Second Passion Foretelling & Its Misunderstanding

Mark 9:30-37

Rev. Billy Kristanto

In this sermon, I continue our reading from the Gospel of Mark, chapter 9, verses 30 through 37. I intentionally combine these two passages into one unit, because they belong together: Jesus’s second prediction of his death and resurrection, and the argument that immediately follows among the disciples about who among them was the greatest. As Jesus and the disciples pass through Galilee, he teaches them privately that the Son of Man will be betrayed, killed, and will rise after three days. The disciples do not understand what he is saying, and they are too afraid to ask him. Later, in Capernaum, Jesus asks them what they had been discussing on the road. They fall silent, ashamed to admit that they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest. Jesus responds by sitting down, calling the twelve together, and teaching that whoever wants to be first must become last of all and servant of all. He then takes a child, holds him in his arms, and says that whoever welcomes such a child in his name welcomes him — and in welcoming him, welcomes the one who sent him.

I want to point out that this confusion among the disciples is not just a momentary lapse. It is part of a pattern that repeats across all three of Jesus’s predictions of his suffering in Mark’s Gospel, and even repetition does not seem to overcome it. I take this misunderstanding as revealing something essential about how humanity relates to the cross. We can talk at length about ethics, compassion, or care for others, and generally meet little resistance. But once we speak about the cross — once we confront human sin directly — that becomes the real stumbling block of the Christian faith.

I also draw attention to a subtle but important shift in the text. In this second prediction, Jesus says he will be delivered “into the hands of men,” which is broader language than the first prediction, where he named the religious authorities specifically. I take this shift to mean that responsibility for Jesus’s death is not confined to a particular group of first-century leaders, but extends to humanity as a whole — to every one of us, then and now.

Drawing on the Heidelberg Catechism, I bring up its teaching that we cannot, by nature, fulfill God’s law to love God fully and love our neighbor as ourselves — and further, that we carry within us a natural inclination toward hostility, even toward God and neighbor. I admit this language feels excessive at first. Most of us would readily admit our imperfection, but resist the idea that we harbor real hostility toward God. Yet I connect this diagnosis directly to what the disciples do in this passage. Their indifference to Jesus’s announcement of his suffering, and their preoccupation instead with their own status, reflects exactly this kind of disregard for what God is trying to reveal to them. It is not simple confusion — it is a deeper unwillingness to accept a vision of God and of human life that does not center on personal greatness.

I describe this as a picture of humanity’s inhumanity to itself, ultimately made visible on the cross, where humanity as a whole — not one isolated group — puts to death the one who stood in solidarity with us as a fellow human being.

I also note the significance of the setting: Jesus withdraws into a house in Capernaum before delivering this teaching. Throughout Mark’s Gospel, private and intimate teaching often happens in domestic settings, and this distinguishes true disciples — insiders — from the wider crowds who may follow Jesus without ever truly grasping or receiving what he teaches. I extend this observation to churchgoers today. Many people attend church for reasons other than encountering Jesus himself — for the beauty of the architecture, for cultural tradition, or for something closer to a museum experience — without any real spiritual engagement. Genuine discipleship requires listening not only with our physical ears but with spiritual ones.

When Jesus asks what the disciples were discussing, their response is silence. I connect this to an earlier scene in Mark, where the Pharisees fall silent after being confronted by Jesus over the healing of a man with a withered hand. In both cases, I read the silence as an unwillingness to be exposed, rooted in guilt or shame rather than genuine confusion. The disciples know their ambition for status contradicts what Jesus is teaching, so they avoid the conversation altogether.

I situate this ambition for rank within its cultural context, referencing rabbinic writings and the rules of the Qumran community, which formalized seating order and rank according to status, explicitly forbidding anyone from moving up or down from their assigned place. I use this to show that the disciples’ concern with rank was not unusual for their time — it reflected deeply ingrained social norms about honor and hierarchy, norms that persist today in less formal but no less real ways.

At the center of my message is Jesus’s radical redefinition of greatness: true greatness is found in serving others. I point out that the Greek word used for “servant” here is diakonos, related to diakonia, rather than doulos, the word more commonly used by Paul for a bondservant. Diakonos evokes someone who serves at tables — practical, humble service rather than simply giving to the poor.

I place this teaching in direct contrast with classical Greek philosophy, quoting Plato’s Gorgias, which questions how anyone could possibly be happy while having to serve someone else. That worldview treats status, autonomy, and being served as the markers of happiness, while serving others is seen as a loss of freedom. I note this is part of why so many people are drawn to entrepreneurship today — the desire to answer to no one and pursue only their own agenda. Jesus inverts this completely. For him, service is not degrading; it is the very definition of greatness in God’s kingdom.

I connect this to a broader theological theme I call democratization — not democracy in the political sense, but the idea that privileges once reserved for the elite are extended to all people. Just as the image of God, once associated in the ancient world primarily with kings and rulers, is in Genesis extended to all humankind, so too greatness in God’s kingdom is no longer reserved for the powerful, the wealthy, or the well-connected. It is available to every believer through the practice of serving others.

I emphasize that Jesus does not merely speak this teaching but embodies it, taking a child into his arms in front of the disciples. I draw a lesson from this for myself as a preacher and for the church as a whole: teaching must be paired with lived example, not left as an abstract idea. But I am careful to clarify that the child in this story is not meant as a model of humility or innocence for us to imitate. The point is not “be like children,” despite how often this passage gets misread that way. Given the low social status of children in the ancient world — often seen as not yet fully “arrived” at personhood, a view I note has echoes in various cultures, including certain Asian expressions describing children as not yet fully human — I stress that the emphasis instead falls on Jesus himself as the model. It is Jesus who welcomes the marginalized child, and we are called to imitate his welcome, not to treat childlike qualities as though they were spiritual merits we must cultivate. I remind the congregation that in Reformed theology, Christianity centers not on our virtues or achievements but on what God has done through Christ — even our acts of service are gifts we receive by grace, not contributions we make to God.

I close by connecting this passage to Matthew 25’s parable of the final judgment, where the righteous are commended for feeding the hungry, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and imprisoned — without even realizing they were serving Christ himself in doing so. I argue this parallels what we read in Mark 9: compassion for the marginalized is not a calculated decision weighed for personal benefit, but the natural outflow of a heart transformed by mercy. Those who know the mercy of Christ will show mercy to others as a matter of course, not out of self-interested networking or a desire to climb the social ladder — behavior I contrast sharply with worldly ambition.