Lent 5B

Text: “43 …But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 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”” (Mark 10:43–45).

To be a Christian is to admit that you are nothing.

Would you agree with that statement?

There is no question— there is a lot of truth to it. Jesus is right to point out how much you and I want to rule over others, to exercise authority over them. You and I love to stake out your area of responsibility— your little domain— where you get to rule; where you can make a name for yourself. And God help anyone who gets in your way.

Or, perhaps, you are not tempted by power. But that doesn’t make you immune. There are plenty of other ways that you and I seek glory from God. For example, it’s not enough to avoid certain books, movies, or television shows because of their sinful content, you and I have to make sure everyone knows that you haven’t seen them. There are so many other ways that you and I find to glorify ourselves.

The last thing you and I want to be concerned with is what you’ve earned from God, either through our sacrifice or through our service.

That’s why James and John make us cringe in today’s Gospel reading. It’s uncomfortable to read about someone being so presumptuous. Plus, it feels like it goes counter to what it means to be a Christian. To be a Christian means to admit that you are nothing, isn’t it? It’s true— actually it’s half true.

Today, James and John give you a beautiful opportunity to consider your reward. I know, good Christians are not supposed to talk about being rewarded. And yet, based on “the unblushing promises and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels” (Lewis, C.S. “Weight of Glory.”), no one has bothered to tell your Heavenly Father that little fact. Here in Mark 10, notice that Jesus does not tell them ‘No.’ He just points them in a slightly different direction.

It is true that there are rewards that have “no natural connection to the things you do to earn [them]” (Lewis, C.S. “Weight of Glory”). Those rewards would make a person a mercenary. Money, for example, is not the natural reward of love. That’s why we don’t look kindly on the man who marries for money. But marriage is the proper reward for romantic love, so a man is hardly a mercenary for desiring that (Ibid.). Learn from James and John today. Don’t be bashful. Come and receive your reward.

Come and enjoy the riches of God’s goodness. Your Heavenly Father would absolutely entice you to come to Him on account of His generosity, alone. Think about what He has told you about Himself. One parable that Jesus told promises you that His generosity, for example, will not allow Him to reward those who begin to work at the 6th hour, or the 9th hour, or the 11th hour, any less richly than He rewards those who have labored since the beginning of the day (Matthew 20:1-16).

Do not be bashful about envisioning a heavenly reward. Your Heavenly Father does not care a bit for what is ‘fair’. “All that I have is yours,” your Father says to you (Luke 15:31). You would be more than satisfied with the wages of a servant in His household, but He insists on bestowing on you the inheritance of a Son. He does not want to give you what is ‘fair’. He wants to give you everything.

Do not be bashful about coming because there is nothing bashful about His giving. What master in the history of “master-ing” has ever said to his servant, “You’ve been working in the field, come and relax while I prepare dinner and serve you”? Your master does (Luke 17:7-8). Your Master leads you to green pastures— places of peace and rest. He prepares a table before you right here, in the presence of your enemies, anointing your head with oil, and filling your cup until it overflows (Psalm 23). The feast that He has laid for you on that table is not “servant’s food.” It is a feast of rich food, full of marrow, of aged wine, well refined (Isaiah 25:6-7).

Do not be bashful, but trust the generosity of the Giver.

And do not be anxious about what kind of reward you may have earned. Death is no longer the proper wages of your life. He has buried you with Him into death and raised you, with Him, from the tomb. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, the Son of Man was lifted up that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life (John 3:14-15). That feast of the finest food and well-aged wine that He has prepared for you— it was only possible because He has swallowed up death forever (Isaiah 25:7).

Do not be anxious about coming as a beggar. Your King made Himself a beggar in order to earn for you a crown in His Kingdom. He, the faithful Son, has bestowed on you an inheritance in His Kingdom. He, the One who has labored faithfully from the beginning of the day, does not begrudge you a full day’s wages, but has earned for you His full reward with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.

Do not be anxious that you have fallen, again and again and again. His grace is always greater than your sin. His justice and His mercy have both been satisfied on the cross of Jesus Christ. Forgiveness has risen from His grave.

James and John were not wrong to imagine a reward at the end of the road that they were on. Their mistake was that they made it about them. Their thoughts were on what they had done— and what they were going to do— for Jesus or with Him. And they could not have been more wrong. To be a Christian is to admit that you are nothing— and— to be even more humbled to discover all that God has given you in Jesus Christ.

As your pastor, my goal, my hope, my prayer for you is that you are able to approach God just as boldly and confidently as James and John did, in full assurance of what the Father wants to give you in Jesus Christ.

It is really striking how much the life of the patriarch Joseph is a picture of ours. Joseph, as a young man, was given prophetic dreams by God. In those dreams, his brothers— and even his father and mother— were bowing down to him. And if God had taken Him from there, straight to being second in command in Egypt, it would have destroyed him. He would have been so full of himself that it would have ruined him in every sense.

Instead, God allowed him to be humbled; to be sold into slavery by his brothers; to be falsely convicted of a crime; to languish, forgotten, in prison; to be forgotten there. Then, when Joseph was finally exalted to Pharaoh’s right hand, it was so that he could help to save countless lives. When the time came and his brothers and his father and mother were there, in Egypt, bowing to him, Joseph wept with love for them. He forgave what they had done to him because what they intended for evil, God intended for good— to save countless lives.

Do not be afraid to make yourself a servant to one another.

Parents, you, for example, have been given authority over your children. Use it— not for your own comfort or convenience; not to re-live your own childhood or to fix the mistakes you made when you were their age— but to be their servant. To bring them up in the fear and knowledge of the Lord. To make sure they know God’s love through the love that you show them.

Husbands and wives, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave His life for her. Or, as Luther put it so beautifully, ”Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave” (Martin Luther).

"But know that to serve God is nothing else than to serve your neighbor and do good to him in love, be it a child, wife, servant, enemy, friend....If you do not find yourself among the needy and the poor, where the Gospel shows us Christ, then you may know that your faith is not right, and that you have not yet tasted of Christ's benevolence and work for you” (Martin Luther).

The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you (Mark 10:42-43). The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve you. And to give His life as a ransom for you (Mark 10:45). He has earned greater glory for you than you could have ever asked for or imagined. And, as if that weren’t enough, He will not fail to reward the love and the service that you show to one another.

On the last day, when you stand before His throne in inexpressible glory, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on your heads (Revelation 4:4), you will lay your crown at His feet in eternal praise and thanksgiving for the One who served you (Revelation 4:10).