The Argument on the Road: Mark 9:30-37

They passed through Galilee quietly—Jesus did not want anyone to know where they were. He was teaching his disciples, and the lesson was dark:

"The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise."

They did not understand. Mark says they were afraid to ask—afraid of what more clarity might reveal, afraid of a future they could not bear to see.

So instead of asking about death and resurrection, they argued about something else entirely.

When they reached Capernaum and settled into a house, Jesus asked: "What were you arguing about on the road?"

Silence. Thick, embarrassed silence. Because on the road, while Jesus spoke of his death, they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest.

The juxtaposition is devastating. The Master walking toward a cross. The disciples jockeying for position.

Jesus sat down—the posture of a rabbi about to teach—and called the twelve to him. "Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all."

Then he took a child and had the little one stand among them. Children in that culture had no status, no power, no voice. They were the lowest, the least, the ones adults overlooked.

Jesus put his arms around the child. "Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me."

Greatness in the kingdom was not about climbing over others. It was about stooping down to the smallest, the least, the ones no one noticed.

The disciples wanted thrones. Jesus handed them a child.