Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.”
Luke 18:31-33 (NIV)

This past week Wendy and I watched a documentary about a local sports team that, 30 years ago, went undefeated and won the state championship. A good friend was on that team. In the middle of the documentary, one of the coaches spoke about our friend. “You’re not going to play much this year,” the coach told him. “But there’s something I need you to do. I need you and the others on the B team to bust your butts every practice and push the starters. You can make them better.” The coach then related our friend’s response: “You can count on me, coach.”

I’ve thought a lot about that the past few days. It’s easy to want the starring role, the starting position, or an office in the C-suite. It is an entirely different to willingly and joyfully embrace a role backstage, a job on the practice squad, or settle for a career in middle management if that’s what you’re needed to do.

In today’s chapter, Jesus predicts His suffering, death, and resurrection for the third time, and it falls on deaf ears. His followers have already started picking out their office wallpaper for their positions on the administration of Jesus’ earthly kingdom. Jesus, however, is quite honest and blunt about His role and the path He is calling them to follow. Jesus even points to the words of the prophets:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:2-6

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
    by night, but I find no rest.

But I am a worm and not a man,
    scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
    they hurl insults, shaking their heads.
“He trusts in the Lord,” they say,
    “let the Lord rescue him.
Let him deliver him,
    since he delights in him.”

Dogs surround me,
    a pack of villains encircles me;
    they pierce my hands and my feet.
All my bones are on display;
    people stare and gloat over me.
They divide my clothes among them
    and cast lots for my garment.

Psalm 22:1-2, 6-8, 16-18

In the quiet this morning, I find myself thinking about my friend’s willingness, even joy, to take a role on the bench and the practice squad. I think about Jesus closest followers who will soon find that their honored roles in the Great Story have nothing to do with earthly glory, but rather will be those of sacrifice, suffering, and martyrdom – just like Jesus before them.

Am I a follower of Jesus simply because it really hasn’t required that much of me? Would I still be following if it had required sacrifice and suffering on the level of Peter and the other eleven members of Jesus’ A-team? Would I have the faith to follow like those believers in Nigeria, Pakistan, China, and other places of the globe who are suffering and being killed for being followers of Jesus?

Perhaps it’s impossible to answer. Nevertheless, I think it’s a good question for me to chew on as I enter another week. Perspective and context is always a good thing.