One Thing You Lack
For the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
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Mark 10 is the long road to Jerusalem. Jesus is teaching and healing and the crowd is following — but the destination is fixed. The third passion prediction in this chapter is the most detailed yet. Everything in the chapter is happening in the shadow of what is coming.
Read it through before the walk-through.
Walk-through
Marriage and children (verses 1–16)
Pharisees ask Jesus to test him: is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? He asks what Moses commanded. They say: Moses allowed a certificate of divorce. Jesus:
Moses gave that command because of your hardness of heart. But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female — the two become one flesh. What God has joined let man not separate.
The question is not what is permitted at the lowest level; it is what God designed. Jesus goes behind Moses to creation — to the intention before the accommodation. In the house the disciples ask again; Jesus gives the full teaching on remarriage.
Then people are bringing children to Jesus for him to touch them. The disciples rebuke them.
Mark 10:14–15But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant, and said to them, "Allow the little children to come to me! Don't forbid them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Most certainly I tell you, whoever will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child, he will in no way enter it."
Indignant — one of the few times Mark uses this word of Jesus. The disciples are not just making a scheduling error. They are turning away the very people who represent the posture of Kingdom entry. He takes the children in his arms and blesses them.
A child has nothing to offer. No credentials, no accomplishments, no leverage. They receive because they ask and because they are given to. That is the posture.
One thing you lack (verses 17–22)
A man runs up to Jesus and kneels before him. Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus: why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments — and he lists them. The man: Teacher, I have kept all these from my youth.
Mark 10:21Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, "One thing you lack. Go, sell whatever you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me, taking up the cross."
Loved him. Mark inserts this. Jesus is not testing him, not exposing him, not setting a trap. He looks at this earnest, observant man and loves him — and then tells him the one thing that stands between him and what he is asking for. The call is from love, not from judgment.
The man's face falls. He goes away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
He asked the right question. He had lived a genuinely obedient life. He came to Jesus, kneeled, and asked. And when he received the answer, he could not take it. Not because Jesus asked for something excessive — but because what he asked for was the one thing that was precisely too much.
The camel and the needle (verses 23–31)
Jesus looks around and says to his disciples: how difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God. The disciples are amazed. He says again: it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom. They are exceedingly astonished: then who can be saved?
Jesus looks at them: with man it is impossible. But not with God. All things are possible with God.
Peter: look, we have left everything and followed you. Jesus: no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and the gospel's will fail to receive a hundredfold now — houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, lands — with persecutions. And in the age to come, eternal life. Many who are first will be last, and the last first.
The third passion prediction (verses 32–34)
They are on the road going up to Jerusalem. Jesus is walking ahead of them. The disciples are amazed; those following are afraid.
He takes the twelve aside again:
Mark 10:33–34"Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes. They will condemn him to death, and will deliver him to the Gentiles. They will mock him, spit on him, scourge him, and kill him. On the third day he will rise again."
The three predictions have grown more specific each time. This one names the agents — chief priests, scribes, Gentiles. It names the acts — mocked, spat on, flogged, killed. And it names the outcome: on the third day he will rise. He is walking toward this with his eyes open.
James, John, and a cup (verses 35–45)
James and John come to him: we want you to do for us whatever we ask. What do you want? Let us sit at your right and left in your glory.
Jesus: you do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I drink, or be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with? They say: we can. He says: the cup you will drink. The baptism you will be baptised with. But to sit at my right or left is not mine to give — it is for those for whom it has been prepared.
The ten hear and are indignant at James and John. Jesus calls them together:
Mark 10:43–45"But it shall not be so among you, but whoever wants to become great among you shall be your servant. Whoever of you wants to become first among you, shall be slave of all. For the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
Not to be served but to serve. This is not a motivational principle. It is grounded in what Jesus is walking toward on the road ahead of them. The self-giving that defines his leadership is not a style choice — it is what the ransom costs. He is the pattern and the price.
James and John asked for positions at his right and left in glory. Two others will hang at his right and left on the cross. That is the glory this road leads to.
Bartimaeus (verses 46–52)
They come to Jericho. As Jesus is leaving with a great crowd, a blind beggar named Bartimaeus is sitting by the roadside. Hearing that it is Jesus of Nazareth, he cries out:
Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!
The crowd rebukes him and tells him to be quiet. He cries out more. Jesus stops.
Mark 10:51–52Jesus asked him, "What do you want me to do for you?" The blind man said to him, "Rabboni, that I may see again." Jesus said to him, "Go your way. Your faith has made you well." Immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus on the way.
What do you want me to do for you? Jesus asked this same question of James and John. They answered: thrones. Bartimaeus answers: sight. He receives what he asks for and immediately follows Jesus on the road to Jerusalem — the road everyone else is walking in amazement and fear.
Son of David — the messianic title. Bartimaeus cannot see Jesus but he sees clearly enough to name him. The messianic secret that has held through the whole gospel is beginning to dissolve as Jerusalem approaches. The blind man on the roadside shouts it openly, and Jesus stops for him.
Take with you
The rich young man and Bartimaeus frame the chapter. Both come to Jesus with urgency — one runs and kneels, one shouts despite being told to stop. Both receive the same basic question from Jesus: what do you want? One wants eternal life but cannot release what he has. The other wants sight and asks for nothing else.
Jesus looked at him and loved him. The call that followed — sell everything, follow me — was not harsh. It was love that saw exactly what stood between this man and what he was asking for, and named it. Love does not soften the cost. It tells the truth about it.
Bartimaeus follows on the way. The rich man goes away sorrowful. The difference is not their moral record — the young man had kept the commandments from his youth. The difference is what they were willing to let go of when Jesus named the one thing.
The chapter ends with a blind man who can see, following Jesus into Jerusalem. The disciples are afraid. The crowd is amazed. Bartimaeus is on the road.