Sermon for Lent 5B, March 22, 2015

Text: Mark 10:35-45

            Beloved in Christ, where’s the glory? Where’s the glory of being a disciple of our Lord Jesus Christ? We are now two-thirds of the way through Lent. We have tried taking this whole discipleship thing seriously. But we want to know that there is a reward—that we will be generously paid back for all our troubles. But until today we haven’t really had seen anyone raise that question.

            The First Sunday in Lent we saw our Lord resisting temptation in the wilderness. We heard the call to engage in a similar struggle against sin and temptation, even as we acknowledged that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only person to have done so successfully. Then the next week we learned that the Christian life might not be as glorious as we had imagined. We had heard Peter confess that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. Who wouldn’t want to say that their teacher is the absolute best, especially if He was? But Jesus went on to add to Peter’s statement of faith; He predicted His own death upon the cross, and Peter would have none of that. After all, where would be the glory in that?

            The next Sunday we saw Jesus cleaning house in the temple. Well, that’s a bit glorious, isn’t it? Jesus was showing just how powerful He was and how mighty His kingdom would be. But afterwards He spoke about how the temple of His body would be destroyed and raised on the third day. That point was underscored last week when Jesus described the way that He would be lifted up on the cross, much as the bronze serpent had been lifted up in the wilderness. That would give us our redemption and healing, but it wouldn’t be a particularly glorious moment for Him. Yes, He would be lifted up—and that sounds like being glorified—but being lifted up on a cross doesn’t sound too majestic or honorable.

            And so we naturally balk at what we have been hearing. All human beings want to have the glory that they believe is rightly coming to them. Now even we who know that our Lord was crucified and then rose from the dead may still have a hard time taking seriously His death. But can you imagine how difficult it was for the original disciples to take to heart what Jesus was saying? Every student finds one thing or another about a teacher difficult to understand and just puts it out of mind. And that seems to have been what the disciples did. They could not comprehend what Christ was talking about when He predicted His death and a shameful one at that. So they just gave it no further thought.

            And so we have a perfect formula for the clash in today’s gospel. The disciples thought that they were doing all the hard work of following Jesus all so that they could receive a great deal of glory in a couple of years. Jesus thought that the real glory would involve Him going to the cross. And so eventually these two ideas were bound to clash. And they did so when two disciples asked for special places of honor in Christ’s kingdom and the other disciples wished that they had been able to ask for the same thing first.

            Now, to be fair, James and John weren’t asking for a free ride. They were willing to do the hard work before they got the glory. No pain, no glory. They knew that. And so they told Jesus that they were able to undergo a baptism of fire if need be or drink any bitter cup that He had to drink. Of course, it was nothing but bravado. They were no different from you and me, though. We can run any race, fight any foe, do any task—at least until we are confronted with it. In spiritual matters we are sure that we can resist any temptation and confess Christ boldly at all times—at least until we face the challenge of that moment. James and John didn’t realize how unprepared they were until they saw Jesus arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. They turned tail and ran as fast as they could, along with the other disciples. They couldn’t undergo the baptism or drink the cup that our Lord had to experience. And, if we are honest with ourselves, neither could we.

            And yet that is the way ahead for us. We couldn’t baptized ourselves with Christ’s baptism. We couldn’t plunge ourselves into His death and burial, let alone raise ourselves from the dead. We could not take up and drink the cup of God’s wrath against sin that Christ had to drink. We could not drink the cup that would lead to our salvation, let alone the salvation of the whole world. How could we ever dream of being seated at His right hand or left hand, when we don’t have the wherewithal even to be part of His kingdom? It is like someone who gets winded walking from one side of a room to another talking about whether they will get the bronze or the silver medal in the marathon in the Olympics next year. It’s folly to talk about such a prize when we cannot do the simplest of things.

            And yet—miracle of miracles—we are baptized with Christ’s baptism and given His cup to drink. For what we are unable to do, God has done for us. We were not able to endure the agony of Christ’s bloody death and the ignominy of His burial. But Christ was. We were not able to smash through death and rise gloriously from the dead, never to die again. But Christ was. And the Holy Spirit has united us with that death, burial, and resurrection of Christ so that it can truly be said of us that we have been “baptized with the baptism with which [Christ was] baptized.” We were not able to drink that bitter cup of God’s wrath against sin. We were not able to drain that cup of punishment down to the last, bitter dregs so that God’s judgment would no longer stand against us. But Christ could and did. He drank down the full cup of God’s wrath against sin. And so now we do not drink a cup of God’s wrath but rather the cup of His salvation. For He has drunk the bitter sediment from the wine of God’s wrath and left to us the wine of joy and God’s salvation. He gives us His body and His blood in the bread and the cup, not for our judgment, but for our salvation, if we will accept the gift in faith. (Of course, if we do not receive it as the gift that it is, we find it the cup of wrath instead of the cup of salvation.) The point is simply this: we could not endure Christ’s baptism and cup, but He has borne the burden of that baptism and cup and given us its fruit.

            Thus, we are baptized and we drink from this cup not in order to win a place of glory for ourselves but rather to receive good gifts from God. We are not baptized in order to serve Christ, but rather to be served by Him. And we receive the cup not to demonstrate that we are diligent enough to earn a place of honor, but rather to be honored by Him purely as a gift from Him, not as a reward for our valor.

            Well, if that is the case, who gets to sit at the right hand or the left hand of our Lord? Who is more honored than others? We’d all like to have that bumper sticker on our car that reads, “Jesus loves everybody…but I’m His favorite.” So how do we get that? How do we get onto the honor roll in God’s kingdom?

            Our Lord invites us to think differently about such matters. He told His disciples, “You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” Now it is easy to misread what Jesus is saying. You may think that He is simply saying that you will end up exalted if you don’t mind a life of service first. But that would be simply fall into the trap of the Gentile (that is to say, the heathenish) way of looking at things. The heathen have no problem doing grunt work now if it will lead to glory down the road. If they announced on TV they would give a billion dollars to anyone who could do long hours of grueling labor for ten years straight, they would probably have hundreds of people showing up at the TV studio, volunteering for the task. But Jesus is saying something more profound here. The greatest in God’s Kingdom isn’t the person who was a servant in the past and is now enjoying his or her reward. No, the greatest person in the kingdom is the person who is currently a servant—yes, a very slave—to all.

            That is because Christ was most glorious when He was on the cross, when He was showing that He “came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.” Even today, exalted as He is, He still remains a servant. He continues to intercede for us. He works hard for His church, preserving her and shepherding her. He is no figurehead or retiree. He is eternally our Servant and our Redeemer—and therefore eternally our Lord.

            Beloved in Christ, that is where the glory is. That is what our Lord has been trying to show us throughout this Lenten season. May we at last have eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that understand. In Jesus’ name. Amen.