Mark 10:32-34
Walking Ahead of Them to Jerusalem
32As they were going up the road to Jerusalem, Jesus was walking ahead of them. The disciples were amazed, but those who followed were afraid. Again Jesus took the Twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him:
33“Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes. They will condemn Him to death and will deliver Him over to the Gentiles,
34who will mock Him and spit on Him and flog Him and kill Him. And after three days He will rise again.”
Berean Standard Bible
They are on the road up to Jerusalem. Mark tells us exactly where everybody is standing.
Jesus was walking ahead of them. The disciples were amazed, but those who followed were afraid.
Picture the road for a moment. Out in front is a man walking faster than anyone wants to go. Behind him is a knot of friends who cannot make any sense of what is happening, and behind them are people who have made enough sense of it to be frightened. Nobody on that road wants to arrive, and the man setting the pace is the one with the most to lose by arriving.
Then he takes the Twelve aside and tells them again what is coming, and this time he gives them the itinerary. Earlier he had said he would suffer, be rejected, be killed and rise, and later he added that he would be handed over into the hands of men. Now he names the city, and then the men: the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes.
They will condemn Him to death and will deliver Him over to the Gentiles, who will mock Him and spit on Him and flog Him and kill Him. And after three days He will rise again.
Two handovers, by two different sets of hands, and he lays them out in the order they will happen. Every item on that list happens before this book is over, and the people Mark wrote for already knew how it turned out. What they are watching here is the man himself, at the front of a road, describing it to his friends while he walks toward it.
They still do not understand him. We know that from the very next sentence, where James and John ask for the two best seats in the kingdom. It has gone this way before. When he said it earlier, Peter took him aside to tell him off, and when he said it again the disciples argued on the way about which of them was the greatest. Now two of them want thrones.
Take the picture from that first verse rather than the failure, though. He was in front. Nothing was dragging him along, no soldiers, no arrest, no crowd pushing at his back, and he had already said out loud what waited at the other end of the walk. The men behind him were amazed and the people behind them were afraid, and he kept going anyway.
How We Know
This is the third and most detailed of the three announcements, and the escalation across them is exact. Mark 8:31 gives suffering, rejection by named groups, death and rising. Mark 9:31 adds being handed over. Verses 33 and 34 here add Jerusalem, the chief priests and scribes, condemnation, handing over to the Gentiles, mocking, spitting, flogging and killing.
The build is not perfectly cumulative: 8:31 names the elders and this one does not.
A sequence that builds that cleanly across three chapters, each time followed by a failure to understand, strongly supports a writer working to a plan he laid down early.
Questions
1 Mark tells us who is where on that road. Who is where?
AnswerJesus is out in front. The disciples are behind him and amazed, and the people behind them are afraid. Three groups on one road, and the man in front is the one who has said where it ends.
2 How is what he tells them this time different from what he told them before?
AnswerIt is far more detailed. Earlier it was suffering, rejection, death and rising. Later he added being handed over. Now he gives them the city, the chief priests and scribes, the death sentence, the handover to the Gentiles, and then the mocking, the spitting, the flogging and the killing.
3 Who does he say will do what to him?
AnswerThe chief priests and scribes condemn him and then pass him on. The Gentiles do the mocking, the spitting, the flogging and the killing. Two sets of hands, both named before any of it has happened.
4 Is there something you have been moving toward slowly because you are afraid of how it will go? Where is Jesus standing in the first verse of this?
AnswerOut in front, on a road he had already described in detail, walking faster than the people trying to keep up with him. He did not wait for anybody to feel better about it, and he did not turn around.
What This Means for Us
He was in front, and nothing was making him go. It is easy to read the crucifixion as something that happened to him, and Mark keeps showing us the opposite. He knew the list. He said it in order, more than once, to men who could not take it in. Then he walked faster than the people trying to keep up.
There is probably something you are moving toward slowly because you are afraid of how it will go. A conversation, an apology, an obedience you have been putting off for months.
Nobody on that road felt ready. He did not wait for them to.
Prayer
Father, thank you that he walked in front, on a road he had described out loud, with nothing forcing him. We drag our feet toward the things you have asked of us. Give us courage that does not depend on feeling ready, and keep us following even when we do not understand. Amen.