After Jesus makes his third passion prediction, his followers still don’t understand what it means to follow Jesus. And most of us don’t either.
For Jesus, it isn’t just confronting power — it’s rejecting glory.
Proper 24B | Mark 10:35-45
A few weeks ago, when we hosted our neighbors for our annual big blow-out communion service, Holypalooza, I wanted to make sure our guests knew where the restrooms are located.
I said that if you’re looking for them, just walk through this door and keep going left. In the back of the Great Hall is our accessible bathroom. But if you get lost, just remember, keep moving to the left. You’ll find a bathroom!
Now, imagine I said this (keep moving left) and every time someone walked through that door they turned right? Of course, they’d find themselves outside. Clearly, that’s the wrong way!
Or what if they went straight and then left. Maybe into the kitchen? Or left than right? Kitchen again? Would they keep looking? Would they know to keep looking?
Imagine if I told them to keep turning left and then met them out in the cloister room, reoriented them and said, keep going left and they head toward the education wing. And now (on the inside) I’m like “Are you kidding me?” But I actually say “Just come back down the stairs…that’s right, follow me this way…OK, now turn left” and they head right into the kitchen.
Jesus keeps asking Why did you turn? I told you I’d show you the way?
This is what Jesus is doing and his disciples relentlessly misunderstand him. Seriously, how does Jesus keep his cool? Any of us would have lost our minds by this point.
Focus
Three times Jesus has predicted his death. And not just his death, his suffering. His being brought low.
And in the middle of all these Passion Predictions, he’s been teaching them about the kin-dom. Specifically, about the upside-down power structure of the kin-dom. Over and over again, The first will be last. The last are first. Can’t you see?
He’s paired that teaching with repeated calls for these disciples to get behind him, to follow him, to bring themselves low and serve as he does.
And yet Peter tries to stop Jesus and John tries to stop an exorcist healing in Jesus’s name. The disciples fail to heal a boy and argue about which of them is the greatest. All in the last few chapters.
Jesus literally puts a child in the center of them and says Look at her! The kin-dom is more her’s than yours!
For three chapters, Jesus has been willing them toward Jerusalem, driving them forward, compelling them to see what God is calling them to do. Not just submit, but serve.
Repeatedly
This is nearly the end of the road. They’re almost there.
“They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid.”
Perhaps they’re starting to get it. Maybe they’re starting to hear him. Finally. Or maybe they’re fear is for something else…
“He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and 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; they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him; and after three days he will rise again.’
This is what Jesus says which prompts James and John to pipe up. Clearly, they aren’t afraid since they want to face death with Jesus.
Their sense of bravery leads them to demand Jesus make them his top followers. So they tell Jesus to do it. Make them his favorites. But Jesus keeps his cool.
They can’t.
But we’re ready to die with you in glory! They argue.
Oh, you’ll die, Jesus assures them. There’s no question. Just not now.
They don’t grasp what Jesus’s problem with empire is really about: it isn’t just political power over the people. It’s about something as difficult to resist: glory. He’s condemning both physical and emotional authority, superiority.
And these two aren’t afraid to die fighting the tyranny of empire. But their inspiration doesn’t come from their trust in God, but because they think that’s a glorious, fitting tribute to God! How great will that be on the resume with the great divinity! Maybe people will sing songs of their bravery! What else could God want but for the righteous to destroy the unrighteous?
Isn’t this what they think? It sure is what we think.
We get to be like spiritual kings! We’ll rule the kin-dom with you, Jesus!
But the spots at Jesus’s left and right are already taken. And not by righteous warriors, but by bandits. At his raising up, Jesus will be humiliated and flanked by criminals. Not freedom fighters, not revolutionary heroes, but thieves.
Even though we know that historically only revolutionaries are crucified, there will be no glory in the telling of this story.
James and John demand glory and Jesus offers only the cross.
It’s like James and John walk up to Jesus wearing t-shirts which say “no guts, no glory.” And Jesus says they’re offering the wrong message.
No Glory, Just the Cross.
We know what would definitely happen in the middle of all this. When two people on the team say to the teacher that they’re really the best students and he should pick them for special honor, the outcome is completely predictable.
The others ravage them. How dare they? Who are they to make those demands? They think so little of their brothers and sisters?
This too is a failure. Another failure for the whole group. More judgment. More glory. Jesus says “follow me” and they’re off on their own.
Rulers lord their power. But it is not so among you. Flip the power and flip the glory. Both. You don’t get any glory, you just get the cross.
Serve. Not for praise.
Serve. Not for applause.
Serve. Not for recognition.
Serve. Not for the smug feeling of superiority.
Serve. Not for the jewels in some made-up crown.
Serve. Not for the rules and certainty.
Serve. Because there’s no glory in it.
Flip those expectations upside down.
The cup is death. So is baptism.
The cup Jesus is to drink is the cross. He’s marching to his death, his brutal beatings, the very torture of his body. There’s no glory there.
This is the vision we are offered today in our own baptism—not to be glorified and raised above each other. We’re no better having gotten splashed by water. But we are to die to ourselves. To go below the waters and come up as someone new. Someone less selfish and glory-starved. Someone more willing to follow Jesus to where he’s going. And he’s not there yet.
But Jesus keeps walking.
He doesn’t stop outside Jerusalem. He keeps going. Jesus doesn’t reject this pursuit because it lacks glory. Because he isn’t getting enough payback for how much he’s putting in. He’s got some serious skin in the game! Literally!
He doesn’t stop. No glory. No being raised up and crowned and worshiped. The tempter’s hopes to make him stumble in the desert, to seek power and glory in the world are shattered in their emptiness. The King’s pathetic power is useless in the face of sacrifice. Pilate’s arrogance is petty next to Jesus’s humility.
If we haven’t seen it yet, if we haven’t understood this walk yet, this is our chance. The twin temptations, the stumbling blocks of power and glory. Of certainty and prestige. These two physical and spiritual powers over other people. Both are turned upside down and rendered impotent.
Our own pettiness and competition; counting our attendance, measuring our music, coveting another church’s influence; all of it reveals how much like James and John we are.
How we don’t listen and fear that Jesus may actually be right. That we might be called to give up our power and glory, our prestige and self-regard. We might be called to face the deadly truth of our own arrogance and the heated pride of our pursuit of power!
And when we do, if we open our eyes, we can see that Jesus is still in front of us. Jesus keeps walking.
This isn’t the end.
The Cross won’t be the end.
Even the end of the gospel won’t be the end. Its last line ends mid-sentence with an invitation, to return again to the beginning.
The Good News of Jesus. Messiah. Son of God.
Baptized by John.
Tempted in the Desert.
He calls his disciples and immediately he goes. He’s on the move. Jesus keeps walking.
And now he’s still walking. He knows we’re behind him. In all of our arrogance and petty pride. With all of our ignorance and shocking inability to pay attention to anything he says. [How many times must he say it?]
Jesus is at the front of the line. Which means he’s last in our world. Because he’s heading in a different direction. And he’s inviting us to join him; serving, loving, freeing us all.
Always walking ahead of us and may we humbly follow.