The following sermon was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on October 15, 1988. The title is, Oh, How He Loves You and Me, and the scripture reference is Mark chapter 10, verses 32 through 45. 

In our gospel reading, Jesus and his disciples are on their way to Jerusalem. Jesus knows what his fate will be, but the disciples expect quite another kind of glory. Jesus tells them that his followers must be servants to one another.

The holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark. And they were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them. And they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.

And taking the twelve again, he began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles. And they will mock him and spit upon him and scourge him and kill him. And after three days he will rise.

And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you. And he said to them, What do you want me to do for you? And they said to him, Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.

But Jesus said to them, You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized? And they said to him, We are able.

And Jesus said to them, The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized you will be baptized. But to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared. And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John.

And Jesus called them to him and said to them, You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. But 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 slave of all.

For the Son of Man also came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. The Gospel of the Lord. Please turn with me in your pew Bibles to page 633. I want to take another look at the lesson, the first lesson from Isaiah chapter 53, and just point out a couple of things to you about it. It's an absolutely extraordinary passage of scripture in which the prophet looks down the corridors of history and sees in just astonishing detail the sufferings of Messiah.

And he writes in what is called prophetic past tense. This is three quarters of a millennium away. It is that far in the future.

And yet he writes as if it's already happened. He puts it in the past tense. But I want you to notice what happens in the three verses prior to chapter 53.

There's another statement being made here. And notice the contrast between future and past. Behold, my servant shall prosper.

Verse 13. My servant shall prosper. He shall be exalted and lifted up and shall be very high.

As many were astonished at him in the past, when his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the sons of men, so in a similar way in the future he shall startle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, For that which has not been told them they shall see, and that which they have not heard they shall understand. Isaiah sees by revelation the incredibly unspeakably horrible, wrenching, beating, and crucifixion of Messiah.

So awful, so horrifying is this, that people will turn their faces away from it, he says. But that's not the end of the story. Just as people were astonished at that horror, so they will be even more astonished at what comes after it when this same one is lifted up to a place of incredible glory.

He shall be exalted and lifted up and made very high. In this morning's gospel reading, we're almost at the end of Jesus' earthly ministry. He's coming into Jerusalem for the last time.

The events of Palm Sunday are about to unfold. and less than a week later he'll be hanging on a cross of crucifixion. I'm sure that this passage and others like it, predicting in graphic detail the suffering that he knows he is about to go through, I'm sure this was in his mind and in his heart.

For the better part of three years he's been trying to prepare his disciples for this moment. Time and time again he has said, This is why I came. I came to die don't misunderstand it is not going to be some horrible accident catching me unaware this is why I came I came to die I came to lay down my life as a ransom for many and every time he has said that the disciples have somehow missed it either unable or unwilling to face up to that you remember Peter's initial recognition at Caesarea Philippi when he says, You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.

And Jesus says, Yes, you're absolutely right. Now let me tell you what I've come to do. I've come to suffer and die.

And Peter says, God forbid, Lord. This will never happen to you. You are the Christ.

You've come to set up a kingdom. You haven't come to suffer and die. That's totally inconsistent.

For three years, Jesus has been trying to say, Yes, I have come to set up a kingdom, but the key to the kingdom the shape of a cross. Every time he said it, they've missed it. We read two chapters earlier in Mark's gospel that he was up in the Galilee area and he was teaching them yet again, the Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men and they will kill him.

And Mark's comment on that episode is, they didn't understand the saying and they were afraid to ask. In Jesus was trying to tell them that he was going to be suffering and dying on their behalf. You know what they were talking about?

Which one of us is the greatest? Can you get the irony of that? I have come to lay down my life because you are sinners and somebody has to pay the price.

And they're arguing, I'm better than you are. Which of us is the greatest? And so here, he approaches Jerusalem.

the end is virtually at hand and he tries yet again he is still more explicit he is giving more detail than he ever has previously the son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes and they will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles and they will mock him and spit upon him and scourge him and kill him and at just about that time up come James and John and they say could we ask a little favor of you when you get into your glory could we sit on the right hand and the left I'm not talking about glory I'm talking about dying the only people who are going to be on my right hand and left for sure are a couple of thieves who are going to be crucified with me no no no we're not talking about that Lord We're talking about after that. Praise God, there is an after that. Praise God that as many were astonished when he was so horribly marred, so they shall be startled at the way in which he's lifted up.

Praise God, there is an after that. But the point is you don't get to the after that unless you go through this. Jesus' teaching on the matter has been utterly consistent.

He says, I've come to do something unique, unprecedented, and absolutely necessary. I've come to take your sin upon myself and bear in my own body the pain and the penalty, the cost and the consequences of your having offended against the holiness of God. I have come to die so that you might live.

And yet, and yet, every time he says that, virtually without pausing to take a breath, he goes on to say, my death is also a pattern for you. It is also a pattern for you. I have come to do something unique, and yet I call you to replicate it.

I call you to die with me. If anyone would be my disciple, let him take up his cross and do what? Die daily, every single day.

What does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he forfeits his life? But, whosoever loses his life, for my sake in the gospel, the same will find it. And so again today he says, the cup that I drink, you know what cup that is?

Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. The cup of suffering that I drink, you will drink. And with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.

