Mark 10:32-45

    Today’s Gospel begins, “Now they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem.”  There are two reasons why going to Jerusalem is always referred to as going “up.”  First, Jerusalem is located literally “up,” in a range of hills, on top of a high hill called Mt. Zion.  It’s the same mount where Abraham had brought Isaac for sacrifice 2000 years earlier.  Traveling to Jerusalem involved a journey up in altitude.  But Jerusalem was also theologically “up.”  For that’s where the temple of God was, where His name was present for their blessing.  So whether you were coming from the north or the south on a map, you were going up, to the place where God was for you.

    Now for us, Jerusalem is also “up.”  For in the Scriptures Jerusalem is often a symbol for the dwelling place of God with His people, the Church.  In Galatians, Paul describes this as “the Jerusalem that is above.”  Hebrews speaks of “the city of the living God . . . the heavenly Jerusalem,” and Revelation speaks of, “the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”  So you and I also are on a journey with our Lord Jesus, through this life, up to the holy city, the new Jerusalem.

    “Now they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them.”  The only way we can make this journey is because Jesus is making the way.  He goes before us.  We walk behind Him who is our shield, who faces for us what we cannot face, what would destroy us.  He is the trailblazer.  In fact He is the trail–the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.  No one comes to the Father in heaven except through Him.  

    “Now they were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed, and as they followed, they were afraid.”  One of the most interesting documents outside of the Bible relating to our Lord’s earthly life is the actual arrest warrant issued by the Hebrew authorities, which is contained in an ancient Hebrew work called the Talmud. It refers to Yeshua Hannozori, Jesus of Nazareth, and it says, “He shall be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and led Israel to apostasy, and if anyone knows of his whereabouts let him tell it to the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.”  In the Gospel of John, the disciples plead with Jesus, “Rabbi, a short while ago they tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?”  The disciples were amazed, then, and also afraid, because Jesus was a wanted man, threatened with death by the authorities at Jerusalem, and now he is leading not only Himself but also them right into their murderous hands.

    Jesus’ disciples were dumbfounded and distressed about where He was leading them. They didn’t understand why this happening. And that’s the way it is often with us, as we journey with Jesus along life’s way to the heavenly Jerusalem. We also are often distressed, not understanding why certain things are happening, and we wonder, “What is God’s plan and purpose?”  Fear can paralyze us.  Illness, financial uncertainty, personal struggles, many things in this life make us afraid.  And most fearful of all is facing the prospect of death.

    “Jesus took the Twelve aside and began to tell them the things that were going to happen to Him.” Jesus can see that they are distressed, confused, afraid. And, so, he takes them aside, to explain, and reassure them.

    That is also what Jesus is doing for you, here, each week. He knows exactly what you’re going through on your journey through this life to the Jerusalem above.  And so, just as he took aside the disciples, each week he still takes you aside for a time, to explain and reassure you on your journey.

    However, the way that Jesus assures them does not seem at first to be very comforting.  He tells them that He will be betrayed to the religious leaders; and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him to the Gentiles; and they will mock Him, and scourge Him, and spit on Him, and kill Him. And the third day He will rise again. Why would that be comforting or helpful for the disciples? Isn’t that exactly what they fear?

    For three years, Jesus had been catechizing them, trying to overcome their misconceptions about him as a mere political leader, an earthly king, a revolutionary.  Those misconceptions were sadly still lingering, as it was revealed again in the dispute in today’s Gospel about who will sit at Jesus’ right and left hand in His kingdom.  

    James and John were a part of Jesus’ inner circle, along with Peter.  They were trying to cash in on their connections with Jesus.  They figured Jesus was going places, and they aspired to be His top advisers and top power brokers when He got to be in charge.  This may seem to us like an over-the-top request to us.  But it’s really not much different than when we are tempted to use religion as a means for self-fulfillment, or when we go to church and pray and do good works so that we can get some worldly blessing out of it.  Of course then our faith is not so much about loving God as it is a way to have a successful life and get where we want to be.

    Jesus was indeed going places.  But James and John clearly didn’t understand where.  Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you ask.  Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?”  Jesus there is referring to His suffering and cross.  He would drink the poisonous cup of judgment against the world’s sin.  He would be swept away in the cold flood of death.  There were two people who would be placed at Jesus’ right and Jesus’ left hand–namely, the two criminals who were crucified with Him.  They were the ones for whom those places had been prepared.

    James and John wanted to be with Jesus in His glory.  And it is Jesus’ glory to die for sinners in order to save them.  It is His glory to lay down His life that we may live.  It is His glory to be the God who is love, who gives Himself completely for us that we might be drawn in to His life.

    James and John and all of us disciples need to learn over and over again that the way of Christ is not the Gentile way of power–of using your position so that others underneath you might honor you and serve you and do what you want.  The way of Christ is the way of service and sacrifice.  To be great in Christ’s kingdom is to be the servant and slave of all.  “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”  

    So while at first Jesus’ words about His imminent suffering and death don’t register with James and John, they are in fact good news, because they mean that He is the atoning sacrifice for their sins, and not only for them, but also for the sins of the whole world. That is God’s gracious plan in Christ.  That is where’s He’s going for them, and for you.

    At a time when the disciples needed understanding and comfort, when we need reassurance, Jesus points us to the only real source of comfort: His cross, His suffering, death, and resurrection.  Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve.  He bore your sins in His own body on the tree.

    Christ has paid your ransom and set you free from your captors, sin and Satan and the grave.  He did this not with gold or silver but with His holy precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death.  He offered His life for yours.  He set you free and then destroyed your kidnappers by the power of His resurrection.  All this He did purely by grace, as a gift, to serve you.

    So if you want to share in Jesus’ glory, then, you must journey with Him to the cross.  You must die to yourself and your desires.  Be emptied of all your own merits and righteousness so that Christ may fill you with His righteousness and His life.  

    For Jesus’ servanthood doesn’t stop here in church.  It continues through you out there in the world.  Just as God uses ordinary things like water and words and bread and wine to give His saving gifts, so also He uses ordinary Christians in your ordinary stations in life as one of the ways He serves the world.  In that sense, you Christians are God’s Sacraments to the world.  Christ is present in, with, and under His people to show forth His love to the neighbor.

    You live in God by faith, and you live in your neighbor by love.  By faith you get to stand in Jesus’ place and receive His righteousness as your own.  By love you get to stand in your neighbors’ place and make their needs your own.  A Christian receives God’s Service in church and then gives God’s service to his neighbor in whatever stations of life God has put you.  

    And when you fail and fall short in doing that, let that drive you back to Christ, to receive the service of Him who gives you His mercy freely and abundantly.  Never forget what the Gospel says, “They were going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them.”  In the midst of all of your fears and confusion and distress and sin, Jesus is with you, leading the way up to the heavenly city.  He takes you aside to point you to your only real source of comfort, His cross, his suffering, death, and resurrection, for your salvation.  He says, “You will drink the cup I drink, and with the baptism I am baptized with you will be baptized.”  While that may mean short-term affliction, it means above all that you have been cleansed by your baptism into Jesus’ death.  And it means that today He again gives you to drink of His cup.  Because it was a cup of judgment for Jesus, it is now a cup of mercy for you, the cup of His own life-giving blood.  Receive it gladly.  Journey to Jerusalem in the freedom of Him who gave His life as a ransom for you.

✠ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ✠