- Psalmody: Psalm 38:21–22; 1; Psalm 28:9a, 1; Psalm 103:10; 79:8–9; Psalm 25:1–3a; Psalm 11:7
- Lection: Greek Esther 13:8b–11, 15–17; Matthew 20:17-28
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Mothers are a blessing. They are a blessing simply by the fact of how God makes them to be mothers, for by the love of a husband and by the long months of nurturing life within their very own bodies, mothers are made. They are made as those through whom life comes. Apart from Adam and Eve, there is no person ever to have lived who did not have life because of a mother. And as expected, mothers grow quite attached to the lives that they berth. They highly favor them, love them dearly, tend to and continue to nurture into childhood and beyond. It is understandable why so many mothers share the sentiment of wanting her children to have more than what she has. This stout motherly desire can be seen in the words of the mother of the sons of Zebedee, James and John, as the group of Jesus’ disciples were going up to Jerusalem with Him that He may ascend the throne of His cross.
Her words tell us much about the human heart, even as it literally stands face-to-face with the One by Whose power our lives and all the creation surrounding them were made. They were on the road, the way that led up, up to death’s destruction, and Jesus took the twelve disciples aside and gave them His final passion prediction. He was to suffer and was reminding them that it must be so. The dear mother did not allow the opportunity to pass, even if better preparation of words or better environment for such a request could be had, she saw a moment to seek high favor for her children and took it, and the two boys, the two men, the two sons conceded with her plea.
To learn more about what perhaps motivated her to do this, we look back a chapter to where this crowd of followers had traveled and what was taught and said. Before passing through Jericho, encountering blind Bartimaeus calling out for mercy from the Son of David, and being here on the road going up to Jerusalem, we hear that Jesus had departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan, an area just due east across the river from Jericho. It was while there that He spoke these words, “when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Yet these words are not enough for a flesh that seeks glory now. James, John, and their mother sought glory for the sons in the Messianic Kingdom they heard was soon to be ushered in. They sought not just glory, but high measure of it, exalted above all others into the two highest positions of honor that can be obtained next to one who sits on a throne; on the right hand and on the left. Jesus responded with the gentle, clear teaching that He delivered so beautifully well.
He answered and said, “You do not know what you ask. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” He was teaching what our flesh doesn’t want to hear, much less accept. Jesus went straight from the request to the true enlightenment regarding the only path out of which glory rises, and His path would be the most severe in all the history of the world past and future. The paradox of Christ, of God, that we must grapple and wrestle with by faith is that glory only rises out of the midst of suffering. It is why Good Friday is so rattling, because all the will and glory of God is hidden in suffering. Only true faith can see it there and prepare likewise to drink that cup.
The cup Jesus was given to drink and the baptism He was given to be baptized with is metaphor for His bitter suffering and death by the hands of the Jews, the Romans, the abandoning Disciples, and the Betrayer, but more and mostly so, metaphor for the judgmental hand of wrath that mercilessly bore down upon Him from the Father on account of the sins of the whole world. Jesus teaches us that the path to glory for fallen man travels only through suffering. It is necessary and God makes it good and to our benefit. Christ’s own path first passed through crucifixion before glorification. It is a God-ordained foolishness, as St. Paul says, for the human mind and heart to seek out, wrestle with, and submit to, that God can be comprehended only in this way.
Yet, we desire glory apart from the cross. We only want to see Christ in His glory and join Him there without acknowledging the means by which He obtained it. We desire easiness without the suffering. We desire bounty without the labor. We desire feast without the fast, because we understand and accept not the way of Christ. Our fearful hearts do not want to be tried and tested unto their strong and proven genuineness. We want the lazy rive, the easy road. But suffering is the aspect of life in which God’s invisible attributes are seen, not in the fluff of ease and eventual self-love and assurance. The Son of God came down from heaven was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, His mother, and was made Man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. Jesus didn’t need to do this for Himself. He needed no redemption, no suffering, no crucifixion or mortification of the flesh, but He humbled Himself unto such for our sake and led the way through suffering showing us the path of righteousness. Our suffering does not justify us, for Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection did that once for all, but it does sanctify us and usher us on toward our Prize as the only way in which the Lord brings us unto His precious, eternal glory.
Luther says, “The flesh ever seeks to be glorified before it is crucified,” and this is true. We can see it in how we view suffering; in how we question God in our suffering, “why me?” instead of seeing suffering as God’s call for us to ponder upon Christ and the blessedness of sharing in His, in our God and our Lord’s, suffering, then repenting and turning our hearts more toward Him when we bear the likeness of our Savior in this way.
Beloved, belief in Christ and faith in His sacrifice upon the cross shows how we are to seek God as He has hidden Himself, not in power, might, ease, luxury, and glory for us to seek Him in such human wisdom; in ways that we think He should be seen and us there along with Him. The revelation of His divinely good attributes and eternal glory isn’t seen in all the good things that our weak flesh desires and agrees with, for the everlasting riches and glory are invisible to us. They are grasped in the heart by faith.
His glory is hidden in suffering, and that, in the suffering of His betrayal, condemnation, mocking, scourging, and crucifixion. Look upon your suffering in faith that there you shall see your God! Most certainly He gives good temporal gifts, and we, American Christians, abound in them above all peoples. But that fact has proven not to be an enviable blessing, but a great source of temptation, idolatry, and misunderstanding of how God is best seen and known. Rich, prosperous, everything-is-wonderful living is not the way of the cross nor of the Christ Who died upon it. So, we are to take up our crosses and follow Him, because if our flesh has all that it desires, even in longing for prestige and honor in the Lord’s Kingdom, that is, in desiring to be great among others, it is not going to glorify God for the gifts and exaltation, but to forget Him because of them. It’s what we poor sinners do with good things. Christians are to mortify the flesh by seeking to be slaves of one another; coming to serve, not to be served, for it is the way of our suffering and crucified Lord; the One Who came to give His life a ransom for many. Having drunk the cup that He had to drink and being baptized with the baptism that He had to receive, He made the burden of suffering easy and the yoke light for the heart of faith placed in Him Who has gone before us. His magnificent charge into suffering was so that we may see God in the flesh leading the way, and thus trust Him always that His way is what we need to overcome our sinful flesh and to share in the reward of His labor for days without number. In light of this great reward can no heavenly Father, or sincere mother, truly hope for more for their children.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.
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