Mark 10:32–52 — The Mercy of the King

This sermon is from Mark 10:32-52 and is entitled, "The Mercy of the King."

Mark 10:32–52

It was delivered to Ekklesia Churches on Sunday, November 2, 2025.

Throughout the earthly ministry of Jesus, we have seen that one of the most consistent

issues among his followers is a lack of understanding for who he is and what he came to do. So,

Early on, they believed that perhaps Jesus had come to their hometown to be a sort of

local celebrity.

Would they be able to coast in on the coattails of Jesus because he was staying at their house?

So he led them out of town and into the country.

And they're reminded at this point that this is about the fame of Jesus, not their own popularity.

And then later, when Jesus has amassed a huge crowd that followed him, he sends his disciples

out to testify to the coming kingdom, and they start to feel like they have some authority

of their own, and they start to believe that, in fact, they deserve a following as well,

to the point where they become upset when other people start doing things in the name

of Jesus.

And so Jesus reveals a bit of his glory to some, and he lets some others fail in their

own strength, and they're reminded that they are called to follow Jesus, not to command

a following of their own.

And then in our last few passages, Jesus has really started to speak plainly about how he has come not to be served but to serve, that there is suffering on the road ahead, that his glory will be preceded by his death and resurrection.

And the disciples love the sound of the glory to come, but they hate the suffering that comes first.

In fact, they just want to ignore it entirely.

They have not yet grasped that greatness in the kingdom of Jesus is about becoming less

and bending low and having humility.

And you can see through every interaction with his disciples that their failure to understand

who he is and what he actually came to do affects everything from their attitude toward

others to their high view of themselves.

And in today's passage, we can see that struggle on display again, but we get this surprising

contrast from a blind man in the city of Jericho.

So don't forget the context of this passage either as we read.

So directly behind us, we have Jesus calling the disciples to a radical kind of humility

and service.

And directly ahead of us, we have the beginning of the last week of Jesus' life in Jerusalem.

And Jesus will speak about his coming death one last time.

The disciples will remain blinded to all of this, and they'll ask for glory for themselves

yet again.

But this blind man will see and ask for only the mercy of God.

This is really a beautiful passage, and I want to invite you to come to it with a heart

that desires the Holy Spirit's work through it and in us.

So let's read this first part of the passage together.

This is Mark chapter 10, verses 32 through 34.

Mark 10:32–34

And they were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them.

And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.

And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying,

See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief

priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death.

and deliver him over to the Gentiles, and they will mock him and spit on him and flog him

and kill him. And after three days, he will rise. So before we move onto this interaction with the

disciples, let's just note a few things from this. The most detailed prediction of the coming

suffering of Jesus. So first we note that Jesus is in fact the one leading the way to Jerusalem.

He knows what awaits him, and he knows what is going to happen over the course of the following week.

But just like Isaiah prophesied of the Messiah in Isaiah 50, verse 7,

Isaiah 50:7

he has set his face toward the goal, and he knows that glory is on the other side of what awaits him there.

Second, his disciples are well behind him, and they are afraid.

They know what awaits Jesus in Jerusalem, this seat of power for all who have opposed him politically and religiously,

or at least they know in part, because they know this is a dangerous place for people to go,

and despite all of Jesus' reminders to them that following him will mean walking willingly into suffering,

they aren't ready for it, and they're certainly not looking forward to it.

So pay attention to what's happening here because it happens to us so easily.

When we don't pay attention to what Jesus says about suffering and about hardship and persecution being on this road that he's leading us down,

we are filled with fear just like these disciples.

We start to think that something is wrong when something isn't easy and we lag behind where Jesus is leading.

And we start to be afraid of what lies ahead where Jesus is.

But when we remember what Jesus has said, and we remember that he is the Lord of Lords with all authority, we can walk with him in confidence, come what may.

That's why we place so much emphasis as a church on Scripture, because it is the living

Word of God and the way in which you and I come to know this Jesus who deserves both

our confidence and our allegiance.

I always know when God is using a passage in me specifically, especially when it starts

preaching to me only three verses in.

That's how God's Word works, and I love it.

So, what does Jesus do when he sees this happening?

Well, he clarifies one last time that this is what I came to do, and this is what's going

to happen in Jerusalem.

But don't worry, after three days, I'm going to rise.

This trip to Jerusalem, the suffering that awaits him there, isn't a detour in the plan.

This is the plan.

So hold tight.

But the disciples have somehow engaged what I have also become very good at, and it's called

selective hearing, because they apparently block out everything that he has said about suffering

and dying, and they only hear the last three words, he will rise, which leads them to ask,

when he rises to power, which of us will be his right and left hand man?

Okay, let's read on in this interaction between Jesus and the disciples.

This is verses 35 through 45.

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him,

Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.

And he said to them, What do you want me to do for you?

And they said to him, Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left in your glory.

And Jesus said to them, You do not know what you are asking.

Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am

baptized? And they said to him, We are able. And Jesus said to them, The cup that I drink you will

drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized you will be baptized. But to sit at my

right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.

And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John.

And Jesus called them to him and said to them,

You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,

and their great ones exercise authority over them.

But it shall not be so among you.

But whoever would be great among you must be your servant.

And whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.

For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The disciples here demonstrate for us perfectly why we must have the whole counsel of Scripture.

why we shouldn't take things out of context as it pleases us to make it say what we want it to say.

It leads us to misunderstand Jesus and his mission and our place in it.

They do see Jesus as a kind of warrior king, and they believe that he is the one who has come

to liberate them after all. And they believe that this is why Jesus must be heading into Jerusalem

to finally kick out the enemy and rise to power and come into his glory.

And they want to rise with him.

But their version of the Messiah is one who does not suffer and die on their behalf.

In fact, that is unthinkable to them.

Their version of Jesus brings them to fixate on the kind of glory that most appeals to them

and on their part in it.

Their version of the future Jesus leads them to ask, as a follower of Jesus, how might I receive honor and glory?

And their failure to see him as the suffering servant leads them to fail to ask, how might I suffer and serve like Jesus?

This is what leads them to ask this question.

And they know it's not really the question that they should be asking.

Because they begin by asking, say you're going to do what we're about to ask.

It's like when you say, hey, promise you won't be mad to someone before you tell them bad

news.

You're trying to secure a positive outcome, even when you know the question leans another

way.

And Jesus, of course, doesn't fall for it.

And even knowing what they will ask says, what do you want me to do for you?

This is the first time in our passage today that he'll ask this question and give them a chance to

bring their motives into the light. And boy, do they ever. They ask Jesus for positions of honor

on his right and his left, the two highest places of authority and honor beside a king.

So whatever the kingdom of Jesus looks like and whoever else is there, they want the best seats

at the table, and they're still fixated on their own glory. And because of that,

they misunderstand the mission too. Jesus tells them plainly what the road entails,

and they say, yeah, yeah, yeah, but when we get there, can we sit up front with you?

They want the benefits of the kingdom, but not the cost. They want to sit on thrones,

but they have no interest in taking up a cross. To this, Jesus responds,

you really don't understand what it's going to cost you to get there, do you?

He refers to a cup and a baptism. And this is one of the few times that he talks about

baptism in this way. So the cup is typically a reference to the judgment of God. The punishment

for sin is in the Old Testament, usually referred to as a cup. And baptism is talking about here,

the way in which this kingdom is inaugurated or how entrance is obtained, what you must go through.

So here's what we need to understand about what Jesus is saying here in his answer to them.

Neither the disciples nor we are able to drink the cup of God's wrath that we deserve as sinners.

And in the same way, this baptism that Jesus is talking about here, we would not have survived.

The best we can hope for under our own power is to take the cup of judgment that we deserve

and experience the baptism of death that is eternal separation from God for all time.

That is what we can do in our own strength.

That is what we deserve under the law.

So in that sense, the disciples are asking, without knowing it, to pay a cost that they cannot afford and to undergo a death from which there is no coming back for anyone but Jesus.

Jesus alone was able to do this on our behalf, and he did.

And that's why the gospel is good news.

Jesus says that we will drink the cup and be baptized, but this is only after he goes first

in our place. So followers of Jesus will drink a cup of suffering. We will undergo trials and

hardship for the name of Jesus. Paul will later call this a kind of participation in the suffering

of Christ, though to a lesser extent. And in the same way, followers of Jesus will be baptized,

but our baptism in the name of Jesus who went before us, who has died and has risen.

So the baptism that we receive instead of a death and separation is instead a death to

sin and a resurrection to new life in the name of Jesus.

Aren't you glad that we come after what Jesus has done for us to drink this cup and to experience

this baptism?

It's so important that we understand our part in the mission of Jesus because it is so different

from the world, and it is the only way to life. Jesus says that the world calls for a kind of

hard-handed leadership, kind of lording power over others, but for those who would call Jesus Lord,

he tells his disciple, it is not so with you. It is not like that for people of the kingdom.

Disciples of Jesus are marked by their humility, by their desire to serve, because they are

motivated by the way Jesus led us, which is laid out so crystal clear in this verse 45,

where he says,

So to be a part of the kingdom of Jesus, we understand that we are recipients of mercy,

and we joyfully serve like Jesus. Which brings us to this second passage, which is a direct

contrast to this request of the disciples. So let's read this together. This is verses 46 through 52.

And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd,

Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside.

And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say,

Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.

And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent.

But he cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me.

And Jesus stopped and said, call him.

