Mark 10.35-45
James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’ And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’ And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then 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; 40but 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.’
When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’
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It’s been a few weeks now since we have seen Jesus predicting his death. He has done it twice before in the gospel and now he has for the third and final time before he goes into Jerusalem and face his fate. ‘The Son of man must give his life as a ransom for many.’ It seems a bit morbid that Jesus should be so focussed on his own suffering and death. I don’t think many of us go around thinking about how our lives are going to end, at least not day to day. It seems like such a strange thing to do. In fact, you would steer clear of somebody like that I think.
There is a wonderful line from the film the Shawshank Redemption. ‘You either get busy living, or get busy dying.’ Well for Jesus, it seems like a lot of what he was talking about was dying! We talk about it a heck of a lot in church. At baptisms, marriages and weddings, in every communion service, the spectre of the death of Jesus is always there. The cross of Jesus is the central symbol of Christianity. The cross, that symbol of pain and dying and death and agony; one of the cruellest methods of torture and death imaginable. We have made that the centre of everything, and somehow it is.
But for Jesus, dying was living. In dying he enables us to live. Jesus got busy dying, so that everybody else could get busy living. Living new lives! In dying he gives us that eternal life that he and his heavenly Father share. That is the gospel. That is his mission. And his disciples know it. The first time Jesus said that he must suffer and die the disciples denied it. The second time they seem to be stunned into silence by what he is saying. Now though it seems that they have become accustomed to the idea. And James and John, two of Jesus’ closest disciples, seem to be very accustomed to it. Either that or they have missed the point entirely. They want all of the glory, to sit on the right and left of Jesus. But they have no idea what they are asking Jesus for. For to save everybody, the glory of God has to die. Jesus himself must die.
This isn’t some contrived way of telling a story so that it seems more dramatic, or some kind of show that Jesus is putting on for effect. This is going around saying [DRAMATICALLY!] ‘I must go to Jerusalem to die now.’ No this is God at work, fulfilling his mission to bring the peoples of the world back to himself by sacrificing himself for us, taking all the sin and death onto his shoulders.
This story is so subversive and strange that many have found it unbelievable. It was so strange that the king must die that for many centuries the early Christians did not even want to depict images of the cross because it is so… so awful that it is unimaginable. I don’t think it is something that we can truly understand these days as we weren’t there, but it was so counter cultural. It was so not what was expected of the messiah. It was just so ‘other’ that only God himself could have come up for it.
James and John are still thinking in terms of the ways of the world. They want all the glory. They still think that Jesus is going to walk into Jerusalem in glory and triumph. That they will sit on his right and his left side has he is proclaimed King on his throne. And indeed, at the beginning of his time in Jerusalem it looks like that. We remember that on Palm Sunday at the beginning of Holy Week. Where the Crowd shouts ‘hosanna to the son of David. “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest heaven!”
But by the end of the week, he is bound and gagged and the crowd shout Crucify, Crucify!
Jesus says in verse 38 ‘You don’t know what you’re asking for!’ And indeed they don’t. None of us know what we are asking for. Jesus modelled the kind of God he is by turning the ways of the world upside down. He subverted human systems and human authorities. He said he was a king who came to serve, and one that would be glorified by dying. Jesus says in verse 43 and following, ‘but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be a slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a random for many.’
This becomes so familiar to us that we miss it. And because we miss it, God can’t work as powerfully in us has he otherwise would. God wants us to be open and humble, willing to change, willing to be challenged, willing to serve others, willing to put others before ourselves. He wants us to be changed. There is a modern narrative that says ‘we’re all fine just the way that we are.’ Well this is clearly not true as if it were true there wouldn’t be so many self help books out there!
There is that wonderful meditative hymn which I haven’t sung for quite some time. Spirit of the living God.
‘Break me, melt me, mould me, fill me. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.’
I remember once singing this and being absolutely terrified. And I was terrified because it costs us everything. Break me, melt me, mould me, fill me. It means being challenged at the fundamental level of our being. Of being willing to do what God wants, to serve his will and not glorify ourselves.
What is God calling you to do today. It’s a scary question to ask, once a visiting preacher came to my old church over at Saint Andrews at Over Hulton and he asked ‘what’s God calling you to do with your life.’ That began my journey to ordination. It could be the beginning of yours as well or some other form of ministry.
Another wonderful song, this time attributed to Saint Francis. Make me a channel of your peace. This is a hymn that puts all of it together. It asks us to to not be like James and John, trying to Lord it over others, but rather to be like Jesus, the Jesus who suffered and died for us.
Make me a channel of your peace,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
In giving to all men that we receive,
And in dying that we’re born to eternal life.
May we have the grace to follow Saint Frances’ example and have the heart of a servant as our Lord commanded.
Amen.