Whiteboard: The Great Reversal

This Sunday Christ turns our world upside down.

Forget everything you think you know. Forget everything the world tells you about what it means to be great and what it takes to be number one.

Because this Sunday in our reading from the Gospel of Mark Jesus turns it all on its head.

"Whoever want to be first of all must be last of all and servant of all."

Some folks have heard me talk about my process with The Whiteboard. I'm really not much of an artist, but I've found that I'm pretty good at copying. So before I draw anything on the Whiteboard each week I take some time to do a simple Google Image search and see what resonates. It was surprisingly difficult to find images of the "first must be last" or even any of the other biblical corollaries we can think of ("the first shall be last" or "the last shall be first" or anything like that). Which kind of seems to prove Jesus' point, doesn't it?!

Eventually I found this photo and thought it was perfect. It takes our conventional notion of being first and (quite literally) turns it on its head. Which is exactly what we'll do in worship this coming Sunday with Christ's command to be servants of all.

See you on Sunday!

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Mark 9:30-37 --  Who Is the Greatest? 

They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. 

Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’