Pentecost 21 – 18 October 2015 - Year
B
Grace to you and peace from our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The text for our meditation is written
in the 10th Chapter of the Gospel according to St Mark: Verses 32 –
45
32 And
they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of
them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. And taking the
twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, 33 saying,
“See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of
Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the
Gentiles. 34 And they
will mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days
he will rise.”
35 And
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to him and said to him, “Teacher,
we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” 36 And
he said to them, f“What do you want me to do for you?” 37 And
they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your
left, in your glory.” 38 Jesus said to them, i“You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to
drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am
baptized?” 39 And they said to him, “We are
able.” And Jesus said to them, “The cup that I
drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will
be baptized, 40 but
to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those
for whom it has been prepared.” 41 And when the
ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. 42 And
Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You
know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,
and their great ones exercise authority over them. 43 But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be
great among you must be your servant,4 44 and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to
serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Today’s Gospel reading provides us with another narrative of confusion on
the part of the disciples. For once, it
is not Peter who is sticking his foot in his mouth. Instead it is Peter’s two fishing partners,
James and John, the Sons of Zebedee.
These two brothers ask Jesus for the two seats of honour when Jesus
comes into His glory. “Grant us to
sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” In the culture of that day, sitting didn’t
just mean a physical posture, but it could also be used as a term of
ruling. So sitting near someone didn’t
just mean that they were to be physically close to Jesus, but that they were to
have a large share of the honour and authority that Jesus had. We have brought a little bit of that culture
into our own language when we refer to someone as a “right hand man.” Basically James and John were asking to be
number one and two in Jesus’ kingdom.
We can already see the error of this request in the way that James and John
began the conversation: “Teacher, we want
you to do for us whatever we ask of you.”
Jesus is the teacher – the master – the Lord – He is the Christ. James and John should be ready to receive the
service
Jesus wants to give. How can they ask Him to serve them
according to their desires? Shouldn’t they be ready to receive the gifts that He knows are best for them?
Our sinful human nature is very much at home in the politics of power. The boss rules. The leader commands. As Jesus said in today’s Gospel, “You know that those who are considered rulers
of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over
them.” Jesus totally understands how
pagans rule. There is no right and
wrong. There is only the accumulation
and exercise of power. This is our
natural attitude when we come into this world.
Jesus had a totally different worldview.
He said, “Even the Son of Man came
not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” The Son of God did not take on the flesh of
man in order to become the big boss. The
Son of God took on human flesh in order to serve us humans. That is the reason we call what we do in
church a Divine Service. We call it the Divine Service because it is the time and the place where God gives
His divine service to us. It is the
place where we meet Him and He gives His gifts to us – the gifts earned by the service of His Son, Jesus Christ.
Friends in Christ. God’s knowledge
has no end. It is infinite. His wisdom is perfect in every way. He knows what is best for us better than we
do. His way of serving us is holy and
perfect. There is much in His service to
us that is beyond our understanding.
Never the less, in spite of the fact that God loves us more than we love
ourselves – in spite of the fact that God knows what is best for us better than
we do – in spite of God’s perfect wisdom, we join James and John. We have the incredible arrogance to approach
God and tell Him, “God, we want you to do for us
whatever we ask of you.” God already loves us and wants to serve us in
the best possible way. Who are we to
tell God to do things our way instead of His way?
When Jesus heard the disciples’ request, He said to them, “You do not
know what you are asking.” The fact
is that most people don’t know what these brothers were requesting.
The problem is with the word glory. When we use the word glory in its earthly context, we generally mean the power and
authority that Jesus meant when He spoke of the gentiles - “Those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and
their great ones exercise authority over them.” James and John were probably thinking of this
kind of glory. They were operating on
the principle that the Christ would rule over a renewed Israeli empire. They wanted to be the top men in His
government.
There is much more to Jesus’ glory than power and authority. When John’s faith and understanding matured
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, He would write, [John 12:16]
“His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was
glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him
and had been done to him.” What does
the word glorified mean in that verse?
What does the word glorified mean when [John 12:23]
Jesus answered them; “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be
glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you,
unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if
it dies, it bears much fruit.”? Jesus had a conversation with Peter after the
resurrection in which He told Peter about his death and John explained it in
this way: [John 21:19] “This he said to show by what kind of
death [Peter] was to glorify God. What
does the word glorify mean there?
Jesus’ glory does not just refer to His power and authority. It also refers to His victory on the
cross. When we look at the shame of the
cross, we see the glory of our saviour as He wins salvation for us. As Jesus was walking the road to Jerusalem
with His disciples, He began to tell them what was to happen to him. He was telling them how He would bring glory
to God by earning salvation for us with His suffering, death, and resurrection.
Jesus had just been explaining the glory of the cross when James and John
came to Him. They said to Jesus, “Grant
us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Since Jesus had just been talking about the
glory of the cross, James and John were unwittingly asking to be crucified, one
on Jesus’ right and the other on Jesus’ left.
No wonder Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking.” They demonstrated that they did not
understand.
We are like James and John. We think
glory is all about power, authority, and control. We want that kind of glory. We want to be important. We want honour. We want to be number one. We want to be the centre of attention. We are greedy and self-centred. Jesus tells us that the truly great are those
who serve, but we are not interested in serving. Jesus tells us that the leader should take up
the vocation of slave, but we are not interested in being slaves. We aren’t interested in doing things Jesus’
way. We want our way. We want what we want when we want it. We want and we demand. Jesus must tell us what He told James and
John, “You do not know what you are asking.”
The disciples became indignant with James and John. Their desire to have things their own way led
to fighting among the disciples. One of
the quickest ways to divide a congregation is for the people in that
congregation to tell God how they
want Him to serve them – for them to say, “God, we
want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” As the Holy Spirit inspired James to write, [James
4:1–3] “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this,
that your passions are at war within you? 2 You desire and
do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and
quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You
ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions”.
We expect
God to supply our desires, our perceived wants. Friends Jesus knows our real needs that our lives may be
enriched, may be blessed, may be complete in Him. Jesus has the virtue of His infinite knowledge and His perfect wisdom; Jesus has
predestined our salvation and eternal life.
Fortunately for James and John, and you and me, Jesus does not have a
problem with His role as servant and slave.
Even as Jesus set the standard for us He also kept that standard. He continued to teach His disciples in spite
of their stubbornness and He said, “The Son of Man came not to be served but
to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Even though we don’t serve as we should –
even though we don’t adopt the role of slave as Jesus commands, Jesus still
became the perfect servant for us. [Philippians 2:8] “He humbled
himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross”.
In Jesus Christ we see the glory of victory in the agony of the cross. [Hebrews
2:9] “We see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels,
namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death,
so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone”.
Jesus Christ confirmed that victory when He rose from the dead just as He
had said. In His resurrection, He
certified His perfect service – His role as perfect slave in order to offer us
perfect salvation. He now offers us
forgiveness when we do not offer ourselves as servants and slaves. He offers us forgiveness for seeking our own
glory, power, and pride. He offers us
the salvation that He earned with His glorious victory on the cross.
We, like James and John, want glory for ourselves. We want popularity, fame, power, security,
and all the other things that serve our own self-interest. This is one more symptom of the sin that is
around us and in us while we live in this world.
Jesus came for a different kind of glory.
He came to rescue us from this world of sin by submitting to death on a
cross. He has a special honour and glory
because of the suffering of that death and He revealed that honour and glory
with His resurrection from that death.
Now He offers salvation to us through the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith
for He has given His life as a ransom for many.
Amen
The grace and peace of our great triune God that is beyond all human
understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen
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