Mark 14:34

“I am sad at heart,” he said, “sad even to death; wait here, and watch.”

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caught in systems
too big to fail
with too much to lose
if healed of too much control
bedrock sadness grows too much

overwhelmed
then beloved
teaching healing
then betrayed
overwhelmed

you’re with me
stay over there
turn on high alert
I’ll be over there
everyone’s alone

what a day this has been
a year’s worth of hope
a decade’s investment
to change an era
and it has come to naught

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The comments of Jesus are suggestive of what may have been going on inside the man with many possessions who was unable to rid himself of their pull on his life. The goal of eternity was insufficient to get him over the hump of actually selling his possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor.

It can be fruitful to imagine what has so captured Jesus that as he actually comes to selling his life, even as a ransom for many, he is troubled to his depths. The cost of continuing in belovedness does not reduce the longer one has been at it. It always costs an identity.

Presuming Jesus has an identity of his own, a nearing denouement has brought the value of identity to the surface. Whether in upper-case or lower-, is Jesus still b/Beloved? Still the t/Transfigured?

These repeated scenes with the disciples not only bring to mind the parable of a house-owner away on a journey and the need to watch but the Transfiguration. Sabin1₁₇₉ notes this latter connection:

The scene is constructed by Mark as the reverse of the scene of transfiguration. Jesus takes the same three disciples and changes again before their eyes, only in precisely opposite ways…. In both episodes the disciples do not know what to say (9:6 and 14:40), yet otherwise their responses are markedly different; When Jesus appears glorious, Peter understands his relationship to Moses and Elijah (9:5), and the disciples connect his transfigured state with Elijah and the End Time (9:11); when Jesus appears “sorrowful even to death” (14:34), the disciples close their eyes and fall asleep.

“Suffering/death” now has more impact than when first met.