St. Luke 22:24-30
The church adorns the altar, pulpit, and lecturn this morning
with the color of red, symbolizing the blood of the apostles and
martyrs. They gave their lives for the sake of the gospel, and today
the church gives thanks to God for the blessings given to the church
catholic through the disciple and apostle Bartholomew.
The Christian church, if it's going to rightly observe the saints
days, must remember that we thank God for the blessings that the
church has received through God's use of the saint. In other words,
we take this opportunity to thank and praise God, not the saint. It
is God who uses people, ordinary people. This is most evidently seen
in the way Jesus chose the disciples.
Jesus walks by water and picks fishermen. He walks through town and
snatches up tax collectors. Jesus, later, even uses the murderer, St.
Paul. Today the church thanks God for St. Bartholomew. Little is
known of Bartholomew, aside from the fact that he was numbered as one
of the twelve disciples. Bartholomew was among a group of men who
would lead the church and govern it after Christ's resurrection. It
was to be a difficult task.
These men were so normal, humanly speaking. They were sinners like
you and me, and our gospel lection for today bears this out. As
always, context is everything. We are told that there was a dispute
among the disciples as to which of them was to be considered the
greatest. To understand the setting and context of this text would
lead us all to be concerned and alarmed.
Where are they? What is Jesus doing? What is He teaching? In the
first part of the chapter, we find that Jesus is with the disciples in
the upper room on the night of His betrayal and arrest. Jesus has
just instituted His last will and testament, the Eucharist. So Jesus
has just given them the command that they are to continue this
practice of eating and drinking Christ's body and blood. Jesus also
tells them that He will not eat of this again until all is fulfilled
in the kingdom of God.
Then Jesus says just before our text that "the Son of Man goes as it
has been determined." It is at this point that they begin to talk
about who is the greatest among them. It is at this point, then, that
we learn the character of the church. Jesus points out that the
leaders of the church are not to lead and govern like the kings of the
world. On the contrary, the twelve disciples who would soon be the
leaders of the church were to serve the church.
The disciples were told that "he who is greatest among you, let him
be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves." What Jesus
means by serving in this context is given by the Greek. These
disciples are not to be slaves to the church. The word for "service"
here is the word that gives us "deacon." The word for deacon in the
church gives us the picture of how pastors should serve in the church.
As pastors serve in the church, they likewise teach the people how to
live, how to confess, and how to serve as well.
To serve as Jesus instructs the disciples at that late hour, it is
important to understand what Jesus means by "service." It goes back
to the Old Testament and we find that this kind of service is being
servants to important kings. These servants were blessed and highly
honored to serve in the king's court. They were well respected
because of their belonging to the king. They were taken care of by
the king.
In other words, Jesus is telling the disciples that asking who will
be the greatest is a worldly question. It's the wrong question. In
asking the question, "who among us is the greatest" is a perspective
that is self-centered. More than that, the disciples are assuming
that they will be honored by what they can achieve. This is worldly
talk. The church sees one's worth and blessedness in a different way.
The disciples were to be placed in the apostolic office and
were to be respected because they were doing the work of Jesus Christ.
They were the right hands of Jesus that would be going out forgiving
sins, preaching the gospel and shepherding Jesus' people. They would
be blessed and well-taken care of because of this.
A perfect example of this sort of servant was Joseph in
Genesis. He was put in charge of Potiphar's estate and Joseph was
even able to say that Potiphar did not concern himself with anything
in the house. This was to be the case of the disciples. They would
take over the ministry, and it continues today when a pastor is
ordained.
A lot of things can be said today that run along the same
lines. The pastoral ministry today is the sign of Christ's love for
His people. We pastors are highly blessed because Jesus has seen fit
to call us into the Holy ministry. But you are highly blessed as
well. Jesus has seen fit to bring you into His blessed kingdom
through the use of the apostolic ministry. Jesus saw fit to have a
pastor baptize you and bring you into the kingdom. Because of
Christ's use of the disciples, you have the Holy Scriptures. They
proclaim to you divine truth that one cannot know in any other way.
If you want to know how to get to heaven, the answer is in
the scriptures and the preaching of the gospel. If you want to know
who God is and how He comes into contact with you, then listen to the
scriptures. Without the disciples, including St. Bartholomew, we
wouldn't know what salvation looks like. We wouldn't know the comfort
of Jesus Christ.
Jesus wants you to know His love. He wants you to experience
His love in the Lord's Supper and in holy absolution from the pastor
as from Jesus Himself. You are forgiven of your sins. This is the
message. You are holy. This is your conclusion. You are loved.
This is what Jesus has poured out on the cross for you. We know what
love is because God humbled Himself to come down from heaven, take on
flesh, and be the servant of all servants.
No one on this earth has ever been the kind of Servant that
Jesus was and is. To have a God who humbles Himself to become one of
us and then, though He is holy, He took the sins of the world to the
cross and submitted to the insults of the world and the evil judgment
of the world in order to be nailed there and ridiculed by passerbys.
You are truly alive and holy, loved and forgiven because of
the servanthood of Christ on the cross, and now we all have the
blessing of basking in the holy gifts given through the servant-hood
of others appointed to bestow the gospel upon poor sinners and lovely
saints. Amen.
--
Rev. Chad Kendall
www.frchadius.blogspot.com
Trinity Lutheran Church
Lowell, Indiana
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