The Path To Life (2)

Through the hallway of Death

In the last post, we started to consider the life path.

We examined the latter verses of the Eighth Chapter of the Gospel according to Mark, and we saw the audacity of the statements of Jesus, and also the supremacy of Jesus over and above all else in His worth.

Now, we intend to look at the context in which He made those comments.

And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

Mark 8:31 (KJV)

This is an important statement. It precedes the verses we looked at the last time. (Mark 8:34-38). In the verse above, we can infer a few things, and better understand his subsequent thoughts.

He was going to tell them that the only way to save their lives was to lose it for Him and the gospel. To remove the ambiguity of what that meant, He first tells them how it will happen with Him, painting a picture of what He would go through and ultimately what it will mean to lose our lives for Him.

Granted, not all of them were going to die for Him in the literal sense of the word, however, He makes it clear to them that death is the lot of all who would make up their minds to follow Him. That was how they would lose their lives for Him and the Gospel.

In saying that, He was also giving them insight into how they would save their lives after losing it for Him. Their lives would be saved by the Resurrection. The mechanism by which a lost life for Christ and the gospel will be converted to a saved life for Christ and the gospel is Resurrection.

This was also how He intended to show them His exceeding worth, His supremacy over the world, and also the offering of their lives as a worthy and worthwhile exchange for Him and the gospel. He showed this by his power over death. On account of the Resurrection, He transcends the life and the world that is now. So nothing on this side of the divide is worth more than Him.

He has conquered it all. (Hallelujah!)

So, as He called them to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Him, this was no mere religious initiative. He was clear about what He was calling them to do and the result of it.

When He told them that way of saving their lives was losing it for Him and the gospel, this was not sensationalism; He was calling them away from the futility of dead living, from the misfortune of world-centered living into something grander.

He was calling them in life, living-life, and Christ-centered living.

Which life are you living? Are still living the dead-life or you have been resurrected into the living-life? Have you discovered the treasure that is Christ or you are still clinging to this decaying world and the corruption of the life that is now?

Jesus spoke of his death and subsequent resurrection because, for every one of us, that’s what desperate need. We needed Him to triumph over death. We also needed Him to show us the way out of death into life.

Jesus has done the first one, now He calls us to follow Him through the second.

What will you do?