"come Be Crucified! We've Got A Cross For Your Back Too!"

“Come! Be Crucified! We’ve Got a Cross for Your Back Too”

Mark 10:35-45

Have you ever seen a church sign that read, “Come! Be Crucified! We’ve got a Cross for Your Back Too!”

And yet Jesus was this up-front.

You can’t accuse Jesus of false advertising.

When James and John come up to Jesus and say, “Teacher, we want you to do whatever we ask…

…Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory…”

…Jesus doesn’t beat around the bush.

He’s not mean about it, but He’s transparent—truthful.

I think that sometimes we do God, other people, and ourselves a terrible disservice when we try and sugar-coat the Christian journey.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

The number one best decision I ever made, and I only made it by God’s grace getting me to a place where I could make it, was to give my life to Christ.

It literally changed me, transformed me.

I have not been the same since, and I cringe to think of where I would be without it.

But, at the same time, it has not been easy.

There have been times when it has been down-right excruciating.

And, the reason for this is my own stubbornness, selfishness, and my own unwillingness to truly give EVERYTHING to Jesus—or at least my tendency to TAKE things back after I have given them to Him.

But, it’s a journey.

It’s a learning experience.

If I hadn’t made so many mistakes, I would probably have an ego the size of the Empire State Building.

God knows what He’s doing.

Our passage for this morning comes on the heels of what we studied last week—the rich young ruler who came up to Jesus asking: “What must I do to inherit eternal life.”

And Jesus told him straight out as well, “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor…and then come, follow me.”

Then, Jesus predicts His death for a third time: “We are going up to Jerusalem…

…[I] will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law.

They will condemn [me] to death and will hand [me] over to the Gentiles, who will mock [me] and spit on [me], flog [me] and kill [me].”

But the disciples just don’t get it.

I wonder if we get it.

“Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”

Jesus replies, “You don’t know what you are asking.

Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?”

The road Jesus is walking is a road that leads to torture, to death on a cross.

The cup that Jesus is to drink is the cup of His horrible death.

The baptism that will drown Him is the baptism of his death as He suffocates on the cross.

When Jesus asks James and John if they can drink the cup He drinks and be baptized with the baptism He is baptized with they respond, “Sure. We can do that! No problem.”

They are clueless as to what this means, and I think many of us are clueless when it comes to what being a follower of Christ really means as well.

As Deitrich Bonhoeffer so eloquently put it: “When Christ calls a person he calls that person to come and die.

But in doing so, he is calling them to live.”

Jesus told the disciples that in Jerusalem He would be arrested, condemned to death, mocked, spit upon, flogged and killed.

But He added, “Three days later [I] will rise again.”

Can we drink that cup?

Can we be baptized with that baptism?

Will we be resurrected with Christ?

To share in the death and resurrection of Christ—there is no greater hope, there is no greater life.

It is the grace and mercy of God to allow us this privilege.

And yet, do we know what is involved?

No.

Probably not.

And I suppose that can be a good thing, unless we think it’s gonna be easy.

If we think this, we may drop out before we begin the race.

When the other disciples find out what James and John have asked for, they become angry.

And this provides Jesus with another opportunity to teach His disciples what it means to follow Him.

Jesus says to them, “You know that those who are considered to be the rulers of this world abuse their authority and take advantage of those under them, but not so with you.”

“Instead, whoever wants great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.

For the [I] didn’t come to be served, but to serve, and to give [my] life for as a ransom for many.”