It is the other side of the command to love God and the neighbour with all one’s heart and all one’s soul, with one’s entire spirit and one’s entire body. Whereas the disciples want to be ahead of the others as the “greatest,” Jesus points out that it will be hard enough for them to arrive without injury in the kingdom of heaven. Their dream is changed into the sober reality of suffering and service, of war against one’s own proud heart: without that struggle no apostle will be able to be “servant of all.”1
43 And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell,to the unquenchable fire.