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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.
“What do you want Jesus to do for you?” That question is a good one for us to ask ourselves as we reflect on today’s Gospel Reading, for that question is essentially what Jesus asks James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who had come up to Jesus and told Him that they wished for Jesus to do for them whatever they asked of Him. Without disclosing what they wanted, their statement was an audacious attempt to manipulate Jesus. But, Jesus kindly asks them: “What do you wish Me to do for you?” James and John wanted to sit at Jesus’s right and left in His glory, presumably to rule as Jesus would rule, maybe even over the other disciples. “What do you want Jesus to do for you?”
James and John earlier had been singled out by Jesus, along with Peter, for a special glimpse of Jesus’s glory, when He was transfigured before them (Mark 9:2-9). After that, the Twelve had argued about who was the greatest, prompting Jesus to tell them to be first by being last and servant of all (Mark 9:33-37), but the Twelve did not yet get it. In this case, Jesus had taken the Twelve aside and for a third time explicitly foretold His suffering, death, and resurrection, but apparently at least two—if not all—of them still did not appreciate Jesus’s path of service through suffering to glory. They seemed to misapply to Jesus’s Kingdom of the Church what they knew about how ruling worked in the sinful world.
We also know something about how ruling works in the sinful world. Too often there is news of elected or appointed officials from both parties who use their positions to their own advantage and so to the disadvantage of others, both those in government and the people as a whole. The original Greek words the Divinely‑inspired St. Mark uses in the Gospel Reading emphasize the selfishness not only of the rulers of the Gentiles and of their great ones but also of at least James and John, if not also of the other Ten. By their attempt to manipulate Jesus, we might even say that James and John tried to “lord it over” Him! They apparently were so fixated on their own wishes for power and glory that what Jesus wished to do and was doing for them, what they really needed, seems to have been of little importance to them (Kretzmann, ad loc Mark 10:35‑37, p.223, citing Luther, St. Louis Edition 13a:1198).
“What do you want Jesus to do for you?” What does “what you want Jesus to do for you” say about you and about your understanding of Jesus’s path of service through suffering to glory? You may not wish to sit at Jesus’s right or left, but do you, like James and John, selfishly wish for power and glory? Do you try to “lord it over” Jesus or those whom He sends? How important to you is what Jesus wishes to do, has done, is doing, and will do for you (what you really need)? We all sin in these and countless other ways, for we are sinful by nature, and any sin warrants present and eternal punishment.
On our own, we were in slavery, sin, death, and darkness, but God’s love was working to make us free (Lutheran Service Book 392:2). As Jesus kindly heard the disciples out and called and enabled them to repent, so God does with us: calling and enabling us to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and to want to do better than to keep on sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives our sin. God forgives our sin related to what we ask of Him. God forgives our sin, whatever our sin might be. God forgives all our sin for the sake of His Son Jesus Christ.
In today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus comes right out and says that He, the Son of Man, came not to be served but to serve, specifically by giving His one life as a ransom for many, which in the idiom of the day means for “all” (confer Isaiah 53:12; 1 Timothy 2:6). The Divine Son of Man might not have been expected to serve others but to have others serve Him, but, in order to save us, Jesus did not use His Divine prerogatives. As we heard in the Epistle Reading (Hebrews 5:1‑10), although He was a son, He suffered and thereby became the source of eternal salvation to all who believe. Out of His love for us the loveless, at our need, our Savior suffered, in order to free us from eternal suffering (LSB 430). Dying on the cross for us is what Jesus wished to do and did for us! God’s righteous judgment over our sin was placed on Him, for us. On the cross, He humbly and selflessly put our needs ahead of His own needs. And so, in the words of the Old Testament Reading (Jeremiah 31:31-34), the Lord forgives our iniquity and remembers our sin no more.
The Lord forgives our iniquity with the water and the Word of Holy Baptism, at the Font making each of us His own child, a child of paradise, so that we can deride sin, Satan, and death itself (LSB 594). The Lord forgives our iniquity with touch and the Words of individual Holy Absolution, through those “slaves of all” He puts in place precisely for that purpose (1 Corinthians 9:19; 2 Corinthians 4:5). And, the Lord forgives our iniquity with the bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar, which are His Body given for us and His Blood shed for us, for the forgiveness of our sin, and so also for life and salvation. Forgiving you in all these ways is what the Lord wishes to do and is doing for you. In Jesus’s baptism He took on our sin, and in our baptisms we are united with Him in His death that ransomed us from our sin (Romans 6:3-4). Jesus drank the cup of His Father’s righteous wrath over our sin and made this cup, by which we proclaim His death, a cup of salvation for us (1 Corinthians 11:26; Psalm 116:!3). We at least sacramentally drink from the cup that He drank and are baptized with the baptism with which He was baptized, if we do not also suffer as He suffered, even if we do not suffer for our sins.
As the book of Acts tells it, James was the first of the Twelve to die for the sake of the Gospel (Acts 12:1-2), but, according to tradition, John outlived them all and died a natural death, although attempts were reportedly made on his life. They were servants of one another and slaves of all. In effect, we each sign up for such suffering, knowing that if the world so treated the Lord, it likely will treat His followers the same way (Luke 23:31), and we vow to remain true to the Triune God even to death and to suffer all, even death, rather than to fall away from this confession of the faith and the Church. Yes, Jesus’s serving by giving His life is an example for us to follow, but we do not save ourselves by following it, and He is the only One Who brings forth from us any such following of His example—our ability is otherwise not in ourselves. The Lord helps us walk His servant-way, forgetting ourselves and serving our neighbors’ needs, loving and serving them and God in them (LSB 857). Such are also our paths of service through suffering to glory! What Jesus wishes to and will do for you!
Giving James and John to sit on His right and left in His glory was not for Jesus to do, even if it would have been in keeping with His Kingdom of the Church, which it was not. Even if the parents could do so, parents who love their children do not always give their children what the children want, because the parents usually know better. The Lord always knows best, and often those He sends to serve as slaves of all likewise often know better. Sometimes their faithful service as slaves of all includes saying “no” to the wishes of those whom they serve. “What do you want Jesus to do for you?” If you repentantly want Him to forgive your sins, He is doing that even as we speak, so that you have His forgiveness now, for eternity!
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +