[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
They’re baptized believers in Christ’s church. For the freshman team, a new chapter in their lives was now drawing near. There in the past were all those times of instruction given during the team meetings, the plays drawn on the whiteboard, sewn up upon the screens. The hours practicing the techniques as they rehearsed again and again, the plays. Every one of them in the short burst of energy and in time.
Now as they sat in the locker room, the head coach called his team unto himself and he had all the doors shut and all the electronic devices turned off because he wanted their undivided attention. He wanted to make sure that they understand all the important things that are foundational in their lives together in the battle, in the battle in which they will soon be entangled. After this pregame preparation, these players would soon be leaving this space, walking through the maze of the hallways where the teaching would continue, eventually to find themselves standing at the entrance of a long, dark tunnel, and on the other side they would see a beam of light.
The coach knew that this team had no experience of these hallways, this tunnel, or the large arena on the other side full of all the spectators. He knew that as they engaged the opposing forces in all their ploys, his team would have moments of forgetting the plays, making mistakes, and even folding under the pressure. But he also knew that he picked them. He placed them in their positions. He trained them. And now, in the locker room, he knew that in these last hours, he would soon be sending them into the battle.
In our gospel lesson, this is where we find our Lord Jesus and his small band of disciples. He had gathered them together in a house in the village of Capernaum, next to the Sea of Galilee, away from the crowds and away from the hustle and bustle of the day. This would be the last time that Jesus would be in his adopted city, his adopted village, his base camp, because Saint Luke records in chapter 9, when the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. But that does not mean that he stops teaching his disciples; it does not mean that he stops preparing them.
Matter of fact, it’s just the opposite; he’s actually spending more private time with them as his three-year public ministry is drawing to an end. So he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” They did not respond. Even Peter was silent. The reason was because they had been arguing with one another about who was the greatest. St. Matthew records that at some point later, they approached Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” They had been with Jesus long enough. And they knew that He knew, and that He had the answer.
It was not long ago before this that Jesus asked this same group, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Christ.” Instead of hearing the encouragement from Jesus, “Now go proclaim this,” the disciples heard Jesus strictly charge them to tell no one about Him. And then Jesus told them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said this plainly. And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Jesus.
By turning aside and seeing the disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” Even with all the years of instruction, they couldn’t figure out how all this is going to work out. And added to this, Jesus took Peter, James, and John onto a mountain, and in their presence, He transfigured right before their eyes. The brightness of His face and His clothes turned wide beyond the description of words, as Jesus allowed them to see His divine glory.
With Him was Moses and Elijah, and they were talking with Him about Jesus’ departure. The climax was when the disciples were enveloped in a cloud and hearing a voice say, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him.” Now you can just imagine those disciples and the thoughts that were going through their minds. “Wait until we see the other disciples, the stories that we have to tell.” But on the descent from the mountain, the three of them heard, “Do not tell anyone what you have seen until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.”
At the mountain, we see the last week’s gospel lesson where the other nine were involved in a huge argument with some people in the crowd involving a boy with an unclean spirit. They could not cast this demonic spirit out of the boy, so Jesus takes this boy immediately and heals him. Later, when they were alone with Jesus, the disciples asked, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “This kind can be driven out by nothing except by prayer.”
Leaving that place, the disciples were along with Jesus, and he said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and when he is killed, after three days he will rise.” Then today’s text says, “But they did not understand the saying and were afraid to ask him.” Now walking on the road to Capernaum, instead of the disciples pondering the words of Jesus that he had been speaking into their ears and all of the miracles their eyes have seen, they argued. They argued.
They were arguing about who is the greatest among them. I can just hear Peter walking along the roadway, “If I had been at the base of the mountain, I could have cast out that demonic spirit. I am greater than you. I have more gifts and talents than you. My way is always right.” And then it was probably echoed by the other ones as they responded. Pride, envy, arrogance, jealousy, oozing out of each and every one of them as words followed.
Jesus, sitting on the floor, called the twelve unto Himself. Jesus knew that the end was near, so He continued to prepare them for the battle that they would be facing in the near future. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” Their limited intellect and their personal experiences struggled in the understanding of Jesus’s words. They were looking at it through the lenses of man and not of the lenses of God.
