Another demand of discipleship, which Mark shows Jesus’ teaching about in Chp. 8, is that you must be prepared to die for your beliefs. “He must forget self, carry cross and follow me”. Here Mark is showing that Jesus is teaching that Discipleship comes before everything else, including your own life. When Jesus is talking about carrying the cross, he is saying that another demand of discipleship means you may be called upon to endure suffering or death.
This theme of suffering is shown also in Chp. 10 when Jesus asks James and John, “Can you drink the cup of suffering I must drink?” James and John do not appear to fully understand the horrendous suffering they would eventually endure as a result of being a disciple, ending in the same fate as Jesus. Jesus knew that as his disciple, the terrible suffering they would have to go through in the future.
Mark shows another one of the demands of being a disciple is sacrifice. The disciples were expected to sacrifice their families and their possessions. We see Jesus teaching about the importance of sacrifice in Chp.12, ‘The widow’s offering’, “I tell you that this poor widow put more in the offering box than all the others. For the others put in what they had to spare of their riches; but she, poor as she is, put in all she had-she gave all she had to live on”. Mark is showing that they also had to sacrifice all they had to be a disciple of Jesus.
The demands of being a disciple are not easy to follow, and while the twelve disciples struggled to meet them, Mark talks about the difficulties disciples can face. “When the man heard this, gloom spread over his face, and he went away sad because he was very rich”. But Mark also shows how Jesus teaches that those who do meet these demands are meet the sacrifices, will be rewarded. “Anyone who leaves home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will receive much more in the present age.” Mark is showing how Jesus’ disciples have to endure suffering and sacrifice and the demands of being a disciple in this life, in order to be able to enter the Kingdom of God and receive eternal happiness in the next life.