What About Them?

Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.” Mark 10:21

We know from this story that one man couldn't even save himself, and he had one advantage many of us will not know in this lifetime - wealth. Not a comparative kind of wealth such as we see on the social media, but real wealth where this young man had no worries about money. We can see from the verse that Jesus loved him too.

Set aside the riches, and imagine for just a moment that one of us had been raised to keep the law of Moses down to that last jot and tittle. This person, you or me, made it through the teenage years without rebelling against that training, and managed to avoid all the temptations of the world in adulthood up to the time of dying. Standing before the Lord, we have this impressive feat to show Him. And He asks but one question. Motioning to the people awaiting judgment behind this paragon of law keeping, our Lord asks, "What about them? I love them too."

I try to imagine myself as this paragon of the law but it never works, so it must be you that we are imagining here. However, from this attempted parable we can see that one person saving himself or herself just doesn't help the rest of us at all. And if that should ever happen, we can see that it would leave out a whole multitude of people too great to count that John saw in Heaven. Someone, it seems, not only kept the law but managed to do more than that, much more than that. Who is it that could keep the law his entire life and saved this great multitude as well? Who could present his life as perfectly lived before the law AND could answer the question with, "I saved all of them too."

That's an easy one for those of us who believe in our Lord Jesus! He did all the saving we need.

Bucky