Then He Began to Teach Them

2nd Sunday in Lent
a reflection on Mark 8:31-38

Jiao Li could not believe what she was hearing. Over on the park swings, a father pushed his little girl as she laughed and kicked her feet into the sky. Tears stung in Jiao Li’s eyes. Through the phone at her ear, her daughter was still trying to explain herself.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me…”

“How can you do this?” Jiao Li interrupted. “No! I’m not listening. You listen to me.” Jiao Li forcefully outlined the expectations her daughter was to live up to; the many sacrifices and generations of hopes she must honor; the years of hard work and careful plans she was failing to appreciate.

“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it…”

“What do you mean you have to? Don’t give me that! We are Christians. That doesn’t mean you turn your back on everything to do what you think God wants you to do! Where do you get this stuff?”

“For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?” ~Mark 8:31-38

Jiao Li’s heart had never known such sorrow. The Jesus she thought she knew so well – this Savior she had raised her daughter to pray to, sing about, hold in her heart and wait to see one day in heaven – how could He ask so much of her? Not so much of her daughter, who wanted to go back to China as a missionary, but of Jiao Li, who Jesus was asking to let her.