – which still offers no guarantee that you’ll avoid the hard decisions you face now.

Where will you turn?  Will you seek out one of the myriad of financial gurus out there who, for a price of their own, just might convince you to live the Spartan’s life until you can claw your way out of debt?  Do you just give in and go see the debt counselor or lawyer who will help you either slide out from under your debts?  Do you file bankruptcy to have that clean slate with the heavy weight of a blemished record which will hang around your neck for the next 10 years?

Maybe even the unthinkable has crossed your mind. Maybe the most terrifying option is now on the table: begging your family or friends for relief.

But suppose you somehow conquered your debts and mended your credit score. What then?  Has what drove you to live beyond your means changed?  Has the underlying motivations behind your spending been addressed?  Would you be able to handle the clean slate, maintain it and resist all the temptations that will creep back in when you start to feel better about yourself?

You’re sensible enough to know that not only do you need to get out of debt, but that you need to make better choices. You know that you need to monitor those emotional triggers that put you down this road in the first place.  You know you need the financial discipline and self-control to steer clear of being right back to where you started. But will you find such self-control and discipline?  Better yet, could you even cling and hold on to them should you be shown the path?

But where do you turn for that kind of help?  Spirituality?  Religion?  Both?

Now suppose that I suggest to you that Christianity is the answer.  More specifically, suppose I said that Jesus is the true guru that you should seek, and not only for relief from your financial troubles, but for help with all those heart troubles that led to so many small, but incrementally costly, choices?

Ah, you say, you’ve heard it all before: Give up all enjoyments in life, keep a bunch of dreary rules, rub elbows with a bunch of low self-esteemed weirdoes every Sunday morning and somehow all my problems will float away?  No thank you, you say.  You won’t be wishing this crisis away, and unless people from a church are going to give you a bunch of money (instead of just continually asking you to give them a bunch of money) you want nothing to do with it.  You would just as soon look for a more practical and sensible route out of your problem.  You’re looking for real help to a real and serious problem.

But what if I ignored your objections and then doubled down on my proposed solution?  What if I said that the cross of Jesus Christ not only answers your debt crisis, but provides you a way out of it?  What if I said that Jesus’ cross not only offers you a paradigm shift that will cause your heart to radically alter its approach to money, but give you a renewed sense of hope and purposes that transcends any earthly experience you’ve ever enjoyed – even if it meant that you had to declare financial bankruptcy on the heels of declaring your spiritual bankruptcy?  And what if I also told that there is a better joy to be found through Jesus’ cross than if you were suddenly freed from your debts and made filthy rich?  What if I said, that his death (a horrible, violent, bloody death, no less) offers a beauty more lovely than any gem or sun lit vista?  What if I said that this cross Jesus hung and died on for the debts of his people offers a  satisfaction deeper than any multi-million dollar 401(k) or an endless trust fund? What if I told you that in going to his cross that Jesus understood what meant to settle debts, though not for his own sake but for people like you and me? And what if I told you that he paid such debts in the most humiliating way possible? What if I also told you that Jesus’ cross not only offers you freedom from your financial debts but freedom from everything that truly cages you in this life, even death?  And what if I told you that his cross is free of charge, and that though it will cost you everything you now think is worth something, in the end you’ll come to see that all you’ve held dear is worth nothing – and all because you will come to see that the only things of true worth are things that are found in him, things that are found through his cross?

What would you say then?

The contrasts between Mark 10:46-52 and 10:35-45 are stark.  Following the request made by the sons of Zebedee, a request that was not made from faith but out of ambition, a true request is bellowed from the desperate lips of a blind beggar who cried out in faith and out of need.  Though the two brothers had their physical sight, they were still (at least partially) spiritually blind as demonstrated by their arrogant request.  But the blind beggar, though he had not seen Jesus with his physical eyes, still had a better spiritual vision than those who walked with him every day for many years.

Take note of how Bartimeaus made his request.  In hearing that Jesus was coming, he cried out not once, but repeatedly in a loud voice – so much so that the nearby crowd grew irritated with his persistence and asked him to stop.  Unfazed, by the crowd’s rebukes and by the scene he was making, the blind man continued to plead to Jesus for mercy, which the Lord promptly obliged.  And once the blind man was healed, he then immediately began to follow Jesus on the road up from Jericho to Jerusalem.

