Please turn with me to Mark, chapter 10.
In our passage today, we see Jesus confront his disciples’ obsession with political power. This obsession, which many of us share with them, causes them to be distracted from the mission he has for them, and miss the central point of his teaching and mission of his first coming, the mission he has for us until his second coming.
As a pastor over a politically diverse flock, after a couple months of receiving emails and watching Facebook posts, regarding our political situation, I believe that this is a timely message for us.
With a bit of fear and trembling, I’m marveling at God’s timing in the series schedule that this passage falls on the Sunday after the inauguration of the next U.S. president. But I believe that God’s word has a clear message for us today, just as it has for every one of his followers under every kind of governmental system for the last 2000 years. And if you take a look at world history and the history of Christianity, it is not a lesson we’re good at hanging on to.
So lets start today with prayer that God would grant us ears to hear, and hearts of humility to receive a message that cuts across and through political philosophies of all stripes, like a sharp, double edged sword.
Pray with me:
[Prayer…]
Jesus came to die and rise
Mark 10:32–34 (CSB)
32 They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. The disciples were astonished, but those who followed him were afraid. Taking the Twelve aside again, he began to tell them the things that would happen to him. 33 “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. The Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death. Then they will hand him over to the Gentiles, 34 and they will mock him, spit on him, flog him, and kill him, and he will rise after three days.”
What we have studied in Mark’s gospel so far has taken place over the span of about three years. Today we come to the final weeks of Jesus’s earthly life and ministry. They are now headed to Jerusalem, and chapter 11 starts the clock on the final week. We’re right on the doorstep of that.
Imagine the scene. They were going up to Jerusalem, Jesus, the disciples, and the crowds. With Jesus out in front, and the crowd has a max of emotion. The moment is tense.
In the whole Gospel so far, Mark has emphasized the confusion Jesus’s followers had about who he actually is. They still have in mind a political messiah, one who was going to deliver Israel from Roman oppression, and set up shop as ruler and king, and restore Israel to its rightful prominence in the world. They were probably thinking “this is it! Now’s the time!”
And then Jesus pulls them aside, and tells them for the third time that he is going to be killed. “Look friends, we are headed to Jerusalem, and I’m going to be arrested and killed, but then I will rise from the dead after three days.”
This is the third time Jesus tells them this fact, each time he gives them more detail and each time they seem to understand less than the time before. The first time, Peter said “we’re not going to let that happen to you!” The second time Mark simply reports “they didn’t understand, and they were afraid to ask…” This time, there is no response at all. I wonder if, in their focus on heading to Jerusalem, with their minds set on the political situation, they simply didn’t hear him. “What’s he going on about dying?” - “I have no idea. Let’s just move on.” And I think this because of what happens next.
The Disciples are Distracted by Desire for Political Power
Mark 10:35–41 (CSB)
35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached him and said, “Teacher, we want you to do whatever we ask you.” 36 “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked them. 37 They answered him, “Allow us to sit at your right and at your left in your glory.” 38 Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you’re asking. Are you able to drink the cup I drink or to be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” 39 “We are able,” they told him. Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink, and you will be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with. 40 But to sit at my right or left is not mine to give; instead, it is for those for whom it has been prepared.” 41 When the ten disciples heard this, they began to be indignant with James and John.
James and John ask to be allowed to sit at Jesus’s right and left hand in his glory. What they thought they were asking for was a seat at the high table in the new political world order. When Jesus takes his place on a throne in Jerusalem this coming week, they want to be his closest advisors. When the other disciples find out they were asking, they are indignant, not at James’ and John’s gumption to ask, but because they wanted that position.
Jesus’s reply: You don’t understand what you are asking. You don’t know what you are talking about. You don’t understand what is going to happen. James and John and the other ten did not yet have the right understanding of Jesus’s mission, or his call on their lives. They missed all his statements that he’s headed to disgrace and death, and that the disciples are to follow him there.Jesus is headed to glory, and so are the disciples, but they don’t know the path he’s taking. They have the wrong idea about the kind of glory and kind of power Jesus is bringing.
Jesus Rebukes and Corrects Their Misaligned Mission
Mark 10:42–45 (CSB)
42 Jesus called them over and said to them, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in high positions act as tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave to all.
Rulers of the gentiles lord it over and act as tyrants: Emperors, kings, governors, Lords, in our day government officials, celebrities, and corporation heads. Jesus’s statements about rulers and those in high positions are universally true. Every generation in every nation that has read these words has been able to relate to them. Same for us, if you ever pay any attention to the news, you know what Jesus means about rulers and those in high positions being tyrants.
James and John and the rest of the ten thought that they were headed toward rulership and high position over the gentiles. (Gentile by the way, is just a word for “the nations”, so its right to say “the rulers of the nations…”). This is what the disciples were after, and Jesus responds to them with a wake up call.
Jesus says: “Not so among you.”And he doesn’t mean, “once you get the political power and cultural clout you seek, don’t be a jerk like the current guys…” He means, that following Him is not a path to worldly power. Following Jesus is a path of weakness.
What is Our Mission?
Our mission is the proclamation of life and hope in Jesus Christ, on the basis of the gospel news that he has ransomed us from death and calls us to a life of following after him in bringing that hope and healing to the world around us. He promises that as we are on that mission, “the Great Commission”, that our life in this world will be marked by mockery and marginalization. Spoiler alert for a few chapters ahead:
Mark 13:9–11 (CSB)
9 “But you, be on your guard! They will hand you over to local courts, and you will be flogged in the synagogues. You will stand before governors and kings because of me, as a witness to them. 10 And it is necessary that the gospel be preached to all nations.
