The First Adam Meets The Second Adam on the Road to Jerusalem

I am doing some praying over this coming week's Gospel reading from Mark. It is set in the context of the disciples' failure to really understand who Jesus is and his moving towards Jerusalem where his identity and the very nature of God will be put on trial and found guilty by the judges of his day.

Jesus says that this human way of judging him shows how little we really know about the nature of things: sin (what divides us by uniting the majority against a perceived threat from others, usually a minority with less power than the majority), judgment (the sense of being absolutely right in how we determine the evil in others and the good in ourselves), and righteousness (how we are related and brought together with one another and God by God’s initiative, not our own). And somewhere along the way to Jerusalem, a man comes to him and falls at his feet and implores Jesus to tell him how he can inherit eternal life.

Perhaps the man sees eternal life as a consumer product rather than a gift of relationship with God and other people. Is eternal life something you can get in return for good behavior or appropriate giving? Eternal life is often seen today as a personal improvement in status or reward which begins when we die.

But there is no life, eternal or temporary, that is divorced from our primary relationship with God as our Creator and Father and all of God’s children without exception because eternal life is about how God deals with sin, our human way of judging, and reconstituting the way we create community.

This man is apparently very wealthy and very religious. His relationship with God has been reduced to following laws and following them without a misstep. Jesus looks deeply into the eyes of the man and loves him. Does Jesus see himself in this man?

Does Jesus see us in this man. Is the rich young man who is unnamed in Mark's Gospel this Sunday really the first Adam who continues to walk away sadly with his wealth?

Is Jesus the second Adam who continues on his journey to Jerusalem to offer the wealth of the universe for the salvation of the world? Hmm...sounds a bit Twilight Zonish, but it appeals to my heart and soul this morning as I pray with this text.

We shall see where further prayer and reflection takes me before this message is preached on Sunday.