Mark 10:32-45

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This morning's reading is from Mark 10, verses 32 to 35. And according to this, it's page 1015 in your Bibles or the Pew Bibles.

Sorry, can't see. Jesus predicts his death a third time. They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way. The disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid again. He took the 12 aside and told them what was going to happen to him.

We're going up to Jerusalem, he said, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death, will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will flog him and mock him and spit on him and kill him. Three days later he will rise. The request of James and John. Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee came to him.

Teacher, they said, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. What do you want me to do for you? He asked. They replied, let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory. You don't know what you are asking.

Jesus said, can you drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with? We can, they answered. Jesus said to them, you will drink the cup I drink and be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with. But to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.

When the 10 heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, you know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles, lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be a slave of all.

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. This is the word of God. Thanks be to God. Thank you so much for reading that, Ed. Let me add my welcome to that of Claire.

And indeed, let me also pass on my thanks to Phil, who is unwell. We'll pray for him in a moment. He sent through his script for me to read as I prepare for this. And what I'm going to do is quote from extensive bits of that. But I'm also going to put the whole text up on our weekly email so you can read it at your leisure.

There you'll know that as a dyslexic reading a long prose Won't be helpful for anybody. So I will quote from that as we go through. But let's pray as we come to look at God's word. Heavenly Father, we trust and we know because you tell us that in our weakness your strength is displayed. Would you display your strength today in a room that feels colder than it should with a preacher that's perhaps not the one that we expected, with all sorts of distractions that are going on in the world around us?

Help us to hear Jesus, and as we hear him, would we live more like him? And would your spirit do in us that which you have chosen to accomplish today in our weakness? Amen. I went for a walk yesterday with the kids and I don't know if you've ever been on a walk with small children. This is how it generally goes in our house.

We set off and it's all good. And then you get to the church ground and there's the cat to play with. And you can see how far we've got from the vicarage to the church ground. And then after that what happens is it's okay for a while. And then those small legs begin to get very, very tired to the point where any self respecting parent does the same thing.

Bribery, right? So you get to the point where you come to bribery and you think, okay, when you get to the top of that hill, you can have this chocolate bar. And then this miracle occurs that these tiny legs that were so tired, suddenly they've got renewed vigour and off they shoot up to the top of the hill. The book of Mark's a bit like that child shooting up to the top of the hill. It goes at pace, lots and lots of speedy, speedy, speedy speediness.

And so when Mark slows down to give details, and this is something Phil picks up brilliantly in his sermon, you see that these details really matter. So we're told not just where Jesus is going, but how he's going. Verse 32. They're on their way up to Jerusalem, heading towards Passover. Lots of people on their way to Jerusalem.

On their way, they might have been singing songs of ascent and doing all that sort of thing with Jesus leading the way. See, Jesus is like that kid after the chalk blower. He's shooting off ahead. And this is puzzling. Why is he shooting off ahead?

What is he doing? Well, the disciples react in all sorts of ways. Some of them are astonished. Others who are following him are afraid. They're getting the sense that something is happening, this Messias is going to somehow come into action.

As Jesus goes to Jerusalem. And for some of them they've got this idea that's going to involve kicking out the Romans. Most of them don't have a full idea. We've seen over the last few weeks that that's the case. And so there's nervous tension that's going on.

Some of them are afraid. And so Jesus tells them, tells them what's going to happen. These words might sound a little familiar to you. Verse 33, we are going up to Jerusalem, or literally look, we're going up to Jerusalem, he said, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and they will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles who will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him. And three days later he will rise.

That might sound familiar to you because Jesus has told us this already. In fact, 9 31, 8 31, 9 31, 10 33, he says the same thing, only this time he tells us a whole lot more. He tells us that Jesus is going to be delivered over to the chief priests and teach the law, who are going to condemn him to death. In other words, the Jewish people he's going to be delivered to and they're going to pronounce death and then they're going to hand him over to the Romans, to the Gentiles, we're told, and they will mock him and spit on him and flog him and kill him. And we know, don't we, that's exactly what happens.

In fact, the Greek here is, is a little ambiguous as to who is doing the mocking and the kicking and the spitting in practise. Actually it's both of them, isn't it? We see in the next few chapters, Jesus is condemned to death by both the Jewish and the Gentiles. He's mocked by both the Jews and the Gentiles. He is spat upon by both the Jewish leaders and the Gentiles.

He is beaten by the temple guard and he is whipped by the Gentiles and he is killed. And three days later he rises from death. Now why is it that Jesus tells some fearful people, hey, it's okay, we're going to Jerusalem and I'm going to be killed and spat on and mocked. Well, let's hold that question in our head and we'll come back to it in a few minutes time. But then we get James and John, two of the inner three, Peter, James and John, and they come to him with a request, you see Just as we've seen, each time Jesus predicts his death and resurrection, he gets a response.

First time he says, I'm predicting my death and resurrection. And Peter says, no, no, we don't want any of that gory detail. Just be the kind of designer messiah that we want, right? And Peter and Jesus has to say, get behind me, Satan. The next time he says, I'm going to be killed.