Brothers and sisters, I’ve read the ending of the book. We do not win in this world! We win in the next one. We will successfully accomplish the mission of the gospel being preached to all the nations by following Jesus. But in this life, we follow Jesus to mockery, disgrace, flogging and even death.
But the good news, the gospel news, that Mark is writing to us throughout this book so far, is that when we are in Jesus, we have hope that for the rest of eternity we will live with him in a new world, released from sin, sickness, death, and the devil. The healings and miracles that he performed in his earthly ministry that Mark so expertly records for us are a glimpse into the life that awaits those who persevere to the end on Jesus’s mission.
People all over the world are looking for a way to make sense of their life. To find release from their fears, anxieties, depression, illness, torment, and sense of meaningless of it all. That release will only be found in Jesus, but they are looking for is in power and pleasure. They think that having the right gender ideology, economic prosperity, economic equality, the right political positions, or having their person in power in government are going to be their salvation. This is the same kind of mistake the disciples were making, peace was not going to come from a political savior.
An Example From Monday.
This week, I was listening to Breakpoint from The Colson Center, which is a great show, cultural commentary from a Christian worldview, I recommend it. They were commenting on one of President Trump’s many executive orders this week.
In this one order, Trump declared to great applause that “It shall henceforth be the policy of the United States Government that there are only two genders: male and female.” And their comment on the podcast articulated my thoughts pretty well. “At first I was like “yay!” and then a few seconds later I’m like, wow, I can’t believe I’m having to celebrate this…” And then they went on to discuss the real point. While that disposition toward gender is way better than the previous administration’s, acknowledging simple biological fact, its weird that that feels like a victory.
We have yet to see the impact of this executive order in the actual operation of our government. I’m hopeful it will be positive. Aligning policy with reality, fact, sound science, and especially the Word of God always is. But even deeper and more important than policy is the problem of the cultural brokenness that led to this even being a discussion in the first place. What did the executive order actually accomplish in terms of hearts and minds? Everyone just doubling down and feeling a moment of either power or panic, and being strengthened (hardened, really) in the position they already held.
Brothers and sisters, our job is hearts and minds. Our task is not about getting someone to agree with us from an ever-changing political podium.Our task is not to try and get the right point of view encoded into politics. That is too small and fickle of a goal. Our task is to proclaim Christ as Lord to every individual in our sphere.
To our requests for political influence, Jesus says, “You don’t know what you are asking.” The disciples did not, would not, could not hear Jesus when he declared his mission to die as a ransom for sin, because they were too caught up in their misunderstandings about how God’s people were going to be freed by the exercise of political power and the right guy being on the throne in this world.
Learn the lesson they teach us. We are so prone to miss Jesus’s message, and to get off mission. Revisit Jesus’s teaching. “If you want greatness, you must become a servant. If you want to be first you must become a slave to all.” The path to real power is weakness. The path to real life is death. But we have nothing to fear from that death when we trust Jesus and follow him and life the life he taught us to live.
Philippians 2:5–11 (CSB)
5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus humbling himself to last place, even to death, even the worst death imaginable, resulted in God exalting him to the highest place in the universe. In this world, Jesus took the path that resulted in mockery, disgrace, flogging, and death. When we say that we follow Jesus, that is where we are following him. But it doesn’t end there. Where else are we following him to? That same exaltation!
Why did Jesus come to die? What did his death accomplish? Our last verse gives us the outcome of his self-sacrifice. He paid a ransom.
The Good Gospel of God’s Ransom
Mark 10:45 (CSB)
45 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.”
What is a ransom? A ransom is a price paid to buy someone back from kidnapping or slavery. In the ancient world when you paid someone’s ransom, you became their master. And that is the case with us. We were in slavery to the world’s power-hungry system. This works itself out in a variety of ways.
Perhaps we are slaves to people’s opinions of us. We want to be thought well of by everyone. So when Jesus says he would be delivered over to be mocked, that scares us the most. Perhaps we want to be respected for our expertise or ability, so when Jesus says he would be spat upon, that scares us the most. Perhaps we are slaves to comfortable living, so when Jesus says he would be flogged, that scares us the most. Perhaps we are slaves to fearing death, and so when Jesus says he would be killed, that scares us the most.
Jesus’s giving up his life to ransom us from slavery frees us from all this, and from our biggest problem: our slavery to our sin, our rebellion against our creator God.
What does it mean that our king, Jesus, came not to be served but to serve? Jesus became the lowest servant to show us the way we should live and the attitude we should have.Those of us seeking power and glory in this life, we want to be close to people of influence and power. We want to hang out with the people they hang out with. Be in their circles. Do the kinds of things they do. We try to make all the right moves to rise up the ranks to be close to them.Do you want to be near true greatness? Rise down the ranks. Risk your prestige and popularity. Do not fear the ridicule that will come when we go where Jesus went, to serve the needy.
The way of Jesus is upside down and backwards from the way of the world. Jesus came to serve not be served, and to give up his life as a ransom for many. We are to be about the same thing: we are seek to serve and not be served, and to give up our lives to proclaim the news that Jesus gave up his as a ransom for many.
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