Over and over again, Jesus points to his passion and death as the natural road to his Messiahship, and many times his disciples have failed to understand him through that lens as the Messiah who will have to die. The point is that we cannot understand Jesus and his mission apart from his passion and resurrection. His sacrifice on the cross becomes the ultimate sacrifice of all time, doing away the sacrifice of bulls and calves offered yearly that couldn’t take away sins forever. The animal sacrifices were only a reminder of people’s sins.

We are created to love and to live in love. God is love, and anyone who lives in love lives in God. The flow happening between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is the flow of love. This love is expressed in the Genesis poem; let us make man in our own image and likeness; an expression of love seeking to overflow. Humanity became the result of that overflow of love. No wonder God’s love for us is unconditional… we are born out of love.

Jesus however, invites them to the way of descent, the way of service, of not expecting rewards because you are moved by the love to serve. In the Kingdom of God, the power concepts are radically changed to servanthood. This is something Jesus modelled with his life and death and invites them and everyone else to take up their crosses and follow him.