“For everyone will be salted with fire.” Mark 9:49 ESV
Reflection: how does the Lord help you remove your sin from your life?
There are two aspects of becoming a Christian. The first is what we receive through Jesus Christ, and the second is what we give up of self. In a way, we receive life by giving up death. Putting it that way, the choice sounds so obvious, so simple, right?. Oh, but it isn’t. It requires the deepest of sacrifices, of self, and the process to give up death might be quite painful. Sin, which causes death and is so intertwined within us, must go, for us to embrace life. Sin is like a cancer, like a bad frostbite that eventually causes death to a limb. If a person has been exposed to extreme cold, and say a toe has died, it must be amputated as soon as possible. If it is not removed, according to Cleveland Clinic and John Hopkins Medicine “A dead limb needs to be amputated to prevent the spread of infection and preserve the health of the rest of the body. When tissue dies, it can lead to serious complications, including gangrene, which can endanger the person’s life.”
But, let’s think about this, do we really see sin that serious, that dangerous, that it must be amputated?
The message from Jesus today is a difficult one, but pretty clear. It is not the most popular one to talk about, to think about, and certainly not to follow. He says “And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’” Mark 9:43, 45, 47-48 ESV. Jesus is talking about severe action in our lives here, using amputation to illustrate the choice, in order for us to enter life, enter the kingdom of God.
Now, let’s not get confused here. Let’s be very clear that this is not about “religious works”, about earning anything for our salvation. We cannot. But, it is about choice, about giving up our lives, cutting off what prevents us from receiving the life God has prepared for us. Of dying to self, to receive Christ. You might remember the story of Lot and his wife. It is a story of choice. Jesus reminds us “On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.” Luke 17:31-33 ESV.
The good thing is that, even here, the Lord helps us as we are feeble in ourselves to make this choice. In today’s very short focus verse lies the secret of this process, which is the process of “sanctification”. Of becoming more like our Lord. Jesus says “For everyone will be salted with fire.” Mark 9:49 ESV. A strange message, right? There are two “catalysts” for the process mentioned here. The first is salt, which in this context most likely refers to the preserving qualities of salt. It is about keeping what is valuable, what is good. What is of God. And the second catalyst is fire, which refers to the refining quality of fire, of burning away what is impure. What is of man. And we can easily think of the trials of life, seeing this process in action. Something we all will face, as Jesus says.
Bible commentator MacLaren wrote “Closely as our evil is twisted in with the fibres of our character, there is a hand that can untwine the coils, and cast away the sin, and preserve the soul. And although we sometimes feel as if our sinfulness and our sin were so incorporated with ourselves that it made oneself, with a man’s head and a serpent’s tail, let us take the joyful assurance that if we trust ourselves to Christ, and open our hearts to His power, we can shake off the venomous beast into the fire and live a fuller life, because the fire has consumed that which would otherwise have consumed us.”
