The Greatness of a Servant

Matthew 20:17-28

Immanuel – 12/29/24

          We’re back in Matthew for one week. Next week, as is our tradition for the first Sunday of the year, we’ll spend time focusing on prayer and its significance in our lives.

          But today we return to our journey through the Gospel of Matthew. Let’s remember a few of Jesus’ words to bring us up to speed:

          “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”                                                    -Matthew 18:3

          “If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?”

                                                                                      -Matthew 18:12

          “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”                                                       -Matthew 19:15

          “Many who are first will be last, and the last first.”      -Matthew 19:30

          You can see a clear theme running through the last two chapters: The kingdom of God does not function like the kingdoms of men. It elevates the humble and lowers those who self-assert. Every one of these teachings has been delivered in the hearing of the disciples.

          This drumbeat was hit yet again, in the verse immediately preceding our passage today:

“The last will be first, and the first last.”                     -Matthew 20:16

This theme comes to a climactic teaching in today’s passage, as the climactic moment of Jesus’ life – the cross – is only a couple of weeks away.

Verse 17 reminds us that Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. Passover was approaching, and masses of Jews were making their way to Jerusalem. Jesus and the disciples were caught up in this same pilgrimage. Yet Jesus was going to Jerusalem not primarily to celebrate Passover, but to become the ultimate, once-for-all, Passover sacrifice. Ever since they left Caesarea Philippi in the north, Jesus had set His face towards Jerusalem for this very purpose. He knew exactly what He was doing.

Read vs 17-19

This is now the third time Jesus has predicted His death in Jerusalem. A careful reader of Matthew knows that Jesus has alluded to His death and resurrection more times, but this is His third and final prediction in this more formal prophetic format.

Each time Jesus prophesied His death, His predictions became increasingly precise. In this third prediction we are told that His death will be the result of a judicial decision levied by the Jewish Sanhedrin, which is comprised of the chief priests and scribes.

But for the Sanhedrin to “condemn Him to death” – or have Him executed – they would need to involve their political overlords, the Romans. You see, the Romans did not allow the Jews to exercise the death penalty. If the Jews were able to provide adequate evidence against the condemned, and then the Romans would perform their executions.

For criminals, enemies of the state, slaves, the preferred Roman method of execution was crucifixion. Usually before a crucifixion, the Romans would flog and mock the condemned. Flogging was itself a terrible punishment.

Once again, in verse 18, Jesus refers to Himself as the Son of Man. In Daniel 7, the Son of Man was a divine figure, glorious, set to reign over the world in supremacy and righteousness. Jesus is saying that He is this divine Son of Man, He will have that kind of dominion, but first He must suffer in one of the most humiliating and excruciating ways the Roman world devised.

Notice also that Jesus puts a timestamp on when these things would take place. It will happen on this trip to Jerusalem. These things are imminent, about to break upon Jesus.

This is not the messianic picture that anyone had in mind. This is embarrassing. Still, Jesus does prophesy that on the third day He will rise. An embarrassing death, a strange prediction of resurrection. But these prophesies were not for the crowds of Jew. Jesus had pulled aside the disciples and spoke privately to them.

Yet breaking into that private huddle, on the heels of Jesus’ gloomy prediction, a request is made that seems completely counterintuitive to the context.

Read vs 20-21

The sons of Zebedee are James and John. Along with Peter, James and John are in Jesus’ inner circle. Traveling with Jesus and the 12, this mother has journeyed from Galilee. In fact, there were a whole group of women that accompanied Jesus during His ministry, playing a significant role. It will be women who mourn at the cross, while nearly all the men had fled.

There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to Him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

                                                                   -Matthew 27:55-56

It will also be women who discover the empty tomb, while the men grapple with their grief. These women both ministered to Jesus and ministered with Jesus. Their testimony ministers to us to this day.

For instance, notice the faith of the mother of James and John. Jesus has effectively been rejected in Galilee, He has only a tiny band of followers, and He is talking about His death. Yet this woman believes that Jesus is King and that HE is establishing a kingdom. Her faith transcends the things she can see. She truly is a woman of faith!

Her faith is true, but that does not mean her faith is without error. Even if she hasn’t been privy to Jesus’ private conversation with the disciples, she has missed the lowly nature of Jesus’ kingdom. She believes Jesus’ kingdom is just about to come in it fullness, Rome overthrown, glory returned to Israel, and perhaps on this very visit to Jerusalem. In a muddled combination of faith and selfish-ambition, she tries to secure positions of power for her two sons.

          What compels her to think that this is the moment to break into Jesus’ private teaching and make such a presumptuous request? Well, there is a detail that Matthew leaves out, which may give us a clue.

