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Jesus wanted to get away from the demands of the crowds so that He could spend some 'quality time' with His disciples. It wasn't easy to escape the paparazzi that followed Him. Most wanted Him to perform for them – a miracle, an exorcism, make wine, make bread. And there were the religious nuts who wanted to debate and argue the finer points of theology with Him.
Don't take this the wrong way. It's not that He couldn't handle all of this. Had the whole world lined up at the door, He would have taken the time to heal each and every one of them and cast out every demon in them and answered every trick question thrown at Him. But this is not why He came into the world. Each and every one whom He miraculously healed would still die in their sins. For every demon he cast out, a legion more were ready to move in and repossess. No matter how many arguments He won, there would be no end to the reasons men and women can come up with to deny His claim to be the way, the truth and the life.
Jesus came into the world to redeem the world and to make all things new. And you don't do that by treating the symptoms, which is all that the crowds were hoping for from Him. And maybe that's as much as you're hoping for from Jesus too.
But these were just the horderves and appetizers, just the signs pointing to the real thing. Jesus came into this world to treat the root cause of all of our sickness and disease and demon possession and rejection and hunger and thirst.
The only treatment for the kind of total cure that He came into the world to administer was His death and His resurrection from the dead. "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." Jesus Christ came into the world, not to apply temporary fixes and measurable improvement to our life on the way to death and the grave. He came to institute a permanent renewal, an eternal life that neither disease nor demons, nor ignorance nor the grave can overcome or take away.
Jesus would accomplish the purpose for which He came into the world by that two-fold action of dying and rising. In that two-fold action, He would deal with the very heart of our problem by atoning for our sin with His blood and by His rising to life, He would dead reverse all of the destruction that our sin has caused and make all things new. This is what Jesus Christ came into the world to do. And this is what Jesus Christ has done. And if you will believe this, you will enjoy the full measure of hope for your life that Jesus has come into the world to give to you.
This is the gist of what Jesus wanted to teach his disciples. After all was said and done, they were the ones who would be teaching you and me what Jesus came in to the world to do and what He had accomplished by His cross and empty tomb.
St. Mark reports the outcome of their little retreat like this, "but they did not understand the saying and were afraid to ask." This was actually the second such retreat that Jesus took with his disciples. The first one had taken place along the road to Caesarea Philippi. Same subject there as here in Galilee. "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." (Mark 8:31).
They didn't understand what He was talking about then either, but on that occasion, Peter spoke up and rebuked Jesus saying that the whole thing was a bad idea, to which Jesus replied by saying, "Get behind me Satan, for you are not setting your mind on the things of God but on the things of man." No wonder that now, this second time around, "they were afraid to ask" any questions.
What is really bothersome for us though is the argument that they had with each other along the way from Galilee to Capernaum. St. Mark reports that they were arguing about which among them was the greatest. That's almost too absurd to swallow in light of what He had just told them. But St. Matthew and St. Luke confirm it in their gospels too. And St. Luke adds that they actually got into the same argument with each other on another occasion. If you can believe it, in the upper room, on the night He was betrayed by Judas, after He had instituted His Supper with them, Luke reports, "a dispute arose among them as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest." (Luke 22:24).
We want to look at this quest for greatness more closely, but before we do, let's pause long enough to something we tend to miss here. Already here, Jesus is using His disciples to teach us what He wants us to learn from them. Long before He commissions them to teach all nations and sends His Holy Spirit upon them, we are already learning from their example why we cannot save ourselves and what it means that Jesus Christ has saved us while we were still sinners – totally lost, totally blind, totally ignorant of our desperate condition. What we learn from these 12 men already is that Jesus has not chosen them to be His disciples because of their merits or the fact that they were quick learners. And certainly, it was not because of their greatness that He chose them. And so already, we are learning from them what it means to be saved by grace alone. And unwittingly, by their bad example, they are teaching us that there just may be room in the grace of Jesus Christ for us too.
