Mark 9:30-32 – Not afraid to ask

Jesus and His disciples were passing through Galilee heading toward Capernaum. The Lord wanted to keep their whereabouts secret because He wanted to avoid the crowd. And here we are told the reason why: He wanted to concentrate on the Twelve to teach them concerning His impending suffering, death and resurrection. The first time He spoke about this was found in Mark 8:31-9:1. This was the second time the Lord spoke about this subject.  

What Jesus told them was a difficult subject. And this time round He even told them that He would be betrayed. This betrayal was the new element in His account about His suffering and death. Interestingly the same word was used to describe Judas Iscariot later. He gave a very strong hint to His disciples that He would be delivered to His enemies by an act of betrayal.  This message was not a pleasant one so Mark told us that the disciples did not understand what He was saying and yet were afraid to ask Him.

Why were they afraid to ask? There could be three possible reasons. Firstly, they were afraid that He would rebuke them. They saw how Peter was rebuked at Caesarea Philippi for trying to prevent Him from His impending death. Secondly, it could be pride that was preventing them from asking the question. Who doesn’t want to look smart before others? They were probably afraid that their ignorance would be exposed if they ask questions. Thirdly, it was their response to fear. Isn’t this how we would respond too? When we are fearful of a subject, we want to ignore it altogether. We would rather remain ignorant about an issue than to ask question about it. And it was clear that what was gripping the disciples’ heart at this point was fear. They probably wanted to avoid the subject. They failed to realize that everyone need to come to grips with the inescapable fact of the cross. We will see that Jesus would confront them with this subject continuously.  

The privilege of knowing comes with responsibility. Perhaps we may fear the responsibility of having more knowledge, not just about the cross but about our roles relating to the cross. We know that knowing Christ and our roles would require of us to live and act based on that knowledge. Yet we cannot deny that the call of Christ is to advance with Him. And to progress with Him we cannot do so without discovering more about Him. We need to come to the Lord again and again and to keep asking till we know what’s truly required of us.