          Just before Jesus delivers the third prophecy of His death, Mark writes: 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.                 -Mark 10:32

          Jesus is walking ahead of the disciples, and everything is normal. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, something changed. Somehow Jesus appears different, something about Him became alarming, astonishing; so much so that everyone following Jesus – including the mother of James and John – was suddenly afraid of Him.

No words appear to have been exchanged. Was it something in Jesus’ appearance? Either way, the air became thick with a swift overwhelming feeling of awe. Something spiritual broke into the physical, a manifest weight of the things about to come, the terror and glory of which Jesus immediately prophesied.

And I think, after witnessing this strange moment, the mother of James and John recognized something regal, holy, and grave. Gathering her sons by her side, she throws herself at Jesus’ feet and makes her request. She wants her sons to be seated at Jesus’ right and left hands. In other words, she wants James and John to have the highest positions of authority in Jesus’ kingdom.

But James and John are not surprised by this request. They know it is coming. At best, they are in agreement with their mother’s desires. At worst, they put her up to this. And we know James and John have a hand in this request because Jesus does not answer their mother. In fact, she disappears from the story at this point. It is as if Jesus hears her request, but then looks into the eyes of James and John, and speaks directly to them, saying not to the mother, but to the men, “You do not know what you are asking.”

Read vs 22

There is a recurring image in the Old Testament of a cup, brimming with wine, found in the hand of God.

“Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them”… Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: “Drink, be drunk and vomit, fall and rise no more, because of the sword that I am sending among you.”                                            -Jeremiah 25:15-16,27

Though there are notes of judgment in this cup, it is most prominently a cup of suffering. Whoever would drink the cup would stagger from pain, be nauseated by the flood of affliction that had rushed upon them. Jesus just prophesied about the cup He was to drink. A few weeks later in Gethsemane, as He was about to put His lips to its brim, Jesus felt such tremendous dread that He sweat drops of blood.

Yet He knew there was joy on the other side, a people ransomed from sin and reconciled to God. Though the price would be paid in His own blood, love carried Him to the cross – and obedience. It was the Father’s will that Jesus would be crushed for the iniquity of many. Even more than Jesus loved His own life, He loved to please His Father in heaven.

Though the cross was immeasurably horrible, the joy on the other side was immeasurably more. We see in Revelation 5 that Jesus is worthy of worship and honor precisely because He is the Lamb that was slain.

Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to God, and they shall reign on earth.                                                                         -Revelation 5:9-10

This is why the father sent his son to the cross – painful though it was. This is why Jesus pressed that awful cup to His lips and drained every drop. The sufferings of the cross were not worth comparing to the resurrection glory that would be revealed.

Still, the cup was bitter, and James and John had no idea what they were asking. Perhaps if they had been listening to Jesus’ prophecy – brimming with injustice, suffering, shame, and death – they might have understood what their ambition meant. Perhaps if they remembered Jesus teaching from earlier they wouldn’t have been so hasty.

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”                                                          -Matthew 16:24

But in naïve faith and misplaced ambition, the Sons of Thunder blurt out, “We are able.”

Read vs 23

          Jesus says James and John will drink from the cup of suffering. This, of course, does not mean a cup of atonement – as if James and John could ransom a people. Jesus means that they too would suffer.

The time would come when the brothers would renounce self-serving motivations and give their lives for the kingdom of God. James will be the first of the Apostles martyred, beheaded by Herod. John will be persecuted and imprisoned. And church tradition holds that though John would live to old age, he endured terrible chronic pain from a time when he survived being boiled in oil.  

They would drink from Christ’s cup of suffering. But the places of highest authority in the kingdom of heaven were not Christ’s to grant. The Father would assign such seats. Because of what God values, surely these seats would be given to no one with earthly significance. But to the last of all disciples, the invisible, the ever serving, the gentle and lowly. God is making the last, first.

It appears that James and John, though they would be granted thrones as Jesus promised in Matthew 19:28, they would not be given the top two spots.

Read vs 24

If the disciples were really thinking with the mind of Christ, they would have been frustrated by James and John’s insistence on self-promotion. But this is not what upsets them. They couldn’t believe that these sons of Zebedee would elbow them out of the way.

Jesus then turns to correct not just James and John, but the whole selfish lot.

Read vs 25

How great the forbearance of Jesus! Though His disciples believed in Him, and that He would bring the kingdom of heaven to earth, still they understood so little about what that kingdom would look like. After all His teachings, Jesus patiently instructs them again.