To be first, one must be last. How can a people be at the top by being on the bottom? Not only on the bottom, but being a servant to everyone above you. Their perspective of ranking of life was conflicting with Jesus’ words. Then He took a child who was ranked in the lowest of society to stand before them. Taking him in His arms, He tells them, “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me receives not me but he who sent me.”
To be first, one must be lower than the children and to serve them. This paradoxical statement would stick in their memory. The freshman would eventually walk the hallways and into that long and dark tunnel only to see their coach collapse, lifelessly lying there on the ground. They went out to the edge of the arena floor without him, full of fear, and then looking back to the opening of the tunnel, they saw their coach waving at them.
They noticed the beam of light that had been seen at the entrance of the tunnel, and it was created by the sun shining through an opening in the structure. They gathered together to encourage one another, saying that they had the coach’s words, his training, the presence of his coaching staff to lead them. With the coach’s words, their minds were open to understand that they were not to fight for or about individual greatness, but for each of them to serve one another in their specific positions.
Then, in their unity, they could face the opposing forces and all of the ploys. Jesus and His disciples would journey the hallways down the Jordan Rift, and at Jericho, the ascent to the Mount of Olives for Jesus to ride a donkey down and across the Kidron Valley to enter through the eastern gate of the city of the great king. It was at the end of the week the disciples were approaching the entrance of that long, dark tunnel during one night in the garden where Jesus was arrested.
They saw him falsely accused, drugged through an illegal trial, beaten, whipped, sentenced to death, and crucified upon a cross, innocent of any and all crimes. For three days in their darkness, they hid because of the sadness of their loss and for the fear of their lives. On the third day, they were hearing stories. That night, Jesus appeared to them, showing the marks of the crucifixion. Jesus was not dead, but alive.
For 40 days, Jesus would appear to His disciples, and at one time, He appeared to over 500 of them. That beam of light that was at the end of that dark tunnel was the stone rolled away and the empty tomb. St. Luke records Jesus in the presence of His disciples. He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. Stay in the city until you are clothed with the power on high.”
Now from this side of the cross, through God’s means of grace, the Apostles now understand Jesus’s words. You know that rulers of Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Acts 2 is the day fulfilled. With the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle stood in the streets, proclaiming the good news of the forgiveness of sins won and displayed with Jesus’ death on the cross and vacating the tomb with the resurrection from the dead. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Son of God. Looking to the crucifixion and the closing of the tomb, the Apostles were fearful, but now looking back at the empty cross and seeing Jesus alive outside the empty tomb, they are fearless.
In their leadership roles, with the authority of Christ Jesus and with the help of the Holy Spirit, they would be last of all and servants of all as they go as His sent ones. But where do we fit in this great drama? The apostles proclaimed the gospel message in the great arena that spanned around the world to the opposing forces. And for almost the last 20 centuries, through the power of God’s Word and the working of the Holy Spirit, God has been transferring people from the opposing forces into His kingdom.
Through the means of grace, the church, the body of believers, the family of God has grown and scattered around the world and is still happening today. This is where we are. We have been transferred by the water and the words of God into the army of God, and through the eyes of faith, made possible by the Word and Spirit, we too look back and cling to the words and works of Jesus for us.
But let me make it clear. I see it all too often today when people say that I’m not religious and that I don’t believe that I play any part in any drama. I got news for them. The bleachers are not for humans; they are occupied by the spiritual world of angels and demons as they come and go. All people who have breath of life in them are on the arena floor, and they are either in the bondage and control of the devil, or they are in the forces of God’s army, the church militant.
There is no riding the fence. There is no middle of the road. There is no standing in a gray area. No, a person is either condemned or saved. They’re either spiritually dead or they’re spiritually alive. They’re either hell-bound or heaven-bound. Opposing the recent proclamation of a leader of a major church body that spans around the world, there is only one way of salvation: It is by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone, as revealed in the sacred scriptures alone.
Your brothers and sisters walking in the Christian faith, Jesus is also speaking to us as he was preparing the 12 to engage the world. Know this as you live in the world. The truth of the Word enlightens us. We realize our own unworthiness in God’s grace. In our conviction, we rest. With the help of the Holy Spirit, we strive to serve and we strive to speak.
This week, we will be persecuted by the world. We have peace with God through the blood of Jesus. And the thing that God wants you to know through Jesus is that in the eyes of Him, we are all first. And it all happens because of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, amen.
