Continuing to reveal the essence of the way of the Cross that He offers, the Lord speaks to us today about self-abasement. The Evangelist reports that a thought arose among the disciples following Christ as to which of them might be the greatest. A very human thought, unfortunately not foreign to many...
Continuing to reveal the essence of the way of the Cross that He offers, the Lord speaks to us today about self-abasement. The Evangelist reports that a thought arose among the disciples following Christ as to which of them might be the greatest. A very human thought, unfortunately not foreign to many who follow Him in every age. We need to experience God's love; we need to feel that God accepts us. Christ responds to this need by saying that He came to seek and to save the lost.
A lost person still has to rise from the dead and be cleansed of many sins. We often imagine that God lies in wait for us as we clumsily scramble along this path, mildly irritated by our slowness. In fact, He came into this world to accept us as we are and lead us after Him along the path of holiness. Every person must experience all this personally; life is impossible without it.
Yet under the influence of sin, the human soul distorts this need to experience God's love, turning it into what psychology calls positive self-esteem. We depend on how we assess ourselves and how those around us assess us, and this is expressed precisely in the thought that “arose” among the disciples: which of them might be the greatest. We do not know exactly whether they were asking who was closest to the Teacher, who was more righteous, more intelligent, or simply more resilient... Unlike Christ's disciples, we ourselves generally measure one another by more primitive things, even by money.
What matters is how Jesus answers the disciples. First, He does not reject the very idea of greatness, so dear to people, but offers a different scale by which to “measure oneself.” Above all, this means not striving after one's own greatness but, counting oneself last, being zealous for other people; and because He Himself humbled Himself utterly to save us, this scale becomes a scale of likeness to God. Second, as in everything Jesus says, for example about forgiveness, He proposes that, in order to experience God's acceptance of us, we ourselves should accept others, especially the weakest and least significant. Therefore His words about those who receive a child and thereby receive the One who sent Him become a direct and exact answer to the disciples' thoughts about greatness.
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1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up - That is, whereby I fill up. That which is behind of thesufferings of Christ - That which remains to be suffered by his members. These are termed the sufferings of Christ,
- Because the suffering of any member is the suffering of thewhole; and of the head especially, which supplies strength, spirits, sense, and motion to all.
- Because they are for his sake, for the testimony of his truth.
And these also are necessary for the church; not to reconcile it to God, or satisfy for sin, (for that Christ did perfectly,) but for example to others, perfecting of the saints, and increasing their reward.1:25 According to the dispensation of God which is given me - Or, the stewardship with which I am intrusted.
1:26 The mystery - Namely, Christ both justifying and sanctifying gentiles, as well as Jews. Which hath been comparatively hid from former ages and past generations of men.
1:27 Christ dwelling and reigning in you, The hope of glory - The ground of your hope.
1:28 We teach the ignorant, and admonish them that are already taught.