THE Lord is my helper, He hears my prayer. In praise of His name, I shall offer Him sacrifice (Psalm 54:3-4, 5, 6-8). To follow Jesus means to follow someone set to be killed though to rise again, and who challenges his followers to be first by being the last and the servant of all (Mark 9:30-37).
The Lord sustains me
This psalm is an individual prayer of supplication, directly pleading in the first person for God’s assistance in the psalmist’s bleak situation. In the opening petition, there is the poetic double parallelism between God’s “name” and “might,” as well as between “saving” and “defending.” The God who reveals His name to His people is the God Almighty, who saves and vindicates those who trust in Him. The psalmist who calls on God to act as judge is confident that God hears those who pray to Him and will give ear to the words of his pleading, because he knows himself to be righteous and expects from God protection.
The reason for the psalmist’s entreaty is his insolent and ruthless enemies bent on seeking his life. In their arrogance they have no regard for God, completely taking no
account of the fact that God is there protecting him and sustaining him. Anyway, the psalmist in his confidence in God’s help and goodness promises to freely offer a sacrifice in honor of God’s name. By this thank-offering a neat balance is expressed between the opening petition of “by your name save me” and the concluding commitment “I will praise your name.” The divine name signifies not only power but justice and truthfulness and goodness. This psalm is associated with Jesus facing death from the hands of His enemies but trusting in God to vindicate Him.
Handed over to his enemies
IF last week in the first prediction by Jesus of His passion and death and resurrection we saw the incomprehension by His followers and the rebuke given Him by Peter, to this second prediction of the passion in the account by Saint Mark still the reaction was lack of understanding. In a way it should not be surprising that the disciples could not put together the mysterious romantic figure Jesus identified with, the Son of Man expected to come on the clouds at the end of age, and the terrifying projection of Jesus as handed over and killed by His enemies though to rise again on the third day.
If the first time there was rebuke to Jesus by Peter, this time there was only silence and the disciples’ obvious fear to question Jesus. His strong reaction calling Peter “Satan” and His unyielding demand for anyone who wishes to follow Him to deny oneself and to carry one’s cross must have baffled and nonplussed them. Or were they afraid to hear more about its terrifying details and what it all means for them as well? Were they so fearful to go deeper into the issue of the cross and dying to self?
The servant of all
But the disciples, as they were walking with Jesus, were able to discuss among themselves, with some heat at that, who was the greatest among them. Jesus must have noticed their heated argument on the road, and so once in the house in Capernaum among themselves He asked them about it as a matter of fact without any reprimand? And the disciples were again silent. This time with embarrassment. As Jesus talked to them in all openness about His passion and death, now He wanted them to speak openly, too, about what they have been considering regarding their life in terms of status, rank, honor and power.
As in the first prediction of the death and resurrection of Jesus the evangelist linked it with the need of the followers of Jesus to come after Him in self-denial and carrying one’s cross, so now the passion of Jesus challenges them personally and concretely in the way of servanthood and with preferential option for the little ones. Servants and children had no social status; they might as well hang naked on a cross. But though they might not count in the eyes of the world then, for Jesus they signify something vital in relationship with God. Their “nothingness” makes them available and ready to be filled with God’s grace, to be open and obedient to the divine will. And Jesus offered Himself as the example one who empties himself becoming the slave for the sake of others.
Alálaong bagá, to be a follower of Jesus, the Christian must be ready to be the last of all and the servant of all. That is what Jesus was doing in His passion, on the cross, with full confidence on the goodness and protection of God. And He illustrated this subordinate status by identifying with a child: to receive whom is to receive Jesus. To receive and identify with Jesus in a child is to be a faithful child of God.
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