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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
You do not have to have eaten and worked at five‑star restaurants, as I have, in order to appreciate the difference between sitting at the tableenjoying the food and serving the table bringing the food. In fact, there are all sorts of differences, such as the people sitting at the table’s paying to enjoy the food and the people’s serving the table getting paid to bring the food. Another difference is accented by our Lord in St. Luke’s Gospel account, when He asks, “Who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table?” In today’s Gospel Reading St. Mark does not record that question of Jesus, but St. Mark does record Jesus’s statement that He, the Son of Man, “came not to be served but to serve”, to serve specifically by giving “His life as a ransom for many”. This morning we focus our thoughts on that final verse of the Gospel Reading with the theme “Not to be served but to serve”.
Some of you may have heard me preach on the whole Gospel Reading about ten months ago at Pr. Bragdon’s installation up in Longview, under the theme “Serving Servants”. To be sure, Jesus, Who verses before had said He would be condemned and killed, in the whole Reading says a great deal to James and John, who apparently wanted positions of power and glory in His kingdom. Though we, unlike Jesus, do not know what they were thinking, perhaps they wanted those positions so they would not have to serve but instead could be served by servants and slaves.
Are you and I by nature really any different from James and John? Would we rather not serve but be served? Maybe at home, children want their parents to serve them meals, do their laundry, and keep their house clean, simply because they wrongly expect it. Or, maybe parents want their children to serve with the meals, laundry, and cleaning, simply because they do not want to do it. Maybe at work, employees want to have more responsibility or a promotion in order to tell others what to do and themselves have less work, perhaps forgetting or not realizing that supervising others is sometimes more work than doing the work oneself. Maybe in our individual lives, we want to be served by God’s doing for us whatever we ask of Him, more than we are willing to serve those whom God has placed in our lives. Or, maybe we would rather not be served by anyone at all, including God, thinking that somehow we can do everything on our own, as James and John thought they were able to do what Jesus was doing. The Holy Spirit certainly uses Jesus’s statement that He “came not to be served but to serve” to indict us of our sin. Too often we do not honor those in authority over us, including God, too often we try to pervert relationships by getting things out of them rather than by giving to them, and too often we are unwilling to accept others serving us when we need it. Of course, those are just some of the ways we sin; we are sinful by nature, and that sinful nature leads us to think, say, and do all sorts of sinful things, even as that sinful nature leads us to not think, not say, and not do all sorts of God‑pleasing things.
From all of our sin, God calls us to repent. He calls us to turn in sorrow from our sins—our sins of wanting to be served instead of to serve, our sins of perverting relationships with others, or from whatever our sin might be. God calls us to turn in sorrow from all our sin, and He calls us to believe that He forgives our sin. When we so turn in sorrow from our sin and believe God forgives our sin, then God does that: He forgives our sin, for the sake of Jesus, Who serves.
Jesus serves specifically, He says, by giving “His life as a ransom for many”. Most of us may only know ransoms from the news, or maybe from books, TV, or movies. There has not been a kidnapping ransom in the news for years, though, it seems—not like Patty Hearst, John Paul Getty, or the Lindberg baby. Even the old hijacking ransom seems to be gone, as terrorists have turned from extortion to destruction, except for maybe those Somali pirates who apparently continue to be a problem yet are mostly out of the news these days. But, Jesus’s life as a ransom for many remains. Jesus gives His life as a ransom for many. Jesus gives (He is in total control and graciously offers) His life (His body, soul, and all He is and has) as a ransom (a payment to buy back or redeem) for (in place of, as a substitute for) “many” (contrasting His one Divine and human life with the many lives that are saved). Jesus gives His life as a ransom for many. Such was Jesus’s purpose in dying on the cross, and such was His result, as evident by His resurrection. Jesus’s kingship is primarily not one of lordship but is one of service—the kind of service that fulfills the Old Testament Reading’s promise of a new covenant in which God forgives our iniquity and remembers our sin no more; the kind of service that provides what the Epistle Reading describes as a source of eternal salvation. When you and I turn in sorrow from our sin and believe in Jesus, then God forgives our sin for Jesus’s sake, whatever our sin might be.
When Jesus says He gives His life as a ransom for many, He means for all, though not everyone has always understood nor understands it that way. Yes, God’s promise through Isaiah of a Suffering Servant said the Servant “bore the sin of many”, but, in case someone did not understand that Hebrew expression, God through St. Paul made clear that Jesus “gave Himself as a ransom for all”. The early Church understood “many” to be “all”, as did the Lutheran reformers and those in the Arminian tradition, such as Methodists and some Baptists. The Arminian claim that Jesus died for all, in connection with a challenge to the Calvinist teaching of double‑predestination, however, prompted the counter‑claim that Jesus did not die for all, a counter‑claim made by those in the Calvinist tradition, such as Presbyterians and Episcopalians. In part, those in the Calvinist tradition thought God would not pay the penalty for all sins and then still punish sinners, even if they did not believe in Him. And, the difference on even that one point of teaching has a ripple effect on other aspects of teaching in both the Arminian and Calvinist traditions.
On the basis of Holy Scripture, we Lutherans believe, teach, and confess that Jesus gave His life to be a ransom for all, though some reject that ransom. God permits people to reject His grace as it works through preaching, Baptism, Absolution, and the Lord’s Supper. And, such Means of Grace are connected with Jesus’s giving His life as ransom for us. Today’s Gospel Reading makes clear references specifically to Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In Jesus’s crucifixion He is baptized into and drinks God’s wrath, so that as you and I believe we do not drink God’s wrath. Instead, through the sacraments we receive forgiveness of sins, life and salvation. Through the Sacraments, we are made God’s children and strengthened to live lives of service like Jesus.
Though I am pleased to see as much service by people here to their fellow members and to the community as I see, there is always room for more. In this world, we may still according to our fallen human nature prefer being served instead of serving, but we live in the forgiveness of sins, with daily contrition and faith. Jesus came “Not to be served but to serve”, and the Holy Spirit working through Word and Sacrament produces in us such lives of service while we are in this world. For, when our lives here are over and Jesus comes again in glory, then, in the world to come, all we who believe will sit at a table enjoying food no doubt better than anything at any five‑star restaurant. May God grant us such contrition and faith so that we persevere to that end.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +