THE MIND OF CHRIST
Luke 18, 19
“We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.”
Who in his right mind would think that the Messiah will be handed over to the Romans, humiliated and ultimately put to death? If you cannot wrap your head around that, you would likely have missed the last sentence, that he will rise again on the third day. It is no wonder that the disciples did not understand what Jesus said.
The path to victory that Jesus took was not an overt display of power, authority and status and you can see this in Jesus’ interactions with the people who came to him. Children were welcome, beggars were paid attention to and a despised tax collector had a home visit. The only person he asserted himself towards was the ruler, asking him to walk away from his wealth to follow him.
The clue that Jesus left in these encounters is his statement to the beggar: Your faith has healed you. It is not desire, motivation, status, achievements, usefulness—whatever that we value in man—but faith. And so there are no restrictions as to gender, popularity, or position. Everyone is lost but anyone who seeks him in faith he will listen to, even a man who has nothing to show except a cry for forgiveness.
“Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”