We shouldn’t think that when Jesus says “your faith has healed you” that he means the blind man was healed by some ethereal, other kind of power and not his power.  Faith always has its object and in this case the object is clear.  It was Jesus, who the blind man’s faith rested upon. It was Jesus to whom he made his persistent pleas and it was Jesus whom the blind man trusted. It was Jesus who then responded to his faith, according to his promises, and it was Jesus who healed him with a word. So when Jesus says to Bartimaeus ” your faith healed you” he is saying “Your persistent cries have been heard by God, Bartimeaus, and your faith in Me has healed you.”

The healing of Bartimaeus is a metaphor of how each in Christ comes to Christ, and how those who have yet to find Christ will find him.  The full awakening of the sinful soul, through the hearing of the Gospel, will lead it to a desperation equal to this blind beggar.  And such desperation produces the same persistent cries from helplessness as it did for Bartimeaus alongside Jericho road.

And once the blindness is removed by Christ, the soul’s grateful response compels it to follow the Great Healer – even up to suffering.

We should not mistake the cry of the sinner and his restored sight as two separate things, but the same thing.  There are not multiple levels of salvation, but only one level – even if there is always mourning before joy and gloom before gladness.  Every sinner who finds Christ is first stirred to see themselves for who they truly are and then turn to the Great Physician who restores sight to the spiritually blind.  The awakening and the healing are one.  Both are necessary for salvation and both are essential to see Jesus rightly.

In Mark 10:35-45, the sons of Thunder (James and John) come to Jesus with an audacious request.  They want seats in the highest places of honor to the apparent exclusion of their fellow disciples.  The remaining disciples, of course, are offended at such a bold request and become indignant once Jesus explains to the brothers that they cannot both be seated on his right and left hand – as they’ll soon come to learn that to Jesus’ left will be seated the Father (whom Jesus will take his seat at his right hand).

Greatness in the Kingdom of God is counter-intuitive.  It is not defined by superior abilities, unique talents or great wisdom.  Instead, greatness in God’s kingdom is seen through  the servant qualities of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.   Those who are lowest in the Kingdom lead.  Those who are least capable are those best positioned to rise in God’s ranks.  Those who serve are the greatest.

In Jesus, we have the greatest example of servanthood the world has ever seen.  Though armed with every ability, power and wisdom, he set aside all these things and marched boldly into Jerusalem to die for the sins of his people.   At his command were legions of angels.  At his fingertips was power that could have incinerated his enemies.  In his mind was the wisdom to foresee his adversaries plans and the intuition that could have easily sidestepped them to preserve his life.  But Jesus refrained from using his wisdom and power for a better joy – a joy to bring glory to his Father through the salvation of his people.  Because of his sacrifice and his restraint, Jesus is our example in every way.

It’s not great preaching that God highly esteems.    Having all insight and wisdom into the Scriptures means nothing if your heart does not reflect the inner heart of the Scriptures they preach. It’s not great wealth that God exalts.  You could build a hundred arenas to seat a million people and God would not be impressed should such a soul not value and live what is preached.  It is the lowly servant who hears and responds to the Gospel wherever, whenever and whatever circumstances that God is pleased to raise up in his Kingdom.

It is to the humble heart that God draws near.  It is those who are most humble that God makes great.

Think about the humble for a moment in practical terms, because humility’s attractiveness is not lost on any of us.  When you have a problem or felt need, what type of person are you more prone to seek out?  An arrogant person who will be unhelpful and impatient with you or the humble person who is accessible and always willing to help?  And whether such a person is a janitor or CEO makes no difference.  When there is a need, humility always trumps great wisdom or ability.  These are the people we say have great character or a good soul, but in reality, they are people who deal with us rightly and authentically.  The are the truly great who humble themselves for the sake of Jesus and are willing to imitate his servant heart for the sake of his great name and Kingdom.

Having just asked a rich man to go and sell everything he owns and give it to the poor, Jesus again informs his disciples that he is going to give up everything he has so that they might inherit eternal life through him.

In reading Mark 10:32-34, it’s important to realize that when Jesus went to the cross he did not merely give up his life. He gave up something far more precious and far more valuable. As God in human flesh, Jesus had a connection to his

Fearless he marched into death’s gaping hole. All to free this hell bound soul. There he cast all sin aside. So that in his love I’ll forever abide.

More precious than any earthly fortune, or even the universe itself, Jesus gave up his eternal communion with his Father for us.

