The events of today’s Gospel lesson take place as Jesus and His disciples are making their last trip through Galilee. They’re headed to Judea, where Jesus will suffer and die on the cross, and Jesus plans to use these days not to preach to the crowds – not to heal the many who come to him with their illnesses and diseases – but to be alone with the disciples, preparing them for His death and resurrection and preparing them to spread the Gospel of salvation after His ascension in Heaven.
We begin by reading that Jesus tells the disciples exactly what is going to happen to Him in Jerusalem. “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” Jesus’ words seem clear enough to us, but they went right over the heads of the disciples.
He had told them this before, and they didn’t understand it that time, either. The first time Peter made a big show of rebuking Jesus for what he was saying, and Jesus responded by calling Peter by the name of Satan. Jesus knew that one day – following His death and resurrection – they would understand. But not yet. Not now. Probably still remembering what happened to Peter, the disciples kept their mouths shut this time. They didn’t understand what Jesus was telling them – and they were too afraid to ask.
But they weren’t afraid to argue about something else. Only recently Jesus had taken Peter, James and John to a mountaintop and they had witnessed His transfiguration. It’s possible and even likely that the other nine disciples – the ones who didn’t get to accompany Jesus – felt slighted or left out. But no matter what, exactly, had prompted their arguments, the bottom line is that they had been arguing about who among them was the greatest.
In ancient times, matters of rank were important. If you were in the presence of an important person – perhaps a king – it was a higher honor to be standing or seated at his right hand than to be standing or seated at his left hand – or even worse, somewhere out there in the crowd. At dinners and banquets, special places were prepared for those of the highest rank. When Jewish people went to the Synagogue on the Sabbath, important people were ushered to a place of honor, while the less-important people stood back out of the way.
Things really aren’t any different 2,000 years later. When you work for a large corporation as I did for over 30 years, you see this kind of mentality day after day. In the corporate world, ambition is often viewed as trait by which employees are judged and evaluated. A “good” employee wants to advance up the corporate ladder, to earn titles and promotions, to become a manager who supervises the work of many people. In the corporate world, more is better – more power, more people, more authority, a bigger office and, of course, more money in the paycheck.
Talent plays a role, of course – but honestly, it’s not at all unusual for a less talented person with more ambition and more “connections” to get promoted ahead of the more talented person who has less ambition. Sometimes people get ahead because they seem to be the favorite of the big boss, the man or woman at the top. So it’s understandable, I suppose, why the disciples saw Peter, James and John getting what seemed to be preferential treatment from Jesus – and the arguments began.
When the disciples heard Jesus talk about His kingdom, their only reference point was an earthly kingdom. Earthly kings are assisted by important people – by people of authority and honor – and they assumed that when Jesus established this great earthly kingdom, they would be in line to assume those roles of authority.
They didn’t yet understand that Jesus wasn’t talking about an earthly kingdom – he was talking about His Church – so Jesus uses this opportunity to teach them what it really means to be a leader in His Church. “If anyone would be first,” He says, “he must be last of all and servant of all.” That’s certainly not what the disciples were thinking or expecting. It goes against what we naturally think that a leader is. In an earthly kingdom, the leader is served by others. But in God’s kingdom, it is the leader who serves others. The one who is the highest makes himself the lowest. The leader in God’s family sacrifices not to get power – but to serve others.
To make His point, Jesus takes a child into His arms and says, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.” Anyone who cares for a child is caring for God, for the one who sent Jesus is none other than God the Father Himself.
In ancient times, children didn’t count for much. They had absolutely no status in society. Men didn’t deal with children – that was women’s work. In fact, the original word translated here as “child” can also be translated to mean “servant.” The disciples knew this and sometimes even tried to keep children from bothering Jesus. Children were unimportant. Servants were unimportant. But here they saw Jesus holding an unimportant child – and He was telling them to be like unimportant servants.
When Jesus talks about receiving a child, he’s not focusing on age – but on everything that a child represents. A child is weak. A child is helpless. A child needs protection and understanding and care. We who live here in Pana, Illinois are surrounded by children of all ages – another name for them is unbelievers. People who don’t know Jesus. People who are weak because they have not been brought to faith. People who are helpless because they know nothing but their sins – they may not even recognize their sins – and they know no way out of their predicament. People who need the protection from eternal death that Jesus gives us by His death and resurrection. People who need the understanding that their sins condemn them to eternal punishment – but that faith in Jesus frees them from that eternal death sentence in hell. People who need the care – the loving, fatherly divine mercy and care – that can only be provided by our loving Triune God – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
The disciples don’t realize it yet, but sitting right in front of them – teaching them this lesson – was God’s one and only perfect servant. Jesus was begotten of the Father and came into this world as what Isaiah calls the “suffering servant” so that He could win salvation for His disciples – for us – for all people. Jesus sacrificed His very life not to get power and glory, but to serve us. To save us.
Jesus continues to serve us today. He serves us with His Holy Word, the inspired and inerrant words of Scripture that prophesied God’s magnificent plan of redemption for His beloved people – and tell us how Jesus suffered and died to fulfill those prophecies. He serves us in the waters of the baptismal font, where the Word of God is combined with plain water to work forgiveness of sins and our rescue from death and the devil. He serves us in the Lord’s Supper where He gives us His life-giving body and blood in, with and under the bread and the wine. And finally, when Jesus returns in glory on Judgment Day, he will serve us by giving each of us a new, holy and perfect body that will rise from the dead – just as He rose from the dead on Easter morning.
The world tells us that today’s Gospel lesson and all of those words about being “last of all and a servant of all” are nonsense. The world tells us to be leaders and not followers. The world tells us that each and every one of us should strive to be the best, the most successful, the most powerful, the greatest. The world tells us to be ambitious. But as Christians, our highest ambition is to serve. To serve our fellow men, women and children. To serve each other. To serve the Church. And to serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who serves us now – and will continue to serve us until we join Him and all the saints in Heaven.
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