The density of a material is its weight per volume. Writing also has varying degrees of density, that is, content per word count. Good writing strives for high density. It abhors adjectives and adverbs and qualifiers. Strong writing will avoid saying “today is actually Sunday” or “today is not Saturday, but Sunday”, when “today is Sunday”; says it all.

Mark’s gospel is an example of high-density writing. Writing courses might use Mark as a lesson. Mark packs a lot of content into a few words. His writing is subject followed by action verb followed by object. Today we have just eight verses but with three different messages. And those messages are three of the biggies in the gospels.

In today’s gospel, Jesus has already told the disciples once about what fate lies ahead. We heard that account last week, when Jesus foretold his suffering and rejection and killing and rising again. Today, in the first three verses, he has to tell them again: he will be betrayed and killed and rise again. And again, his disciples could not comprehend.

I will come back to that first bit. The next three verses are about greatness, and who is great. The teaching is, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all.” This text points to that greatest of all Christian virtues, humility. It sounds like Our Lord in Luke’s gospel (14:8-10), “When you are invited to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor. But go and sit down at the lowest place.” Or (in 18:9-14) the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector who went to temple with two different attitudes, and Jesus said it was the tax collector standing far off who went home justified. Both these passages from Luke end with the same closing verse, verbatim, also in Matthew (23:12): “All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

We have Jesus also in Luke (22:27) asking his disciples at the Last Supper, “For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves?” In both Matthew (20:26) and Mark (10:43), he tells them, “Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant.” So, humility.

In the final two verses today, Mark says Jesus took a little child in his arms and said to the disciples, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” In Matthew (18:5), Jesus says the same thing: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

This is just one of several places in the gospels where Jesus tells us who He is by calling himself someone else. In John’s gospel (13:20), Jesus has just washed his disciples’ feet when he says, “Very truly, I tell you, whoever receives one whom I send receives me.”

In Matthew (10:40-42), Jesus gives a list. He says that whoever welcomes his apostles, or a prophet or righteous person or a little one, welcomes him. Receive one of them, and we receive him, because that is who he is. The message is always about openness to Jesus through others.

Jesus identifies himself as others. The best known example is Matthew 25:40. “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me,” So, a lot of transposition. The takeaway is, when we look at a powerless, needy, vulnerable, or sick brother or sister, we are looking at Jesus. That is who he says he is. Now let’s go back to the beginning, and the last message for today. When the disciples heard Jesus describe to them their future, for the second time, they again could not accept it. Mark says they were afraid to ask about it. Since the time of Noah, God’s people have had to face a future that was nothing like what they had in mind. God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, for heaven’s sake. Jesus told the disciples that their reward for giving up everything, and following him all around the countryside for three years, would be suffering and rejection and persecution.

Our lives sometimes unfold along a very different path from what we were expecting and counting on. My bishop says that part of discipleship is knowing when to let go of our expectations. The more tightly we cling to them, the harder it will be to hear what the Holy Spirit is calling us to. If I am resolved that the world should go a certain way, and I can’t let go of that model and trust in the Holy Spirit, then when it doesn’t go that way, I will be frustrated and, like the disciples, afraid. The harder I try to force it to go my way, and still it does not, the more I will wear myself, and others, out.

We believe that God has a plan for us. We don’t know what the plan is, we might be afraid to know, but it is constantly unfolding by the work of the Holy Spirit. Like the disciples, we don’t have to understand it. We just have to look for it, listen for it, and then be open to it and then embrace it. It will sometimes be chaotic and stressful and difficult and painful. (That’s way too many adjectives!) But we believe that at the end of it all there will be resurrection and new life. That is our faith, through Our Lord Jesus Christ, who told his disciples that in the end he would rise again.

So, three messages from Mark: First, humility. That 30,000 foot view that shows us that we are all God’s creatures, and that He or She will take care of judging us.

Second, Who is Jesus? Jesus is that other person. When we look into the face of another, we are looking at Jesus.

Third, letting go of our expectations. Letting go and trusting and putting ourselves in the hand of the loving God.

God be praised. Love your neighbor. Amen.