In asking us to trade this world for the world to come, Jesus does not ask us to endure more than he endured.  Our suffering on earth is but a fraction of what Christ endured in Pilate’s praetorian and on the cross.  Though Jesus hung on the cross for six hours time, he (somehow) took an eternity of punishment for each of his people in a fraction of a single day.  And because of this we know that Jesus is an honest broker when he deals with us, and this is why we know that he can be trusted – even when he asks us to do the hardest things. And why is this?  Because Jesus has already endured far worse on our behalf and, though he was completely alone that Crucifixion Friday, he will always be with us as we endure our own trials.

As followers of Jesus, we too will suffer for the sake of Jesus’ Name.  We will suffer to join Jesus in his death and resurrection.  We will suffer to our have our faith hammered into his. And we will suffer to have our faith shaped into the one he possessed while marching undaunted to Jerusalem – knowing that he did not just have to face the terrors of the devil through the scorn of his people, but the terror of his Father who would punish sin on the cross for our great benefit.

Jesus’ encounter with the rich man in Mark 10:17-29 is not about better command keeping.  It’s about seeing yourself for who you truly are and then turning to God.  When the rich man fell at Jesus’ feet he was looking for something to do in order to earn eternal life. But Jesus, meeting the man at his misunderstanding, showed him instead how he could receive eternal life.

Obtaining Christ's grace isn't about going to the well to pump the water yourself. It's about holding out your hands to allow Him to shower you with his mercy.

Many who read Mark 10:17-29 do so thinking that Jesus has just ratcheted up a command in order to show us how the rich man wasn’t all that good of a rule keeper. They read about his relative good character, they then see his refusal to part with his wealth, they read Jesus conclusion of the whole encounter and then just assume that the Gospel is all about taking salvation to an entirely new “by-works” level that is impossible to achieve.

But this isn’t what’s happening at all.

One Thing You Lack

Jesus wasn’t trying to get at a command through the rich man’s heart, but at his heart through the command. As a first-century religious Jew, the rich man was looking for salvation through his performances – just as anyone looking for wages through their talents and abilities would do. But in typical fashion, Jesus accommodated the man by taking  his faulty theology and standing it on its head in order to show him just how far his heart was from God. “You want something to do? You want a command? Then I’ll give you a command to show you just how far your heart is from God, and I’ll do it to show you how impossibly hard it is for you to have eternal life by thinking you can buy, work or trust in your own abilities and resources to have it. So trust me when I tell you that you must part with the one thing you put before God before and then you will have eternal life. Part with your money, come follow me and you will live.”

Now Jesus wasn’t lying when he gave the rich man’s this command. If rich man followed what Jesus told him to do, he would have immediately received eternal life. Jesus also wasn’t advocating a by-works salvation when he told the rich man to go sell all of his wealth and give to the poor and then come follow him.  Instead, Jesus was showing the troubled man that salvation comes only by faith.

The sheer brilliance of Jesus’ response is seen though how he drove the man to confront his spiritual deficiencies while simultaneously offering him salvation through faith. In order for the rich man to obey Jesus’ command he has to believe that he’ll find salvation by parting with the money he loves more than God and give to those God is most  concerned for – the poor and needy.

Notice that Jesus’ command is not a command to restrain bad behavior. Jesus isn’t telling him not to do something, but to go and do something. He’s not telling him to refrain from something, but to sacrifice – and sacrifice in such a way that the only thing he’ll have left to depend on is Jesus himself.

Knowing that giving such a command to a man so deeply in love money, is the reason that Jesus concludes that it is impossible for the rich to enter heaven through their own abilities.  For proof of this fact, look no further than the rich man’s response in Mark 10:17-29 – his face fell and he went away sad because of his great wealth. Or in other words, the rich man went away disbelieving Jesus that he must put no other gods before God himself, and to love the Lord with all heart, mind, soul and strength.  Both of these commands lie at the very heart of all God’s commands that is best expressed by the “command that is like it:” to love your neighbor as yourself. And in this case, to love your neighbor as yourself is best seen by selling all your possessions and giving  to the poor so that you might have eternal life.

But in order to take that first step of obedience, you must have a faith that is strong enough to propel you to obey.  You must tangibly love God more than anything else – even money.

People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them.  – Mark 10:13

There are deep ironies in the disciple’s restraint of the little children.  The disciples had perpetual access to Jesus, yet they sought to limit access with even those who had limited opportunity to come to him and who                              would see him only briefly.  The disciple’s should have known Jesus’ character best, particularly his bent towards kindness and compassion, but they acted contrary to his desires.

