Isaiah 53:10-11; Hebrews 4:14-16; Mark 10:35-45
They were struggling with the same thing that nearly every human struggles with at some time in his or her life . . . the desire for power. On the one hand they were right in affirming that Jesus would enter into glory and be seated on his throne in heaven. They were right in professing their faith in Jesus as the Messiah.
Where they were misled was in the type of Messiah they were still expecting. They were expecting a God who rules from above, and likewise asked for seats on either side of him from above. Jesus insists that they are thinking wrongly and tries to explain to them that their power, which comes from God above, can only be exercised from below. They must be servants of all, if they want to follow in his footsteps.
Those first disciples did not fully understand this until after his death and resurrection. They did not fully understand this until they experienced the “baptism” of death with which he was baptized, and in which they were baptized as the first to die for the faith.
Jesus teaches us that to truly have power you must become powerless. You must willingly surrender everything, even life itself, for the sake of God’s kingdom. Are you really willing to do this? Are you willing to accept death itself for the sake of God’s kingdom?
I have never been tested to the point of physical death, but I have been tested with many other deaths in my life; Death of selfishness; Death of my own human desires; Death of my own will as I surrender to God’s will; Death to my own need to be in control.
There are so many things that I would like to do, so many things I would often like to say, but I know that if I am truly to be a follower of Christ I must not do or say these things. I have to let go of the need to be in control, and my desire to control the lives of others. In this I am very much like James and John who also wanted to be in control. Letting go is a difficult task and I don’t always succeed at it. But I have to keep trying, and one day, by the grace of God, I will be much more successful in doing God’s will.
There are so many ways that we tend to want control. We have our viewpoint of the world and different life situations and we sometimes are unbending or unhearing when it comes to other people’s viewpoints. We tend to gossip about people, and put them down, and slander their character, in order that we can have a sense of control over them. We foster negativity and divide into camps and cliques in order to gain control. We enact laws, and buy into economic systems that oppress the poor, in order to be in control. Nations even create armies in order to control other nations. We maim and murder in order to control. We even destroy by the thousands each day, the helpless unborn, in order to be in control.
But Jesus said to truly have power, as God wills it to be, we must let go of our twisted human desire for power, and surrender to God’s will to serve one another.
Today we are faced with unprecedented economic problems, divided political parties and systems, and monumental public issues like rising healthcare costs. And in this we can feel powerless. The fear of flu epidemics, and the helplessness we feel from weather related disasters further contribute to our feeling of powerlessness.
One way in which humans respond to this feeling of helplessness is to become negative and critical of neighbors, and systems, which seem to be hastening the problem. This is one way in which humans try to gain power, by cutting down other people.
It doesn’t help that we are spoon fed daily in our newspapers and on our televisions the latest exploits of corporate greed and the misdeeds of our elected and appointed officials. We seem to hunger for the latest gossip and the latest news. All of this negativity is killing us as a nation and poisoning the goodness within our own souls.
And so, we have to look within ourselves and ask for conversion. We need to surrender our hunger and thirst for power and wealth and comfortability, and adopt instead the humility of Jesus who calls us to greatness by serving others. Why did some Jewish leaders plot to kill Jesus? They had grown comfortable in their lifestyles and were willing to turn a blind eye to the political and social corruption of their day. Their comfortability was threatened by his message. When their power was threatened, they did what so many people do. They looked for a scapegoat. They looked for someone to blame, someone to punish for the problems facing them.
Because of human brokenness this is something we all do. And so Christ gave us exactly what we are looking for. Jesus Christ became the scapegoat, the sacrificial Lamb of God who died for our salvation. This is the cup which he drank, and it is the cup he asks each of us to drink. We must be willing to die to what is wrong, and to die for what is right. We must be willing to serve and love one another.
If we want to have any sense of worth and dignity as a nation we must stop destroying one another with idle gossip and finger-pointing. We must stop sitting on the sidelines letting things happen and instead become a part of the solution.
So let’s stop killing ourselves with the gossip, the negative comments and the fighting that our broken human nature turns to in times of crisis. Instead let us be a part of the solution. Let us adopt the attitude of service and care for one another that Christ taught. Let us be willing to live and die for one another, as Christ lived and died for us.
