Mark 10.35-45
Palm Sunday 29th March 2015
Belle Vue Baptist
Can you drink the cup I drink
or be baptized with baptism I am baptized with?
A question appropriate at the beginning of holy week
where we will remember Jesus in the upper room, in the garden,
in the courtroom, on the cross and then in the tomb.
Can you drink the cup I drink
or be baptized with baptism I am baptized with?
Throughout Lent we have been faced with the challenge of following Jesus
and none more so when he asks us this question.
What makes a mature Christian?
Sometimes we like to talk about so and so being a mature Christian
and often this can mean they’ve been following Jesus a long time.
Well in Mark’s gospel that doesn’t mean much.
James and John have been following Jesus from near day one.
Three years in the company of Jesus.
Three years of hearing Jesus teach and watching him work.
We might think they are ready for graduation,
they must be reaching the advance levels of the stages of faith,
they are surely ready to be called ‘mature’?
James and John approach Jesus,
they want to speak to him,
a moment to demonstrate their understanding,
their maturity as his disciples.
“Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
Ok, not a good start, a bit presumptive,
but there’s still time to show themselves as exemplar disciples.
“Let one of us sit at your right and other at your left in glory.”
If this was twitter the response might be #discipleshipfail
You can imagine Jesus’ face marked with disappointment as he says,
“You don’t know what you’re asking.”
Beware of mature disciples!
They’re probably just as deaf and blind as the rest of us.
Back in chapter 8, Jesus spoke about the ‘Son of Man coming in glory’,
but James and John demonstrate selective hearing,
as they seem to have not heard that the glory of the Son of Man
was framed by suffering, cross and death.
Two people do find themselves on Jesus’ left and his right,
they are the two robbers he is crucified with (Mk 15.27).
The moment of Jesus’ glory, his triumph,
his being named king,
is the moment of his crucifixion.
Jesus asks James and John:
Can you drink the cup I drink
or be baptized with baptism I am baptized with?
Jesus asks us:
Can you drink the cup I drink
or be baptized with baptism I am baptized with?
We hear the words cup and baptism in several ways.
We hear them as words from the beginning and end of Jesus’ ministry.
Jesus begin his ministry with baptism, it will near its completion when he shares the cup at the last supper.
Jesus is one who embraces baptism and the shares the cup.
Baptism marks the acceptance of his mission from God.
The cup he shares with his disciples and then he cup he asks to be removed from him in the garden at Gethsemane, mark the climax of his mission.
To understand Jesus, is to understand him through his baptism:
“You are my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased”
and to understand him through his cup:
He took the cup … “This is the blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many.”
Jesus is the anointed Son of God,
and as such his blood will be shed for many.
Can you drink the cup I drink
or be baptized with baptism I am baptized with?
We hear these words – baptism and cup – as sacraments of the church,
the call to be baptised and to gather round the Lord’s table.
We are those baptised into Christ: as the apostle Paul puts it:
“Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death?” (Rom 5.3).
We are those who share the cup of Christ: as the apostle Paul puts it:
“Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ” (1 Cor. 10.16).
If baptism and the cup mark the life of Jesus, they also mark our lives,
his baptism is our baptism,
his cup is our cup,
his mission is our mission,
his cross is our cross: as the apostle Paul puts it:
“I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal 2.20).
Can you drink the cup I drink
or be baptized with baptism I am baptized with?
asks Jesus.
Our baptism says yes, and every time we come to this table and drink from the cup, we say yes Jesus.
Baptism and the cup are visual reminders
that the one we worship, the one we follow,
is the one who dies on a cross.
The way to glory, the way to life,
is the way of the cross.
James and John want glory, reward and hallelujah,
Jesus promises that if they will follow him,
they shall share with him in his sufferings and challenges.
How often have you passed a church with some kind of amusing, appealing,
warm, friendly poster that says something like ‘Jesus will meet your needs.’
How often have you passed a church with a sign that says ‘Come! Be crucified! We’ve got a cross that fits your back too!’*
The gospel is not just Jesus died for me and you,
the gospel is also Jesus calls us to die with him.
Earlier this week the Church celebrated Oscar Romero,
who 25 years ago, as the then Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Salvador, was gunned down as he celebrated mass.
Pope Francis has declared him a martyr of the Christian faith.
Romero was one who knew the way of the cross.
In a few weeks time it will be the 70th anniversary of the death of Dietrich Bonheoffer, a Christian pastor who stood against the evils of Nazism,
and was executed.
Bonheoffer was one who knew the way of the cross.
Likewise in a few weeks time it will be the anniversary of the death of the Baptist pastor Martin Luther King,
who led the civil rights movement in the United States and was assassinated.
Luther King was one who knew the way of the cross.
The history of the church is full of other examples.
I name them not because martyrdom is somehow necessary to being a Christian,**
as if you’re only a Christian if you’re killed for your faith,
but to say that as those who are baptised and those who share the cup of Jesus,
we are saying that martyrdom is now a possibility.
We do not seek death, martyrdom is not a kind of evangelistic strategy,
but the message of Jesus is one that produces hostility,
for to follow Jesus is to live in such a way that proclaims the crucified and risen Jesus as Lord.
What does this look like? It looks like this:
whoever would come after me, must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me
whoever loses his life for me and the gospel will save it
whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant;
whoever wants to be first must be slave of all
We might ask that in the Western world, the lack of persecution towards Christians, the lack of martyrs, is because
‘the church has often given the world too little to reject, too little witness,
too few challenges, too small a God and a harmless Jesus?’***
Too briefly return to my comments earlier about mature Christians,
what perhaps is important is not the amount of years that you have attended church,
although that hopefully does help,
but what really matters is are you still allowing yourself to hear and see Jesus?
Are you allowing the gospel to bring you to your knees,
and lift you to your feet?
Are you following Jesus in the way that confronts the evils of the world,
with a love that leads to the cross?
Can you drink the cup I drink
or be baptized with baptism I am baptized with?
As we come to share in the Lord’s Supper,
we are saying yes we want to Jesus.
* William Willimon
** I owe these thoughts in this section to Stanley Hauerwas (Approaching the End, Eerdmans, 2013) and Craig Hovey (To Share in the Body (Brazos, 2008).
*** Craig Hovey, To Share in the Body, p.39.
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