It wasn’t what they expected for Jesus. Even less was it something they expected for themselves. The Messiah wasn’t supposed to be killed. He was supposed to be their glorious Savior-King, who would drive out the Roman oppressors and bring back to Israel the golden days of kings David and Solomon in a kingdom that would last for all eternity. And the disciples were going to be reigning with Him at His side. Two of them (the brothers James and John) would even have the nerve to ask if they could sit at Jesus’ right and left as He reigned in His glory. This really irritated the rest of the disciples, not because they thought it was such a presumptuous request, but because they hadn’t thought of asking it first.
It was this lust for power and glory that was behind their argument here about who was the greatest. Dismissing the whole idea that Jesus would die (because they didn’t understand how such a thing could happen to the Messiah), they entered into a heated debate about who had the most power and authority in this earthly kingdom that Jesus was supposed to be ushering in. No doubt, whoever was the greatest would also receive the best accommodations, the most money, and the most famous name. And like the Olympics or the U.S. Open, nobody likes coming in second. There were twelve of them. Somebody had to be head over the others. The Roman Catholic Church named Peter.
But in today’s Gospel text Jesus corrects the misunderstanding that His disciples held about His kingdom. Greatness in the Lord’s kingdom isn’t about being served, but about serving and giving one’s life for others, including even strangers and enemies. Reigning with Jesus in His kingdom isn’t about putting yourself over others, but putting yourself under them. It’s not a life of luxury, but one of suffering and cross-bearing, because that’s the result when you live for others instead of yourself. It began with Jesus; it continues with His disciples.
Jesus illustrates this kind of greatness when He takes a child into His arms and says, “Whoever receives one such child in my Name receives me, and whoever receives me, receives not me but Him who sent me.” In doing this, Jesus first of all shows His love and service towards us. There is no one who is more helpless than a small child. Children are completely dependent upon their parents or guardians to take care of them; they are nothing but given to. They are among the most needy people on earth, especially if they are homeless and starving, or yet still in their mother’s womb. If your hope was to make a name for yourself in this world, an orphanage is one of the last places you’d want to be associated with. You don’t get famous for taking care of children. But Jesus didn’t consider it beneath Him to come in the flesh to give His life in service to such humble creatures. As the Apostle Paul writes, “Though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant.”
And He did this for all the wayward and helpless children of the world, including us. We need to see ourselves as this small child, whom Jesus took up in His arms. Humbled, starving, and poor children as we were before God on account of our sins, Jesus didn’t keep Himself aloof from us. Sinful and unclean though we are and righteous and holy though He is, Jesus didn’t come to display His greatness by exerting His power over us, using it to subject us to His will. Rather, He manifested His greatness by using His power to serve us and give His life as the sacrifice for our sins. Jesus loves us, His fallen children, more than Himself. He was unwilling that any of us should suffer the penalty of our sins. Instead, He suffered it for us in our place. It was on the cross as He gave His life for ours that Jesus displayed the kind of greatness that His kingdom is all about. It’s the kind of greatness that puts itself under the lowliest and most helpless of people, sacrificing itself in order to meet their greatest need.
And we are the beneficiaries of that greatness. We are the children for whom Christ died and rose again, and whom He has taken into His arms of love through Holy Baptism and granted us a home in His kingdom, where we get to eat and drink of the feast He provides for us. Only when we have first been recipients of Jesus’ great service towards us can we then as His disciples live out that kind of greatness towards others. Only when we realize that we have been saved and granted eternal life for the sake of Christ’s service for us on the cross alone, can we then begin to serve our neighbors without any thought of what kind of reward we might receive for it. Some people take Jesus’ instruction about living in service towards others as a means by which they try to earn their salvation. By imitating Jesus, they think that they will achieve not only eternal life, but greatness in His kingdom. The greater their service towards others, the greater their standing in God’s kingdom, so they think. But this does away with the need for Jesus altogether and makes you dependent upon your own merits for both your membership in God’s family as well as your status in it. Other people may not rely on their service towards others to get them into heaven; however, they are all about helping others for the rewards that they expect to receive from the Lord. These kind of people expect to be compensated by God for their service towards others, whether that means payment in this life or in the life to come.
