Saturday, January 12, 2013

A meditation on the rich young man

I am at a point, in my walk with the Lord, where I am really considering the cost of being His disciple. Thinking about the "downside" does not mean that I am considering not following. In truth, I want to follow with everything I am, and I am considering the price required of me. Jesus is not something you add on to your life. He requires something of you. Actually, He requires everything.

In reading Mark 10 today, I encountered the rich young ruler, who rushed up to Jesus as He was leaving the area. He fell to his knees before the Rabbi and began, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark 10:17)

Jesus begins with a puzzling statement: "Why do you call me good? No one is good--except God alone" (v.18) In the very next exchange, you see why Jesus began here. This rich young man thinks he himself is good. After all, he has always kept the commandments. He calls the Teacher good, but he is pretty confident in his own goodness, and perhaps, unknowingly, he is coming to Jesus as if they were equals. He bows down to Him, but Jesus knows that the man is thinking, "Hey, I'm careful to live well. I wonder how to add Jesus to this package."

"No one is good--except God alone." I think Jesus made this statement in order to communicate, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." This isn't one of those statements like you find in John, where He is declaring His divinity, although that is certainly revealed as a side note, one we can see from the vantage point of history. "No one is good--except God alone." Yeah, we're all sinners. It seems like a throw-away comment, not germaine to the conversation. But this is the heart of it: the rich young man does not know he's a sinner, in need of Jesus. The young man kneels before Him; he calls Him Lord and yet in his heart, he's confident of his own goodness, apart from Jesus. Do you do that? "Lord, Lord," and yet in your heart, you have your own agenda?

Jesus lists off some of the commandments, and the young man says, "Teacher, all these I have kept since I was a boy" (v.20). Still, he calls Him "teacher." He is anticipating that he has already earned the A he is seeking. He might have been listening to Jesus teach the multitudes earlier. He might have seen Jesus confound the Pharisees with His answer to their divorce question. But he's going to pull Jesus aside just as He's leaving the scene to say a quick, "Hey, Teacher, I'm okay, aren't I? I'm already good with God?"

Next comes one of the amazing bits of God-become-flesh. Jesus looks at the man and loves him (v.21). He sees everything about him, and He loves him. If you think God has a big stick and is just waiting to whack you with it, spend a lot of time reading this sentence. Jesus was born in human flesh to demonstrate to us who God is. When we come scrambling up to Him, bow down casually, and say, "Hey, am I okay with you?", He doesn't just say, "No, you moron, no one measures up." And He doesn't say, "Oh, I just love you so much, I'll take you just the way you are." He SEES him and LOVES him. When we bother to approach God--God, the Creator of the universe--all of time stops around us, while our Maker acknowledges us and reaches out to us with truth.

Because God loves this young man, who has chased him down and would like an easy answer, Jesus tells him the truth: "You're only missing one thing." I doubt if there was enough time for the man to feel any relief--just one thing he needs to add to his list of goodness! Just one! Wow, that's like an 89.5% or something.

"Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me" (v.21). I only need you to do one thing, Jesus says: give up everything.

The rich young ruler was sad and went away.

I am this young man; I have just as much as he did. I live with all the comforts of the United States. I am still healthy, so we'll say I'm young. The gospel of Luke refers to this man as a "ruler," so he had some status in the community. And he had lived a good life. This is me.

But I don't want to turn away. If Jesus is asking one thing of me--give up everything you have, everything you think is right, everything you think makes you what you are--and be my servant, that's what I need to do. So I don't turn away from Him. But I take a deep gulp, and start figuring out where my question to the Good Master has gotten me. Turns out, it's not about the A.

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