And after three days, I'll rise. And what do his disciples do? They chat about who's going to be the greatest among them. And here they are. Here is Jesus a third time.

And that heading, the bit in bold isn't actually in the Bible. It's just put in by the translators. So literally, we go from after three days. Later, he'll rise. Then James and John, the son of Zebedee, came to him.

Teacher, they said, we want you to do for us whatever we ask. Now, again, anybody with half a brain cell knows that's a dangerous thing. If anyone ever comes up to you and says, I want you to do whatever I ask of you, respond like Jesus, right? Because it's a dangerous. Oh, yeah, okay, no, don't do that.

Instead, do what Jesus did and ask, what is it that you want me to do for you? They replied, let one of us sit at your right hand and the other on your left in your glory. Now, in one sense, we get what they're talking about. They think Jesus is going to Jerusalem, he's going to be the Messiah, maybe deal with the Romans, he's going to get a throne in Jerusalem, and they're assuming he's going to be successful, even though he's just told them he's going to die. So it's a bit confusing, but they're assuming he's going to be successful and their thrones on offer.

And in one sense you say, okay, well, there's something there. But this is a diabolical request, isn't it? I mean, this is an awful request. They want to sit at his right and left hand in glory.

Phil writes this in his sermon. It gets even worse than the way Mark tells it in Matthew's Gospel. In that one, it's their mum who asks the question and who is pushing for them to be rewarded by Jesus. Whether it's James and John themselves or whether their mum does it doesn't really matter. What matters is that in general, they are so wrong.

You see, wherever this comes from, whether they have the guts to ask it themselves or whether they're pushed to do it, this is so very wrong. This question, it kind of resonates with us, the wrongness. And in fact, Jesus says that, doesn't he? Verse 38. You don't know what you're asking.

One of the things I love that comes out of Phil's sermon is just how gentle Jesus is. Jesus, who again and again and again opens up his heart. He's like, I'm going to die. I'm talking about the cross that I'm going to. And again and again and again, as Jesus opens up his heart, the sinfulness of his disciples comes out.

And Jesus there as he hears the sinfulness of his disciples. Can we sit either side of you at glory?

He says, you don't know what you're asking. It's gentle, it's patient. You don't know what you're asking. Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with? What's Jesus talking about, that cup?

We see it later on in Gethsemane when he says, please take this cup from me yet not what I will, but yours. It's the cup that's prophesied in the Old Testament, the cup of God's wrath, God's anger against sin that Jesus is going to take on the cross and he's going to drain to the dregs. Can you be baptised with the baptism I'm having? Jesus talks of baptism again, using that Old Testament imagery which speaks not just of being raised to new life, but first going and being plunged into the depths of God's judgments.

Jesus looks at the hell that he will endure. Remember what we've heard. Jesus looks at what that baptism looks like. The fire that doesn't go out, the worm that doesn't quench the right anger of God at sin. He says, can you drink that?

Can you really take that?

And James and John are like, yeah, yeah, we can do that. Yeah, sure, why not? Yes, we can. Verse 39. They answered, we can do that.

Sure, why not? Yeah. Again, the kind of parallelism with children is so much. Can you really do that? Oh, yeah, yeah, I could do that.

Sure, why not? Phil puts it like, have you ever seen the Apprentice TV show? If you haven't, this is a show where aspiring business people compete to become a famous businessman's protege. They have to apply and go through a lot of interviews, then do varying different group tasks on camera until only one is left to win the prize. The thing with that show is that the application itself is what gets them to the show.

And it's always interesting to watch the little Videos of themselves bragging about how good they are at stuff. I can be the best at selling. I can sell anything to anyone. I can triple a company's turnover in five minutes, that sort of thing. The brazenness of James and John here is similar.

We can all do so. We can do all that discipleship stuff better than anyone. Give us the job. Of course, James and John are as deluded as those apprentice contestants. James and John have attempted to reduce the whole thing to a business transaction.

They want to get a good deal for themselves. We're the best, pick us, they say, we can do this. And then Jesus responds with something that looks a little bit confusing. Jesus says to them, this is still verse 39, look down, you will drink the cup I drink and be baptised with the baptism I'm baptised with. Now, what's Jesus saying?

Is he saying, you're going to suffer the cross like me, you're going to suffer God's judgement? Well, I think Jesus is saying, remember what I said the first time? What did he say? Take up your cross and follow me. Anyone who wants to come after me must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.

And he says, there is a sense in which you will get a snippet of that cup. You will get a snippet of that baptism. We know from Acts 12, James goes on to die for his faith. We know from the Book of Revelation, John ends up in a penal colony, far from all his loved ones, to die in isolation, miles away from anyone. They will receive something of that.

But verse 40, to sit at my right or at my left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared. He says, look, James, John, what you're asking of me is actually something that even Jesus himself grant. It's only the Father who grants that. See how outrageous this demand is?

Of course, the others begin to hear about this. Any kind of group dynamic, you'll pick up on that sort of thing. And there's a bit of a barney that goes on. When the 10 heard about this verse 41, they became indignant with James and John. Jesus called them together and said, you know that those who are regarded as rulers in the Gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them.

Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. Again, Phil picks up on this so beautifully, and you'll be able to read it in its fullness this week. But we see Again and again, that in our world. Our world is about getting ahead, isn't it?

Our world is about accumulating stuff, being better, getting up the career ladder so that you can. Well, in part so that you can look down on those below you. Our world so often is about trying to get ahead. And sometimes that can even happen in church. Phil says, put it another way, you can do everything you can for your church or for a charity or for others.

But if you do not do it with a servant heart, if you do it for prestige or glory or to contribute for your own standing in the world, if you don't do it out of love, as Paul says, then it isn't what Christ is calling you to. Without a servant spirit. We're just doing these things for selfish reasons. They don't glorify God and we miss everything that Jesus is trying to show us. Here Jesus says, look, my kingdom works the other way round.

It's not like the world around you where you accumulate and look down. Instead, it's about serving. Do you remember a few weeks ago when Claire was preaching, whoever will be first must be servant of all. It's about service. It's the other way up.

Hmm.

That means that if you are in God's kingdom, if you're part of the church family here, the way up is actually the way down.

The way of glory is actually the way of service. He says they must be a servant. In fact, they give him more. They must be a slave. Must be a slave.

This week I've watched as people have taken days of annual leave in order to go and clear a hedge so that other people's kids won't get lost behind there or wander down onto the road. This week I've heard of people travelling up and down our country to go and visit people in our church family who are in hospital. This week I've watched as responses have come back into that volunteer form and see the hours and hours and hours of work people in this room put in to serving their brothers and sisters, and with very little exception myself being one of them, they're not paid for it. What is it when people are put to work for other people without payment? Well, it's slavery.

We make ourselves slaves for one another. But why on earth would we do that? Why on earth would. Would we willingly subject ourselves to be servants of everybody else in here? That's because of what we've seen, verse 45.

For even the Son of Man didn't come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as A ransom for many, even the Son of Man, the one who shone with God's very glory on the top of the mountain. The one who, if there's anybody in this world who we should be thinking, okay, I'll get your cup of tea, as Rob's video said, I'll answer your phone calls, I'll do all. Anybody in this world who we would want to serve, it would be him, right? But he didn't come to be served, but to serve.

And when we look at him, we want to be like him. I used to do this thing as a teacher where I'd take assemblies and try to talk about the grace of God. And one of the things I'd do is I'd pull out a ten pound note and I'd say, God's grace is a bit like this. Who wants this ten pound note? And of course, all the kids put their hands straight up, yeah, me, me, me.

And so I go, and I give it to one of them and they go, ha, that's great. And try and give it me back. I'd be like, no, no, no, it doesn't work. The illustration doesn't work. If you pay me back.

God's grace giving you something for nothing. And without an exception, after the assembly, every single person who I gave that money to came to me to say, well, I'm going to give it to charity, or I'm going to give it to that person or I'm going to. Why? Because they'd received grace and they wanted to give it away.

It might be that today you're thinking, I want to get ahead in church, I want to be seen, I want to be recognised or in the world, I want to build my own kingdom. If that's you, is it that you've got this the wrong way around? Is it that you somehow think that God is there sort of niggling and saying, well, you just need to give me a little bit more. If you serve me enough, then I'll let you in. If that's your view of God, then you're going to have this kind of approach, give me glory.

But if your view of God is a God who looks at you and who sees your sin again and again, and even as he reveals his plan to rescue you, he sees your sin just clearly portrayed in front of you. And then as he sees that sin, what does he do? He walks all the faster towards Jerusalem in order to go to the cross, in order to pay for you, in order to pay your ransom. If that's your view of God, who would willingly give you the cross, even knowing that your twisted heart again and again like mine, will twist it for our own glory. Well then you begin to want to serve others.

When you see a God who serves you, you begin to want to do it to others. Phil says, remember I said that Mark's gospel feels a bit like a road trip story. He doesn't waste time on Jesus early life. He is very clear. The story is heading to the cross, to Easter.

And here again, Mark tells us that Jesus is being clear. He knows full well what will happen to him and why. This is leading to one thing, the death of Jesus on the cross. And more importantly, he tells us why it is as a ransom for many. A ransom for you, for me.

So what Phil says, thank God that Jesus doesn't lose his patience with me or with us. Thank God that we have a redeemer who paid the ultimate price, the ransom. That we could have the opportunity to follow him and that he is as patient with us as he was with his disciples. Let's pray.

Father God, we're sorry that so often we hear your speak. And our immediate heart, heart response is to try to justify ourselves or bring attention to ourselves or glorify ourselves.

Father, we know that if we were your disciples there on the road, we would have asked this same question.

We know that our hearts long for glory.

Thank you. That Jesus, knowing those he would die for, yet willingly went to the cross, purposefully walked ahead of the others.

Help us to follow him to serve even as he served us. For we ask it in his name. Amen.

In a few moments we come to communion. But as we do so, let's prepare our hearts. Let's sing. Lord, I come.