Once the glorious moment of the transfiguration is past in Mark's gospel (9:2-8), Jesus and his disciples begin on the journey to Jerusalem that leads them ever closer to the events of rejection, humiliation and death. This week's gospel text shows Jesus and the disciples moving "through Galilee" while keeping a low profile. Instead of enjoying the hospitality of friends and family as might have been expected in these familiar lands, Jesus circles the wagons tightly. He sequesters the disciples in preparation for what is soon to happen.

These private, intensive tutorials focus first on the message the disciples least want to hear and most stubbornly refuse to comprehend the approaching persecution and trials. In Mark's gospel Jesus has already once foretold this frightening future to his f…