And they called the blind man, saying to him, Take heart, get up, he is calling you.

And throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus.

And Jesus said to him, What do you want me to do for you?

And the blind man said to him, Rabbi, let me recover my sight.

And Jesus said to him, Go your way.

Your faith has made you well.

And immediately, he recovered his sight and followed him on the way.

Let's do a quick list of the contrasts in this passage.

The disciples begin on the road with Jesus and will soon abandon him in Jerusalem.

Bartimaeus, though, begins on the side of the road and is following him by the end.

The disciples have seen Jesus with their own eyes do the most miraculous things and still

fail to see him for who he is, whereas Bartimaeus is blind and sees Jesus for who he is more

clearly than his disciples.

The disciples ask Jesus for glory.

Bartimaeus asks him for mercy.

So we could sum up this whole passage by saying, be more like Bartimaeus.

but I think there's a little more to be found here. So Bartimaeus is a blind man, but he isn't deaf,

and he's heard stories about this Jesus of Nazareth. It's a lot like us, really, because

he's heard about the miracles and the teaching and the crowds and the healing.

And when he hears that this same Jesus, this Jesus of Nazareth, is nearby, he calls out to him

using a very specific title, one that we've not heard used in Mark before. He says,

Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. So, Son of David is a term that is referencing the Messiah.

It's actually a term that's grown in popularity really within the hundred years before the arrival

of Jesus. Because the people knew about this predicted king who was to come from the line of

David in the likeness of David. And this son of David was a rallying cry for this warrior king

who was to free them from bondage the same way David had freed Israel from the bondage of people

like the Philistines and others. And he was going to come in and they expected him to do a similar

thing, to lift the bonds of Rome, to restore the temple and the throne. And it had been the cry of

all who longed for that to happen, to wait for this son of David, the warrior king. And yet,

here is a blind man on the side of the road calling out to this warrior king, savior, messiah.

And what does he ask for? He asks for mercy. He hears the news that Jesus is coming,

believes he is the Messiah, but Bartimaeus also sees himself more clearly than any of the disciples

because he sees the Messiah and he knows he doesn't deserve a place by the throne

or even at the table or even at the feet of the son of David. Friends, that is us.

We have wandered far from the heart of God, from giving him the glory that he is due. Scripture

enemies of God in our sin, deserving both that cup of punishment and the penalty of death.

And like Bartimaeus, we need to see that our only hope is in the mercy of God,

and that is exactly what Jesus offers us. For Bartimaeus, Jesus stops on the road and tells

the crowd to stop silencing him and asks him to be brought near. And he asks for the second time

that day. What do you want me to do for you? And Bartimaeus responds, Rabbi, but it's actually a

version of Rabbi that's Rabboni. It's a version of this word for teacher, but this version is usually

only used by the Jews to address God in prayer. And he says, Rabboni, I want to see.

This is a posture for us to take before Jesus Church to say, Lord, I want to see, I want

my sight to be restored, to see you for who you are and to see myself in light of that,

to recognize our blindness and that our only hope for salvation is through the mercy of

God and it is through seeing Jesus for who he is and following him.

And that is exactly what Bartimaeus does.

He is healed by his faith in Jesus and through his submission to Jesus.

And as a result, he follows Jesus on the way.

So would you just dwell on that for a moment with me?

Take a moment to fix your eyes on Jesus, the King of Kings, who has incredibly come to us.

And when we consider Jesus, we recognize that we are sadly underdressed.

We are completely unworthy of him, and yet he calls us to himself.

And when we see that clearly, we tend to stop asking for status and we start begging for

his mercy instead.

I know I do.

But in response to this mercy that Jesus offers us through his own sacrifice on our behalf,

we should start to consider how we ought to respond to this mercy. There are a couple of

possibilities depending on where you are with Jesus right now. The first would be a call to

repentance, meaning we turn away from the sin that has held us tight and we turn to Jesus

because he alone is able to break the bonds of sin and death and then we continue to turn

to him and away from those things. I think the second possibility is joy at the knowledge of

what we owed and what was forgiven and how we are free in Jesus. Look how Bartimaeus responds. He

leaps up, it says. I think finally, we might respond with a sense of expectation of what

opportunities lay before us to serve others and by doing so to serve Jesus.

We who have received the mercy of the King should be anticipating with excitement how

he might give us opportunities to show that mercy to others.

Because those who were blind and now see Jesus know firsthand the mercy of the Son of David

and we follow him on the way no matter what it leads through

because we know who it is we follow.

Ecclesia is a church of house churches gathering weekly in Council Bloss, Iowa

and in homes throughout the week.

We are a Bible-centered church focused on preaching from Scripture

and making disciples of Jesus.

You can learn more about our statement of faith

and contact a pastor by visiting ekklesiatchurches.org.