Matthew 20:20-28 (p. 1530)
Int.: Who could blame them?
Who could blame James and John and their mother?
These sons of Zebedee had followed Jesus from the beginning. They seem to have been some of the first disciples whom Jesus called to follow him. They were two of Jesus’ three closest friends, and John was “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” Christ’s very best friend in this world. They were also probably Jesus’ relatives; Bible references to their family seem to indicate that their mother was the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus.
And James and John were faithful to death. John was the only disciple who stood by Jesus at the High Priest’s house, Pilate’s courtyard and even at Christ’s cross on Calvary. James was the first of all the apostles to die a martyr’s death – He was killed by Herod while the apostles were all still living and working in Jerusalem. John died last of all, after 100 A.D., and he saw to the orderly and godly founding and organization of the Christian Church on earth.
So who could really blame them for their request – except that they had not really been listening to what Jesus was telling them about his kingdom?
And who could blame the rest of the disciples for their angry reaction to this request?
It seemed like James and John were using their family ties to pull a dirty trick on them and get a special place in God’s kingdom for themselves - and using their mother to do it for them, of all things!
Had not all of them given up their jobs and families to follow Christ? How dare James and John think that they were better than all the rest of them! They had all endured deprivation and hatred for Jesus in their lives already, and they would endure much more of them for him, and even die for him before it was all through.
Now they were supposed to be friends and partners, standing together against the Jewish leaders who were determined to get rid of all of them.
Without pointing the finger of blame, we can plainly see from Jesus’ words to them that they all needed a lesson in:
I. God’s Kingdom Is Not A Life Of Power And Glory.
That was the kind of life Gentile rulers lived.
For them, life was about the here and now. They built magnificent palaces and mansions for themselves and their families. They gathered up all kinds of wealth and luxuries to surround themselves with. They were waited on by servants hand and foot. They were concerned with what people thought about them and carefully maintained an air of honor and glory about themselves. It is still that way with the political leaders of this earth.
The Gentiles rulers “lorded it over their people and exercised authority over them,” as Jesus said. Both the words for “lorded it over” and exercised authority” in the original Greek text carry a connotation of force. As Jesus was pointing out, the great rulers of the world in their day were not elected by their people; they seized power with their armies. They ruled as dictators, and any who didn’t like it were likely to die if they said so publicly. These dictators felt that ruling was for ruthless men with power, and they didn’t care whether their people especially liked them or not.
But Jesus and his disciples had never lived that way.
Jesus and all of his disciples had given up even their homes and families, as well as their jobs, to travel about the country and teach people about the coming kingdom of God. Jesus and his disciples constantly gave to people much more than they took from them. Peace, forgiveness, love and healing were their everyday gifts to the crowds who came to see and to hear them. If people gave them gifts of money or food or a place to sleep in return, that was appreciated, but it was never required of anyone.
Jesus had eschewed power, and even turned down the opportunity to be named king when it was presented to him. He wanted none of that, and neither should those who followed him.
Yet, his disciples still dreamed.
Even after Jesus’ resurrection from death they imagined that Jesus was going to march out and conquer the nations of the world to establish his kingdom here on earth. They had dreams of themselves ruling with him over an empire that spanned the globe. Neither James nor John, nor any of the other disciples seem to have caught on to the lessons of the many parables that Jesus taught about the kingdom of God. His is a spiritual kingdom in the hearts of people, and not an empire of power and glory like those they saw in the world around them.
Not until after the day of Pentecost, when God’s Holy Spirit began to inspire them in an extraordinary way, and taught them the truth, did Christ’s disciples even begin to know the truth. It is too bad that they were so slow to catch on to what it means to be living in God’s kingdom.
II. To Live With Our Savior, We Must Become Like Him.
We must become like Jesus in our dedication and in our service to God.
When James and John came with their mother to Jesus to ask for that special favor of sitting at his right hand and his left hand in his kingdom, Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”
“We can,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “You will indeed drink from my cup, but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant.”
The brothers and their mother indeed did not know what they were asking. Their question reveals that they were still of the opinion that there would be an earthly kingdom over which Jesus would rule. But Jesus had not come into this world to rule, that is what he did in heaven! Jesus came into this world to serve and to sacrifice himself to God for us, and to do those things perfectly.
Would James and John be willing and able to give themselves totally in service and in sacrifice to God for others? Their question certainly did not imply that they were ready for that kind of life, or that kind of thinking. Remember, just before they came to Jesus with their request, Jesus had told them and the rest of his disciples, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified.” So Jesus’ question to James and John was really, “Are you ready to be betrayed, then mocked and flogged and crucified?”
James and John answered that they were ready for that. Jesus then told them that they would indeed be served that “cup” in their lives also, but the glory that they desired was not his to give to them. Since those two had been with Jesus on the mountain where he was transfigured, you might think that they should have guessed that Moses and Elijah would be sitting at Jesus’ right hand and his left hand in his kingdom, and maybe they will be. That is up to God the Father to decide and we shall have to wait until eternity arrives to see who will get those honors.
The “cup” that Jesus offered to his two friends was the cup of persecution.
Neither Satan himself nor Jesus’ enemies on earth would give up trying to discredit and destroy Jesus. They spied on him ceaselessly and hounded him mercilessly in order to find something wrong with him with which they could destroy him. Jesus was so unaccommodating to their efforts that they tried everything they could think of to trick or to trap him into saying or doing something that they could use against him. But it was all to no avail.
Jesus’ disciples were likewise persecuted in their own ministries, especially after Christ returned to his true home in heaven, leaving them in charge of his church on earth. Those who serve Christ in their lives on earth today also had better expect to suffer persecution for him, because Satan and those he has duped in this world are determined to stop God’s people on earth and destroy God’s kingdom in this world. The persecution of Christians around the world today is greater than at any point in history. That is exactly what Christ tells us to expect in the very last days of this world’s history, a time when Satan and his minions grow truly desperate to destroy Christ’s Church and true religion on this earth.
As Jesus then told his two friends, …
III. A Christian’s Glory Is In Serving God’s People.
“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many,” Jesus told them.
Jesus did not ask people to wait on him or to give him what they had during his life on earth. Jesus did not even ask his disciples to serve him, but he was their teacher and they were his students, students whose good he worked for constantly.
Jesus even washed his disciple’s feet, which was a job usually reserved for the lowest slave in a household. By doing that Jesus showed us by his own example how to love and serve one another, and Jesus made a point of telling his disciples that this was the point of what he was doing that day.
B. Service is an essential part of Christian faith.
Service goes together with believing. It is not the result of our faith, but a part of it. For Christ must be both Savior and Lord in a Christian’s life, or he is neither. What that means is that you can’t confess your sins to God and ask him to forgive you if you intend to just keep right on doing those things which you know are wrong and which God forbids. Nor can you just live for yourself and ignore everything that God says he wants you to do for him in this world.
God says that he forgives our sins through Christ so that we will serve him in righteous living the rest of our days here on earth, by doing the works of service which he has prepared in advance for us to do, the things that he tells us to do for him in the Bible.
Just what does God expect of us in our lives? Well, first of all he expects us to worship him honestly and daily, in our hearts and in our lives. In that way we glorify him as our Lord and Savior. Then he expects us to tell others what he did for them and expects of them. We glorify God to others when we do that. Finally, God expects us to demonstrate our love for him and for one another in the way we treat God and each other in our daily lives. This is the way that Jesus has loved all of us.
C. Service is the result of Christian love.
It was love that brought Christ down to our world from heaven so that he could serve us and become our Savior. Now Christ asks us to love him in return for the love that Jesus has shown to us by forgiving our sins and crediting us with the righteousness that he earned by his obedience to God’s law. St. John tells us in his first epistle, “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (1 John 4:11-12)
Christ is to live in us and through us during our lives in this world, so that we will show to others the same love that Christ has shown to us and continues to show to us constantly. That is why Jesus told his friends, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.”
And God has given us a listing of ways in which he wants us to love him and one another. That list is called the 10 Commandments. But even more importantly than that, we must show love to others by sharing with them the salvation which Christ has won for everyone by his life under God’s law and by his death on the cross.
Like James and John, we all have a lot to learn about …
Con.: LIVING IN GOD’S KINGDOM
God’s Kingdom Is Not A Life Of Power And Glory, as those brothers imagined.
To Live With Our Savior, We Must Become Like Him, especially in our willingness to suffer and die for him.
A Christian’s Glory Is In Serving God’s People. So let us serve with all our hearts and with our whole lives, in everything we are and do always. Amen.