They were the adults, yet they barred the children.

¹⁴ When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. – Mark 10:14a

Merriam-Webster defines indignant as “a feeling or showing anger because of something unjust or unworthy.” This rare outward display of anger from Jesus is consistent with the kind of anger that he expressed in Mark 1:41 when the Pharisees refused to acknowledge the justice and mercy of his healing the man with the withered hand.

¹⁴ When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  – Mark 10:14

Jesus’  response towards the disciples not only centered on their lack of compassion, but for not seeing the greater faith picture in the children’s desire to see him.  Put another way:  Who does the Kingdom of God belong to?  It belongs to those who come to him like little children.  It belongs to those who see their need of him and embrace him without reservation.

The key to the verse’s meaning is found in the phrase “such as these.”  Heaven will comprised not of earthly children, but of the children of God and Jesus defines God’s children as more than mere title, but possessing qualities consistent with little children.

¹⁵ Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

Theologians have long debated what Jesus meant by “receive the kingdom” and “like a little child,” but taking the whole of the Gospel into account, the receipt of the kingdom has to be consistent with the qualities of faith.  Little children receive knowledge and what that knowledge reveals about the world, with an unwavering trust in their teachers.  They are dependent and vulnerable.  These qualities actually better position them to receive difficult or lofty truths than a questioning adult.   Similarly, Christ’s people must learn to trust through difficult truths until their knowledge and experience matures them to see him more clearly.

¹⁶ And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them

More than just a picture of Jesus’ kindness, here is a metaphor that harmonizes with earlier imagery: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” – Matthew 23:37

“And he [Jesus] will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” – Matthew 24:31

Christ will readily gather, without discrimination, those who are his.

Faith Lesson: Christ’s command to his disciple’s not to hinder the little children serves as a warning to us not to hinder anyone who would come to him.  In view is Jesus’ first woe in Matthew 23:13:  “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”  Christ will take every sinner as they are, but only if they see their need for him by seeking forgiveness of sins and desiring the new life he offers.

I recently came across a few big thoughts that rarely get a great deal of mention in Christian circles.  The following is a brief excerpt from John Piper from a 2008 sermon titled the Echo and the Insufficiency of Hell that really struck me:

I have heard well-schooled preachers and book writers say that all that is horrible, sinful, painful in this life will be forgotten.  Not to overstate it, that’s a damnable sentence.  Calvary will not be forgotten and it is the most horrible most sinful, most agonizing event that ever was.  It will be the center of heaven forever.  We will, with our mouths, be singing that song forever.  I hope if this conference gives you one thing it will be: Hell exists, cross exists, sin exists, heaven exists, you exist, universe exists, in order to magnify the worth of the scream of the damned. – John Piper

I don’t think that we can ever overemphasize the eternality of the cross.  What Jesus did for us, what he did on the eternal cross, needs to be in the forefront of our minds.  The cross isn’t just a single act accomplished by Jesus that we consider briefly and then “get beyond” in our walk with Jesus.  The eternal cross is a thing that we will celebrate for all eternity.  The cross is also Jesus’ penultimate act – binding his perfect life with his miraculous rise from the dead.  For everything that Jesus did either points forward or backward to the cross.

Now I would also like to say something about the “forgetting of sin, death and pain in heaven” that John gets pretty worked about in this sermon.  And I think that while John is right in his assessment that we will never forget what Jesus did for us – particularly when it comes to fathoming the depths of a Perfect God who not only descended into an imperfect world but descended to take our sin upon his perfection in order to destroy the devil’s work – I don’t think pastors and theologians are wholly wrong when they say we will ‘forget’ about trials, sufferings and temptations in this life while enjoying the glories of the next.  Our joy for what Christ has done, our joy in his glory and the beauty of the world to come will overshadow all sadness, gloom and fears – even while we will never forget what Christ endured to bring us into his eternal joys.    So will we have eternal joy for what Christ has done for us?  Yes.  We will remember the mechanics of how Christ came to the cross and that we too sinned and had a part in his death, and then shared in his sufferings sans our rebirth by faith in his Name?  Yes.   But will we remember our sin and sufferings in the same way that we remember them here on earth –with a sense of loss, dread and pain?  No.  The eternal joys that are brought to us from the eternal cross will overwhelm, overshadow and overcome all the gloom of this world even while we never forget what Christ has done for us – making us all the more glad and admirable of him.