“Look at the Gentiles,” Jesus says. “Consider the Romans. They use their authority to dominate, to overpower. They step on those below them to lift themselves up. This is how the kingdoms of the world operate, but this is not how the kingdom of God works. Do not follow their model, this is not how you are to be!”

Of course, Jesus is not repudiating authority in general. The world needs leaders. An ordered society needs people who have authority, simply to keep everything running smoothly. Jesus in not commenting on positions of power, or hierarchies. He is commenting on how people use their power.

I was talking with some friends recently about the world of construction. There are some people who, no matter how much power they have, they love to lord it over others.

I was once contracted to install temporary wooden railings on a large parking garage that was being built: A provisional safety measure. It was simple work, basic; the kind of thing a monkey could do. Fine with me – easy work.

The job supervisor partnered me up with a union carpenter who had been on the job for a while. This carpenter wasn’t my supervisor, he really had no authority over me, but how he wanted to demonstrate that he was in charge. He had a miserable attitude and took ever opportunity to “put me in my place.” He was condescending, even degrading. It was infuriating and I couldn’t wait to finish the job and get out of there. With the scraps of authority that this man had, he lorded it over me.

This is the way of the world. Use your power, step on the backs of those beneath you and climb to the top.

Read vs 26-28

The path to distinction in the kingdom of heaven is found through lowliness and servitude. Jesus says greatness is found by becoming a servant; even lower, a slave. Jesus couldn’t have picked a better image of lowliness than a common, disregarded, slave. The lowest position in human eyes is the greatest in God’s eyes. When you give your life away for the good of another, God is deeply pleased.

The great ones of the world step on others to elevate themselves. In the kingdom of God, the great ones are those that lift others up, even at the expense of their selves.

There is no greater example of this than the Son of Man, who came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.  In the ancient world, ransoms were associated with freeing prisoners of war from their captivity.

Now, we need to take a moment to consider what Jesus means by paying a ransom. Who had to be paid to release people from captivity?

Though there are places in the New Testament that say sinners are captives of Satan, I want to be crystal clear: in no way did Jesus make a payment to Satan for our release. Jesus has all authority over the demonic, and there is absolutely no negotiation. On the cross Jesus triumphed over Satan and put our enemy to open shame! No ransom has been paid to the enemy; they do not deserve it!

Again, to whom was the ransom paid? Psalm 49 helps.

Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life. for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice…But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for He will receive me.                       -Psalm 49:7-8,15

Do you see? God must receive the ransom price and God does the ransoming. Paul gives us the most important elaboration of this idea.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins.

                                                                   -Romans 3:23-25

We were all created in God’s image, but through sin we have disgraced that image, defiled and dishonored God’s image, and fall woefully short of His glory. Because God is just, and will never allow anyone to so besmirch His image, He condemns us to death, forever. Thus, because of our sinning, we are captive to condemnation, destined for eternal separation from God.

But because God is also merciful, He gave us a supremely gracious gift. He put forward His Son as a propitiation, a sacrificial offering, to die in our place of condemnation. God asks us to receive this by faith, and if we do, we are redeemed – meaning, we are those for whom the ransom has been paid.

By faith, Jesus’ death applies to us. He faced condemnation for us. And by faith, Jesus’ life is also applies to us. We are clothed in His innocence and purity and love. Or as Paul said, we are justified. We are counted as righteous.

We fell short of the glory of God. But Jesus stooped down to our place of death so that He could lift us up. Jesus lifts us so high that we have a share in His own glory, in His blessedness. It’s astonishing! And for all eternity we will worship this Lamb that was slain, who by His blood he ransomed a people for Himself!

God paid the ransom to God, and if we believe this, we are free, we are the redeemed.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the Son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”                                              -John 8:34-36

Now, do you see how this fits with Jesus’ correction to the disciples? They are not to lord their authority over others. They are to lower themselves, just as Christ has lowered Himself, in order to lift others up and to serve them.

Jesus faced a horrible, agonizing death on our behalf – the death we deserved. He was humiliated. He forsook every right he could have claimed. And He took it all with complete submission and humility. He did this out of love, to serve us, and to obey his father. Indeed, Jesus came not to be served, but to serve.

How can you serve more like this? Certainly you have rights, you have desires of your own; would you lay them aside for the sake of others. Would you sacrifice your time, your money, your reputation, if it meant you could lift someone up? We cannot ransom people, but through our service we might be able to lift them up, to ease their suffering, to introduce them to the God who loves them – even if it comes at a personal cost.

Is it worth it? Jesus thought it was, and He drank that cup to the last drop. And that is why He is worthy.

“So the last will be first, and the first last.”