Dear Christian friends:

Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. The forty days of Lent give us a good opportunity to stop and think about our life and to ask ourselves a few important questions: What am I doing? Does God like what I do? Am I going where Jesus goes? Or am I going where sinners go? In the movie "Quo Vadis", 1951 (Latin for "Where are you going?") Peter was running away from trouble and persecution in Rome. Are you like Peter, running away from responsibility, duty and service?

Are you running away from trouble and persecution and mockery joined with the cross of Christ? On this Sunday before Lent ask yourself these questions and then like Peter be ashamed and sorry. Decide today that you will with His help turn around and try harder to go where He goes and to do what He does.

Wednesday evening Lenten Services will give you much help in that. Your Portals of Prayer and Sunday Services are very, very necessary. You cannot go where Jesus goes without His support and strength.

Our text today gives us a good start. It shows us:


Jesus didn't worry about Himself. He worried about God, His heavenly Father to do His Father's will. He said, "For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. (John 6:38) "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish His work." (John 4:34) And what is the will of God? Jesus says, "And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:40)

The will of God is that His Son suffer and die to pay for man's sin. For Jesus that meant suffering, shame, mockery and getting forsaken by God and crucified. Jesus accepted that will of God and paid for our sins. He says, here in our text, "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)

He went where God wanted Him to go, to the sick, the blind, the deaf, to the prisoner, to sinners and to all of us, even to the darkness and loneliness of the cross. He didn't come to get service, but to give service even to giving His life as a ransom for us.

During our Wednesday evening Lenten services we will attend to His suffering more deeply. It will give you the strength to believe in Him and to serve God and people as He did.

Of course, the first and chief purpose of Jesus' suffering is to save us from our sins. We must not misunderstand about that. Our service, our good works do not win forgiveness of sins. Only One person was strong enough and good enough to do that and that was Jesus, the Son of God and our only Savior.

In our text Jesus asks James and John, "Can you drink the cup that I drink?" Jesus and Jesus alone could drink that bitter cup and suffer and die for all sinners.

When we go where Jesus goes; when we do what Jesus does; when we suffer what Jesus suffered we are not winning our own sin-forgiveness by that. But we are showing that we believe in Him and that we love Him and that we belong to Him.

Jesus says, "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first." (John 15:18) "If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also." (John 15:20a) When we do God's will and teach and preach Jesus crucified for sinners many will mock you.

Yet by our service which we do with faith and love in Jesus and love for those who are still in sin, we will win honor and glory even as Jesus did. Paul says, "And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:8-11) Jesus obeyed God's will, suffering and shameful death on the cross, therefore God very highly exalted Him.

Here in the text Jesus shows that those who believe in Him, serve Him and go where He goes will get honor and glory. Some will get more than others in His Kingdom. Jesus explains in Mark 10:43-44, "whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all." By humbly believing and serving we win great honor and glory in God's kingdom.

James and John in our text wanted that glory. Too bad many of us don't care. Are you satisfied to be a janitor or garbage man in heaven? You can be a King and Ruler like Paul. Paul said: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." (2 Timothy 4:7-8)

Daniel says, "And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." (Daniel 12:3)

Let us now share the shame and work joined with the cross, that in heaven we may share the glory of His crown forever and ever.

Amen.