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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Be careful of what you ask for, because you just might get it! Have you ever had that experience? You think you want something, and then, after you get it, you find out that other things came along with it that maybe you did not want or do not like. Jesus’s disciples James and John may have had that experience in the event reported by the Gospel Reading today, the Fifth Sunday in Lent. They asked Jesus to grant them to sit, one at Jesus’s right hand and one at His left, in His glory. Jesus said they did not know what they were asking and asked them if they were able to drink the cup that He drinks and to be baptized with the baptism with which He was baptized. They said they were able to do those things. Jesus said that they would do them but that to sit at His right or left was not His to grant. James and John’s request made the rest of the twelve disciples indignant, and so Jesus spoke to them again (see Mark 9:33-37) about the need for them to humble themselves as a servant and slave, just as He Himself came not to be served but to serve by giving His life as a ransom for all (the Greek word is “many”, but the meaning is “all” [confer 1 Timothy 2:5-6]).
St. Mark’s Divinely‑inspired Gospel account does not tell us exactly what James and John were thinking or precisely why the ten were indignant. Earlier in His ministry Jesus had told the Twelve that, when He sat on His glorious throne, they would also sit on twelve thrones and judge (or lead) the twelve tribes of Israel (Matthew 19:28), so James and John’s request to sit at Jesus’s right and left at least seems to have proceeded from faith in Jesus and in His Word, faith in such glory even through the death and resurrection of which Jesus had again prophesied in the verses immediately before our Reading (Mark 10:32‑34). And, Along with Peter and Andrew, James and John do seem to have been closer to Jesus than the other eight disciples, perhaps in James and John’s case due to what may have been family ties. Still, they also seem to have thought of themselves as closer to Jesus than they actually were in the big scheme of things, and they also seem to have had wrong ideas about the lording over and exercising authority that might come with sitting on thrones with Jesus. Some of the other ten similarly may have thought of themselves as closer to Jesus than James and John or likewise to have had wrong ideas about being rulers or great ones. And, while they all knew about the rulers of the Gentiles, none of them seemed to have known or understood about the cup of suffering and the baptism of death that they would experience on the path to whatever glory they would have.
What about us? Do we have faith in Jesus and in His Word about even our sitting on a throne with Him (see Revelation 3:21)? Do we have a right regard for where we stand in His Church? Do we want to lord it over and exercise authority over others? Or, do we live as servants and slaves among our fellow believers? Do we know and understand about the cup of suffering and the baptism of death that we experience on the path to the glory God has promised us? For all our failings, are we sorry and do we ultimately trust God to forgive us on account of the ransom Jesus, the Son of Man, paid for us? As we sang in the Introit this morning, the Lord has heard our pleas for mercy, He has inclined His ear to us, and He has delivered our souls from the snares of death and pangs of Sheol that we deserved on account of our sin (Psalm 116:1-4, 8; antiphon; Psalm 43:1).
Contrary to any false ideas about the disciples’ and ourselves’ exercising authority in God’s Kingdom, all three of the Readings appointed for today emphasize the Kingdom’s being about the forgiveness of sins. In the Old Testament Reading (Jeremiah 31:31-34), the Lord promises that under the new covenant He makes with His spiritual Israel He will forgive our iniquity and remember our sin no more. In the Epistle Reading (Hebrews 5:1-10), the Divinely‑inspired author describes how Jesus Christ was appointed by God as a high priest to offer the sacrifice of Himself for our sins and so became the source of eternal salvation for all who believe. And, in the Gospel Reading, Jesus describes the service that He came to render as giving His life as a ransom for all. Indeed, instead of our suffering the pains of hell Jesus suffered them on the cross for us. There God in the man Jesus died as a substitute sufficient for the sins of the whole world. There He paid our ransom to God the Father so that the devil no longer can accuse us of sin (confer Scaer, CLD VI:87-88). When we as individuals believe that Jesus has paid our individual debts in full, then God truly forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake, whatever our sin might be.
In His giving His life as a ransom for us, Jesus drank the cup of suffering, the cup of His Father’s holy and righteous wrath against us an account of our sin, the portion or allotment we deserved to drink (Isaiah 51:17, 22; Mark 14:36; John 18:11), and Jesus was so afflicted by His Father because Jesus identified with us in His Baptism, voluntarily taking on our sin (see Prenter, translated by Jensen, cited by Scaer CLD XI, 39 n.25). In the Gospel Reading, St. Mark uniquely records Jesus’s pairing His drinking a cup and being baptized essentially as descriptions of His suffering and death for us. Jesus’s suffering and death “give substance” to His Sacraments, and His Sacraments give us and accessible “form to His death” (Scaer, CLD, VIII:124). As we with water and the Word are baptized into Christ Jesus, we are baptized into His death (Romans 6:3), and even little children are so welcomed into the Kingdom of God, lest we risk the Lord’s indignation (Mark 10:14). At Baptismal Fonts like this one we are baptized with Jesus’s baptism, and at Altars and Rails like these we drink of His cup. The benefits of Jesus’s suffering and death mean that instead of a cup of suffering we partake of a cup of salvation and blessing (Psalm 116:13; 1 Corinthians 10:16), the cup of the new testament in the blood of His violent death. In the Sacrament of the Altar, Jesus’s body and blood in, with, and under bread and wine gives us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. In these ways, through His Word and Sacraments, God’s servants serve us (1 Corinthians 9:19; 2 Corinthians 4:5), delivering to us the benefits of His suffering and death, and thereby enabling us to endure the suffering and possibly death Jesus knows we will experience on our path to His glory.
Be careful of what you ask for, because you just might get it! Of course, even though James and John drank of Jesus’s cup and were baptized with His baptism, they did not get what they asked for, to sit at Jesus’s right and left, because it was not Jesus’s to grant. But, James and John got—and we get—something better: Jesus’s ransom for sins, given through such means as Holy Baptism and the Sacrament of the Altar. As Jesus instructs us with His teaching and enables us by His life of service, we live as servants and slaves among our fellow believers. And, when we fail to live in that or any other way, we, with repentance and faith, live in the forgiveness of sins, loving the Lord, calling on Him, and being delivered as long as we live.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +