Scripture Daily

Context No. 2178 of 4322 · Mark

Context · Reflection

Mark 9:38-50: in context

38John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone who doesn’t follow us casting out demons in your name; and we forbade him, because he doesn’t follow us.” 39But Jesus said, “Don’t forbid him, for there is no one who will do a mighty work in my name and be able quickly to speak evil of me. 40For whoever is not against us is on our side. 41For whoever will give you a cup of water to drink in my name because you are Christ’s, most certainly I tell you, he will in no way lose his reward. 42“Whoever will cause one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him if he were thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around his neck. 43If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having your two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire, 44‘where their worm doesn’t die, and the fire is not quenched.’ 45If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life lame, rather than having your two feet to be cast into Gehenna, into the fire that will never be quenched— 46‘where their worm doesn’t die, and the fire is not quenched.’ 47If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out. It is better for you to enter into God’s Kingdom with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the Gehenna of fire, 48‘where their worm doesn’t die, and the fire is not quenched.’ 49For everyone will be salted with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt. 50Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, with what will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

Jesus speaks with startling seriousness about dealing with sin. If your hand causes you to stumble, he says, cut it off; it is better to enter life maimed than to keep both hands and be thrown into hell. And he says the same of the foot and the eye: better to lose them and enter life than to keep them and be lost. He is not commanding literal self-mutilation, but using the strongest possible image to convey how seriously we must deal with whatever leads us into sin: cut it off, however precious, rather than let it destroy us.

The force of Jesus' words lies in how radical the action he calls for is. A hand, a foot, an eye, are precious, useful, part of us; we would not lightly part with any of them. And yet Jesus says that if they cause us to stumble into sin, it is better to cut them off and enter life maimed than to keep them and be lost. The point is the seriousness of sin and the radical action it demands. Sin is not a small thing to be tolerated; it is deadly, and whatever leads us into it, however precious or hard to give up, is to be dealt with radically, cut off, removed, rather than kept at the cost of our soul. Jesus uses the image of amputation to convey how urgently and decisively we must deal with what causes us to sin. This challenges the way we often treat the occasions of our sin. We tend to tolerate them, to keep them around, to make our peace with the things that lead us into sin, especially when they are precious to us or hard to give up, a relationship, a habit, a pursuit, a possession, an influence that we know draws us into sin but are unwilling to part with. Jesus' words cut against this: if it causes you to stumble, cut it off. The thing that leads us into sin, however dear, is to be dealt with radically, removed rather than tolerated, because sin is deadly and no precious thing is worth being lost for. Put to death, Paul says, whatever belongs to your earthly nature. This calls for a decisive, even costly, action against the occasions of our sin. This searches whether we deal with our sin radically or tolerate its occasions. Is there something in our lives that leads us into sin, that we know draws us down, but that we keep because it is precious or hard to give up? Jesus' words are uncomfortable precisely because they call for radical action: cut it off, remove it, however costly, rather than let it destroy us. Better to enter life maimed, he says, than to be lost with it. This is not a counsel of despair but of seriousness: sin matters enough, and our souls matter enough, that we should deal decisively with whatever leads us into sin, cutting off even what is precious rather than being destroyed by it. The call is to take sin seriously enough to act radically against its occasions, removing what leads us astray rather than tolerating it, because entering life is worth the loss of anything that would keep us from it.

Is there something in my life that leads me into sin, a relationship, habit, pursuit, or influence that I know draws me down but keep because it is precious or hard to give up, and can Jesus' radical words, if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, for it is better to enter life maimed than to be lost, move me to deal decisively and even costly against the occasions of my sin, removing what leads me astray rather than tolerating it, taking sin seriously enough to act?

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