Biblical Text: Mark 10:17-22

I think this text is a hard one for us to hear because we are so far at an extreme. The key verse that jumps out is that “Jesus loved the Rich Young Rule.” The key question to ask is how did Jesus love him? What I mean by that is how did the love of Jesus manifest itself. And the answers is rather straight forward. Jesus was a good teacher. And in this man’s case that meant holding up the mirror of the law. First he hold’s up the 2nd table, what we might call the basis of ethics. But the man’s problem, the man’s idol, is not ethics. The man’s problem is God. He does not love God above all things, and he is still looking for what he must do. Man has two typical solutions to this. We either create a false law that we can keep, or we excuse ourselves from the law because we are so special and God loves us. But the love of God, what Jesus shows this man, is to hold the clear mirror of the law up. And then we can learn that we cannot free ourselves from our sinful condition. That we cannot do anything. But that Christ has done it.

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