Mark 9:31 (NRSV)
Read Mark 9:31 on biblegateway.com
Verse 31for 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."
Devotion
Whenever a family conference occurs in the healthcare setting it is an event. It will often bring together the patient, family members, physicians, nurses, a social worker, and a chaplain for various purposes. Sometimes an acutely ill patient’s treatment plan is not clear based upon evolving circumstances and a conversation becomes necessary to facilitate which agreed upon direction is “best” for the patient. These meetings can be emotionally painful because the physicians will share the information as they understand it. The truth in that moment, and this truth-telling, provides a prognosis of what will probably happen. Sometimes that possibility is the patient’s inevitable death. Nothing prepares any of us for this kind of moment. Jesus’ disciples were also not prepared for the truth-telling that he would be betrayed, killed and then rise again. Yet it is Jesus’ truth that prepares us for the reality of our own death.
Prayer
May the truth of your dying and rising, O Christ, always serve as a source of hope and consolation for the reality of our dying and rising anew in you. Amen.