Mark: An 8-Day Devotional Reading PlanSample

Greatness as Service

Jesus asks his followers to do many things that are the opposite of what our sin-broken world expects from us. He tells us to love our enemies (Matt. 5:43–48), to take the more difficult path (Matt. 7:13–14), and to lose our lives in order to save them (Matt. 16:24–26). He also upends our ideas of what it means to be great. In Mark 10:35–45, James and John are heading toward Jerusalem with Jesus. The Lord has just been telling his disciples (a third time) that he will soon die and rise again. But apparently James and John don’t understand. Perhaps they believed that Jesus was saying he was about to restore David’s earthly kingdom. The two disciples brazenly ask for places of authority in his coming empire. Jesus knows that James and John have no idea what they are requesting from him.

He has no cushy governmental office to offer, no personal influence to wield, no chariots to command. Instead what James, John, and the rest of the disciples will have as members of his kingdom is servanthood and suffering.

That doesn’t sound like a better position, does it? The world teaches that we have achieved something when other people do the things we do not want to do ourselves and when our lives are easy and enjoyable. Jesus teaches that we are great when we value others more than ourselves.

Jesus, who deserves worship, adoration, and service, is instead about to drink a cup of wrath, enduring punishment for the sins of the world (Rom. 3:21–25). He is about to sink under the waves of death, a baptism that will destroy his body (Isa. 53:2–5). He is about to give up his life in order that others might be free from eternal separation from God (2 Cor. 5:21).

And we who are known by his name are called to show others the same kind of love that we ourselves have been shown. So instead of desiring to be our own boss, or to be someone else’s boss, we seek to serve. Creating a community that is known for its compassion and service shows that we value what God values.

To the world it sounds bizarre to spend time with social outcasts. It seems odd—foolish, even—to use a medical degree to serve the poor rather than to make as much money as possible, or to give money to an out-of-work man or a spare room to a homeless family, when you could have a new sound system or home gym or great vacation. It also looks absurd to give your life for people who hate you (John 7:7). But that is the kind of greatness that Jesus wants us to desire. It is how he has treated *us*.—Heather House