My death is absolutely necessary for you and it is unique. And yet, I call you to replicate it. In living, I call you to die.

James and John wanted to get in on the glory who doesn't? when the other ten heard about it it says they were indignant why do you suppose they were indignant? they wanted to get in on the glory and who do you guys think you are to try to get there first?

and Jesus says the glory comes in making a present of yourself holding nothing back being willing to be misunderstood maligned, misused being willing to become a servant a slave you want to be great in the kingdom become a slave you want to be the greatest in the kingdom become the slave of everyone if necessary let him crucify you that's the glory Bishop Evans told us a story last month at the renewal conference you may not have heard it a story about a young Israeli girl who was brutally raped by an Arab soldier during the Six-Day War after he had killed her brother right before her. And some years later, that same soldier was brought into an army hospital where that young woman was serving as a nurse. He was very near death, and she literally saved his life, gave him round-the-clock care, and nursed him back to health.

And when he regained consciousness and was able to speak to her, he said, do you know who I am? And she said, yes. He said, you know that I raped you.

She said, yes, and you killed my brother. And he said, how can you care for me this way? She said, because I'm a Christian.

And Jesus told us to love our enemies. She made a present of herself. She served him.

and that's exactly what Jesus did for us Romans 5 says while we were still weak at the right time Christ died for the ungodly one will hardly die for a righteous man but God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by His life. If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more shall we be saved by His life being lived in and through us. Replicating itself in and through us.

Jesus being Himself in us. A life of service and self-sacrifice. Are you ready for that?

You want that kind of glory? Not the glory of lording it over others, but the glory of being their slaves. Henry David Thoreau was imprisoned for civil disobedience, and Ralph Waldo Emerson went to visit him.

And he said, Henry, what are you doing in there? And Thoreau replied, Waldo, what are you doing out there? See, he was free in his imprisonment because he knew where his security was.

It wasn't a matter of being behind bars or not. And the person who knows that he or she has been loved unto death by the King of Kings can rest in that security and can be free in that security to be a servant to others. You know, on the night before he died, the night of the Last Supper, it says that Jesus rose from table, took off his outer garments, girded himself with a towel, and got down and washed his disciples' feet.

But just before it says he did that, John's Gospel records Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, got up from table and began to be a servant. Jesus knew who he was. Jesus knew where he had come from, where he was going.

He knew that the Father had given him everything. It didn't matter what anybody else thought about him. He was free to be misunderstood, to be a slave at their feet, to be crucified on their behalf.

If I'm secure in his love, I can afford to be your servant. A couple of weeks ago, a young woman in this parish said to me something that stopped me dead in my tracks. She said, I believe in God, but I don't know if I believe in His love.

For her, it was not a big philosophical question. She lives with a degenerative disease and she knows that unless God works a miracle in her life, she's eventually going to be unable to care for herself. I don't know if I believe in his love.

I said, what would it take to convince you that God really does love you? And her answer was this. She said, some evidence that he knows about me and that he cares.

I wonder what you would have said to her. As we talked together, I ended up saying three things to her. I said, number one, the day of miracles isn't over.

Let's pray for that miracle. We've seen wonderful healings right here at this communion rail. We've seen God heal people.

We've seen all over the world wonderful healings. Let's pray for that healing. Somewhere I read, by his stripes we are healed.

Let's be like the importunate widow who wouldn't take no for an answer. Let's pray for God's healing for you. But secondly, if that healing doesn't come, or if it doesn't come immediately, the question we need to be asking is, Lord, what do you want to do in the midst of this difficulty?

Is there any way in which you can turn it into a blessing? Is there any good that you can bring out of it? Maybe God is allowing this to happen to put on your heart a tenderness for others who have similar afflictions.

Have you ever thought about bringing kids into your home and caring for them? Or even adopting the unadoptable? Maybe God wants to do something else with it.

Who would have ever guessed that Johnny Erickson Tada, paralyzed from the neck down, would become one of this generation's premier artists and a vibrant witness for Christ from a wheelchair? Who would have ever guessed that out of the ashes of Watergate, Chuck Colson would become one of this nation's greatest practical theologians and social reformers? What does God want to do in the midst of that circumstance?

And thirdly, I don't know if you ever thought of it this way, but another way of viewing what happened when Jesus climbed onto that cross is that he entered into a world of our brokenness, our pain, our suffering, and took it to himself. do you ever think about the fact on good Friday afternoon nothing happened nothing happened nobody was healed no lepers were cleansed nobody had demons cast out of them nobody was raised from the dead there were no miracles on good Friday afternoon nothing whatsoever was changed in the circumstances of the thief who was hanging there on the cross except that he recognized who was hanging next to him and that changed everything didn't it today you will be with me. Sometimes He doesn't change our circumstances.

He shares them. Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life. You want some evidence that he knows about you if you were the only one in the whole world that needed it.

He would have given his life for you. You want some evidence that he cares. There it is.

He gave his life. What more could he give? Oh, how he loves you.

And me. Let's bow our heads together. Lord Jesus, as astonishing as it is that Isaiah could foretell it, how much more astonishing that you actually did it.

thank you for loving me thank you for dying for me thank you for coming into my world to share my circumstances Lord we do pray for that young woman we pray for a miracle of your healing in her body but we also pray that she will know the embrace of your love we ask it in your name Amen