This sermon takes a section which is, probably, rarely preached on as a single unit. For me, though, the uniting concept was the string of “contrary” responses Jesus gave and what those responses said about the deepest spiritual reality, or realities, underlying these incidents. As I pictured the boy’s father receiving his restored son back with exultation and, most likely, tears, and with Jesus watching, it suddenly hit me with a jolt that Jesus may have been thinking at that moment of his own heavenly Father and the reunion towards which he was pressing on with everything that was in him. And just as the boy had to go through terrible suffering before being restored, it is altogether reasonable to suppose that, at that moment, Jesus connected the suffering awaiting him with the image of restoration, reunion.
While it is typical for us to read Jesus’ stark, seeming non sequitur about the Son of Man’s suffering as a “lesson” to his disciples, perhaps our reading is too... dry. It doesn’t do any violence to the sense of the text or, more importantly, to the meaning of the Person, to imagine Jesus telling these things to his friends, “out of the blue”, with a choking voice and agony of both pain and love, in view of the moment. They could hardly be expected to grasp, just then, “where that came from” or why. Later, they may well have understood not only what Jesus was talking about, in terms of concrete facts, but why he talked about it precisely then.
In the five very brief “vignettes” included in this section, the running theme seems to be that Jesus is now, more than ever, entirely consumed with one thing: the ultimate consummation of his complete, selfless surrender out of love. The egotistic, petty and vindictive preoccupations of those around him at this time stand, therefore, in even more appalling contrast. They also illustrate just how terribly alone Jesus was in a world of men – alone, but for the Father.
(Read Luke 9:37-40)
We can’t call this a commonplace situation; we don’t run into something like this every day! But you can say that during Jesus’ earthly mission such situations were fairly usual. In the presence of God’s Son on the earth, evil forces for some reason manifested themselves more starkly, more blatantly, as if they couldn’t help showing themselves before the authority and holiness of Jesus. I would expect them to hide! But God’s presence somehow draws even hostile spirits. They rush out to try and oppose him. During his labors on earth Jesus cast out many such spirits, and here we find yet another instance.
But suddenly Jesus makes a pronouncement that is not typical; we never heard him talk like this before: (read verse 41, excluding last sentence). Amazing! None of our teaching about God’s love prepared us to hear, from the lips of the loving Redeemer, such utter exasperation. But that’s exactly what Jesus expresses. He’s “had it” with the total absence of faith, the spiritual obtuseness of humanity. And, quite naturally, he groans, “How long do I have to put up with you?”
Maybe you think that that doesn’t sound like love! But I want to say that this is supreme love: love with both eyes open, love that doesn’t fool itself about the nature of those who are loved, love that keeps going to the last drop of strength. This is love speaking, even as is aches and yearns for home, pines to see the Beloved One, but love that is ready to endure to the last drop of blood, ready to wait, ready to serve, ready to die for the beloved ones, even if they don’t understand, even when their stubborn spiritual shortsightedness tortures him. With these words Christ shows again that he truly is man – not a sinner, but man – and he grieves for the fallen-ness and appalling ignorance of those who, from the very beginning, were supposed to reflect divine love and glory. This Jesus is surely the “man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief”. But he is also the man and God of love who says, even in the most crying frustration, “Bring your son to me.” And what happens then? (Read vv. 42-43a)
Everyone is marveling. There’s incredible excitement and joy. But it’s exactly at that moment that Christ pronounces these completely unexpected words to his disciples: (read 43b-45).
Someone might say, “Look, this is a happy moment. The boy is completely delivered from all the tortures of the evil spirits, this father has gotten his precious son back, everybody’s jumping with joy. Why does Jesus have to suddenly throw a damper on the party with words like these?” But again we have to say that the voice of love is speaking here. Perhaps, as Jesus saw how ecstatic that father was to get his dearest and only son back, thoughts came rushing to Jesus’ mind – images and expectations – of his own reunion with his true Father, and how that reunion could only come through tortures and grief and death. Perhaps, too, looking at his closest friends, his followers, as they celebrated together with the crowd, Jesus needed to remind them of the actual, ultimate meaning of his being here in the world. Maybe Jesus needed understanding. He was, after all, a man – the Word became flesh and dwelt among us – and for some reason, at that moment, his own approaching agony and his longing for home were very real to him.
Imagine Jesus' disappointment, then, when the disciples couldn’t understand. And not only that, but started bickering with each other about something totally different and useless. (Read vv. 46-47)
It’s no accident that, as a response, Christ turns their attention to a child. You see how a certain theme subtly continues? God’s Child, whose hearts longs to see the Father, who is getting ready to give up his very last breath in a sacrifice of love to Him for the sake of lost humanity – in fact, precisely that lost humanity standing around him at the moment arguing over which one of them is number one, king of the castle – God’s Child, in response, takes a child by the hand. Perhaps he stands with that child silently for a few minutes until the disciples who are busy arguing finally stop long enough to notice (God is patient), and finally the last disciple shuts his mouth and looks at Jesus and the child, and instantly feels humiliated, because he knows that he, all of them, have been making fools of themselves. An embarrassed, mortified silence. And Jesus speaks, (read verse 48).
In other words: genuine greatness, genuine excellence, doesn’t come from how you look at yourself but from how you look at the most insignificant, the most helpless, the most needy in this world. And if you become like them, you become like Christ, who made himself nothing, right up to dying on a wooden cross – and precisely by doing that, rose above all things in heaven and earth.
After a shattering lesson like that, you might expect complete silence and serious self-examination. But people always manage to come with some kind of “But-!”. I think parents especially know what that’s about: “But...! But...!” And here dear John comes up with an objection: (read verse 49).
In other words, “Yes, but, Lord, we still have to sort out who’s who... right? It’s up to us to say who’s close to you, who’s way out there. We have to discern, to judge, set the boundaries.”
Jesus’ answer is very simple: (read v. 50). That is, “Your assignment, John... Johnny... is to look at me, follow me, be for me, not against this one or that one, let alone standing in judgment on those who aren’t against you. Judgment is in God’s hands, but God’s love is reaching out to the whole world through your hands, your life. Get with the program, Johnny.”
Obviously, it was still a little early for John and company to get it, because look what happened next: (read vv. 51-55).
The Zebedee brothers had a pretty clear idea what condemnation looked like, and they were rarin’ and ready to see a real show of messianic power. They’d have loved to say, “Ha! You didn’t want to accept us, and now you’ve gotten what was coming to you. Next time you’ll know better.”
But Jesus rebuked them. He didn’t argue with them, didn’t debate the issue with them, didn’t even stand another child in front of them as an example; he just rebuked them: “You don’t even know what kind of spirit you’re operating on.” And then, Jesus turned his face and headed to Jerusalem. Because, until it’s all done there, these disciples will never get it, will never know what condition their spirits are in or what it means to love with God’s love even to death, and beyond, to all eternity.
But I think that now, after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, after his ascension to the Father, after the coming of the Spirit and the revelation of salvation and grace, I think we better understand. And I think Jesus’ unexpected words about suffering and humility and spirit aren’t as unexpected or quite as mysterious to us as they were to the disciples then. Rather, I trust you and I are pressing on to materialize and live out, here and now, the meaning of Jesus’ words: in patience, humility, love and a heart that yearns for the Father in Heaven. That’s Jesus’ gift: to understand what he meant, even what he felt, and to know his heart. And when we know his heart, we are never alone.
