GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 10:21
Lacking One Thing
There is a story about a restaurant on the moon. It had a great menu, but it lacked one thing—atmosphere. (Note: I’m not taking this on the road.)
I once read about a master engineer who designed and built a flawless engine. Every component was precise, every system optimized, and expectations for its performance were high. It was admired by experts and praised as a work of genius. When the day of the presentation arrived, every seat in the auditorium was filled. The engineer stood beside his masterpiece and pushed the start button. The starter growled and growled, but the engine never started—it lacked one thing: fuel.
Mark tells about a young man—well-placed financially and socially—who came to Jesus. None of the Gospel writers explain how he came to know about Jesus—perhaps he had been in one of the crowds that gathered around him, or someone had told him about Jesus’ teaching.
Jesus’ message led him to reflect on his own spiritual status; something was missing. Social status and wealth failed to satisfy his longing. Defying custom and social convention—and likely being dressed in his finest tunic—he came and fell before Jesus in a humble gesture.
He asked the pivotal question: How could he inherit eternal life? Jesus directed him to the moral law, and the young man said he had been careful to observe it from his youth. “But Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, ‘You lack one thing: Go, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.’” (Mark 10:21)
The young man had admirable qualities. Jesus loved him, yet he lacked one thing: he was shackled to this world. Jesus came right to the point. He was not proclaiming a doctrine of poverty, but one of liberty. If one is tethered to anything else, one cannot follow Jesus—a lesson that has always been and will always be true.
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