Today, we reach the second one of the three predictions of the Passion that stand for Jesus’ journey up to Jerusalem. To this teaching of the Lord, as usual, follows the disciples’ defiance. Jesus fixes (us) them: The ascent of God occurs precisely in the descent to humble service, in the descent of love.

In Jesus Christ, God has revealed Himself in His descending: He did not boast of His divine condition, but emptied Himself by taking on the nature of a slave until surrendering to the "death on a cross" (cf. Phil 2:6-9). The Passion predictions reach their culmination in the statement that follows the third prediction: "For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:45).

—Jesus is the "servant" of God who suffers and dies, whom the Prophet Isaiah had foretold in his songs. "Service" is the true form of rule, and it gives us an insight into God’s way of being "Lord".