But there is a more specific lesson that Jesus wants us to learn here. "What were you discussing on the way?" He asks them. It was one of those 'Garden of Eden' questions that makes you want to hide behind a tree or a fig leaf. Adam severely incriminated himself by blaming God for giving Him the woman. "The woman whom you gave me, she gave it to me and I ate." (Gen.3:12). If they had learned nothing else along the way, they had learned that everything they say, can and will be used against them, and so the take the 5th. "But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest."
If we try to picture the argument they must have had, I think that it's too much to imagine that they would actually have been so obnoxious as to say, "I am the greatest disciple," and then state their reasons for why Jesus would surely pick them. Only a very few would ever be that crude, and even they tend to be limited to boxers, wide receivers and political candidates. We all know how these arguments go. They're much more subtle than that.
Parents talk with other parents about the accomplishments of their children in a steady volley of one-upsmanship until there's only one parent left standing. They're the greatest parent.
Students compare the colleges they attend or hold degrees from. Those who can't compete with prestige ague for greatness on the basis of the best football team or the best party school.
Pastors get into this all the time and its very subtle. Usually, it's a complaint about the demands of the job now that my congregation has gotten so big. Sometimes it's about how we're ever going to afford the new 3 million dollar building addition. Those of us who can't compete along these lines argue that true greatness is determined by whether or not you still use your Greek New Testament and Hebrew Bible for sermon prep.
The disciples were arguing amongst themselves over who was the greatest disciple of Jesus Christ, which is like arguing about who is the most humble.
Let's be sure that we understand that there is nothing wrong with being great, or successful. And the reality of life is, some are better and greater at some things than others are. Even the bible understands that there is a distinction between us that runs all the way from the least to the greatest. "And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest." (Hebrews 8:11).
But when we take this distinction that God has made amongst us by giving us various gifts and abilities, some more, some less, and use the talents and abilities that God has given to us as a way to gain power or prestige or acceptance from others, we use what God has given us for sin and not for good. This kind of quest for greatness stirs up all kinds of sin in others. This is what James is talking about when he says, "if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom from above, but is earthly and demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. What causes quarrels and fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? "
St. Paul writes to the Philippians about this kind of thing saying, "Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves." (Phil.2:3).
Jesus instructs His disciples with a most gentile lesson. "And He said to them, 'If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and a servant of all.'" Notice carefully please, Jesus is not saying that you should not pursue greatness. He is not saying that you should not strive to use and cultivate the gifts He has given to you to the best of your ability. Rather, He is teaching us how we are to use these gifts in a truly great way.
To illustrate the lesson, Mark writes, "He took a child and put him in the midst of them, and taking him in his arms, he said to them, 'Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but him who sent me.'"
What they really wanted was to know was, if he had to pick just one disciple, which one would it be? But Jesus doesn't pick any of them. He picks a child.
The word here is "paidios." A "paidios" is a toddler, not even able to walk yet. The thing about a "paidios" is that they're little. You have to bend down to receive them. You have to come down off of your pedestal. To receive a little child means that you to take them in your arms, which pretty well keeps you from beating your chest.
Here is true greatness in the image of God, who in His greatness, stooped down from His high and lofty throne to take you in His arms. He who is the first and the last became last and a servant of all. He is the Divine Servant, a combination of two words that this world doesn't understand. The arms that are outstretched and nailed to the cross are the same arms that He takes this child with and the same arms that He takes you with.
True greatness is not what we claim for ourselves or establish by means of the strongest arguments or the most votes. True greatness is something that is given to you. By His blood shed for you, He has made you God's "paidios," God's child. In your baptism, He has taken you in His arms, and He will not let go of you.
What could be greater than that? And who could be greater than the one whom Jesus Christ holds in His arms. For this reason, and this reason alone, you are already the greatest in the eyes of your heavenly Father.
Like the disciples, this is a hard lesson for us to learn. And we will spend our whole life trying to learn it and will always need to return to Christ in repentance and for forgiveness.
But just think if we could learn true greatness. What freedom; freedom from the "bitter jealousy and selfish ambition" that causes quarrels and fights among us; freedom to quit the rat race altogether and freedom to be a servant, to be a child, to be last. Freedom to be like Christ.
Oh, how we long for the day when all things are made new. Amen.