The kind of service that Jesus rendered towards us, though, was not done for any rewards that He would receive, but for you and me. Jesus wasn’t thinking about Himself and what He might get out of serving you. If He’d considered that, He would have stayed in heaven and let you perish, given what it was going to cost Him. Instead, He thought only of you. You are His reward. The treasures of heaven meant nothing to Him, as did His own life. He loved and continues to love you by giving Himself completely to you and for you, “that you might be His own, live under Him in His kingdom, and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness, just as He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns for all eternity.” And now, just as He has loved you, so you are to love others, not for what you can get out of it, not for hope of reward, nor in order to obtain eternal life, but purely for the sake of your neighbors and their needs. It’s because you have everything you need in Christ for your salvation that you serve one another in their earthly needs here and now.
So, just as Christ received you, so you are to receive others, even the most humble, poor, and helpless, or perhaps, especially them, especially when they are your own brother and sisters in Christ. Receive them as you would receive a child. Treat them as Christ treats you. That means not only providing for their earthly needs, as you work out your various callings in life, but also providing them their spiritual needs as well, which means giving them the Gospel when the opportunity presents itself and forgiving them their sins against you. This is what it means to receive someone in Jesus’ Name. The Name of Jesus means “God is salvation.” As you receive someone in His Name you apply His Name to that person; you give them Jesus. You treat them as Jesus would treat them; you treat them the way Jesus treats you.
But this is going to get you the cross, just as it did Jesus. You’d think people would be thankful for your service, thankful to have their needs met. But while they might be thankful if you provide them for what they want, they will not always be thankful when you give them what they need, especially when that means bringing them to the awareness that they are sinners in need of a Savior. The people were happy to accept Jesus as their King when He filled their stomachs with bread, when He healed their sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead. They were not happy with Him when He convicted them of their sins, told them that they were children of the devil, and said that they were blind and enslaved to sin. For telling them the truth Jesus was crucified. And yet, through that crucifixion Jesus met their greatest need, as He atoned for their sins with His blood. That was why His way was the way of the cross. It was the way His Father had determined to rescue the world from the wages of their sins.
But does the world thank Him for that? No! Most of them continue to reject Him and His work for us. For that very reason they will reject you as you endeavor to live as Jesus did in this world. Your life, too, in this world will be one of cross-bearing. The more you intend to live as Christ towards others in this world, the more you’ll suffer the same rejection that He did. But at the same time, those who receive you because you bring them Christ, receive Christ Himself. You, the Church, are the bride and body of Christ in this world. What’s done to you is done to Him, according to His words. If the world rejects you, it rejects Him; if it receives you, it receives Him and the One who sent Him.
Our greatest reward is that God has received us poor sinners for Christ’s sake and given us the greatest of all treasures - Himself. There is no need for us to lust for power and glory. We have it in Jesus. We are already seated with Him in the heavenly places. We already reign with Him in His kingdom of grace and will reign with Him in His kingdom of glory. We have both the power and authority to live as He did in this world, giving our lives in service to others, proclaiming the Gospel of Christ crucified to them, so that they might believe in Him and be saved. When we do that we display Christ’s glory. It’s a glory that all God’s children share right here and now, hidden though it is behind suffering and the cross. But someday it will be revealed at the resurrection when our Lord returns for us to take us to our heavenly home. So, we don’t have to worry about who’s the greatest or who gets to sit where in Christ’s kingdom. Our focus in on Jesus and His service for us. For His sake we all get to eat with Him at His Table here and now and will also eat with Him at His Table in heaven face to face.
Let us, then, put ourselves last in this world, living as Christ did in our service towards others, so that Jesus might be exalted and glorified in our lives. In this way we will bring Him to those who don’t know Him, that they too might receive Him and the eternal life that only He, who has overcome death and the grave by His resurrection from the dead, can give by the authority of the Father who sent Him. Amen.