“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:15 ESV)What does the kingdom of God look like? That's a big question and it's proves to be hard to accept for a man who has grown up on the world with man's values.
The stories included in Mark 8:22-10:52 are bracked by stories of healing blind men. The first demonstrates that the disciples see kingdom realities only partially. The last demonstrates an appropriate desire to gain the Master's kingdom vision.
This diagram demonstrates what we're getting into:
The story according to Mark hits a pinnacle in chapter 8. After being taught and experiencing amazing things, Jesus brings his disciples to a point of crisis. In 8:31 he plainly says that his royal reign will be through abuse and death. The following verses reveal that the disciples still expect a reign typical of the rule of great men. They still see kingdom success like men typically see it.
After the rebuke, Jesus says something like," oh yeah, by the way, you will also have to bear a cross." Not what they had been expecting over the past few years. In fact, this is a real kick in the gut. The cross at this point represents nothing other than a publicly displayed execution. In this case, it's the execution of our own agendas. It's not a kingdom as I invent it . . . "look what I'm doing Jesus, come bless it." It's not a kingdom like men suppose . . . "look at how that politician is gaining favor among Christians, he must be God's sent." The kingdom is the reign of God over individual hearts and his orchestration of his agenda in total through those hearts.
nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you." (Luke 17:21 ESV)We cannot move on to the rest of what resides in these brackets unto kingdom vision until we pick up our own cross . . . dieing to our own agenda and opinions regarding the kingdom.
