Jesus Serves (Mark 10:35-45)

Most people enjoy going out for a meal. The places we go might can vary from a bakery or fast-food franchise to the local pub or a fancy restaurant depending on our budget, taste and how much time we have. However, all of these have one thing in common: there are people who serve the meal and others who are being served.

Which would you rather be – the person doing the serving, or the one being served?

If you’ve ever sat in your car at the drive-through window of a fast-food franchise on a Friday evening and seen how stressed the young people in the kitchen are, maybe you’ve been thankful that you didn’t have to do that as a part-time job. If you’ve ever taken the evening off from making the family meal to enjoy dinner at a local pub, maybe you’ve been thankful that someone else is doing the cooking and cleaning up for you. Or if you’ve sat at the table of a silver service restaurant to enjoy the skills of a talented chef with some of the Barossa’s finest reds, maybe you’ve been thankful that we can enjoy delicious food with good company. Some people might love to prepare and serve food for others, but probably most of us would prefer to be on the receiving end with other people serving us. There’s something nice about not having to do the hard work and someone else doing it for us.

In Mark 10:35-45, James and John, two brothers who were among Jesus’ Twelve Disciples, came to ask Jesus to do something for them. They told Jesus that they wanted to sit in the places of honour beside him when he came into his glory, one on his left-hand side and the other on his right. Maybe they thought that if they had these prominent positions next to Jesus, then they would have people serving them and attending to their every need. They could enjoy all the benefits that came with their positions and others would take care of them by doing things for them. It seems like James and John thought that being part of God’s Kingdom would elevate them about other people, giving them affluence and power, where they would be served by others who were of lower status.

Jesus, however, had other ideas. He explained that ‘the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them’ (v42 NLT). Jesus is teaching us that the Kingdom of God is not about status or power. Being part of God’s Kingdom does not give us the right to tell people what to do or to expect others to do things for us. This is often how the world works and we might think that life in God’s Kingdom wouldn’t be any different. However, Jesus continues by saying that it will be different among his followers and that we are to learn a new way of living from him. Jesus says, ‘whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else’ (v43b,44 NLT). Jesus is teaching us that the mindset he wants us to bring into all our relationships is not the desire to be served by the people around us, but to serve them. Rather than expecting others to do things for us, Jesus calls us to serve each other in faith, hope and Christ-like love.

This distinction between serving and being served is important for us to keep in mind. Congregations and parishes can be very busy places and sometimes we can feel the weight of expectation to do things, or we can place expectations on others. Jesus challenges us to ask if our focus is on serving or being served. When we ask people to do things for us, we are looking to be served. However, if we are asking what we can do for others, then we are serving. We live under God’s grace for us in Jesus, so our goal is to show grace to others by willingly and gladly serving them by doing things for them. The goal of Jesus’ teaching is that we have servant hearts, looking for ways to serve each other in faith, hope and love, so all people can experience God’s grace through us in the ways that we serve one another.

A willingness to serve others comes from the faith that Jesus has first served us. In verse 45 Jesus says, ‘For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (NLT). Jesus is saying that he came to earth to serve us more than for us to serve him. Imagine going through the fast-food drive-through and seeing Jesus at the window, taking your order. Or seeing him at the pub clearing away our dirty dishes. What would our reaction be if Jesus was at a restaurant, taking the rubbish out to the bins. If that seems strange, remember that, at his last supper with his disciples, Jesus adopted the role of the lowest household servant and washed their feet (John 13:1-17). Jesus served his disciples by doing the job that no one else wanted to do because they thought it was beneath them. Jesus came to serve us more than to be served by us.

We see this clearest in Jesus’ crucifixion. He served us by giving his life for us on the cross. In this sacrifice, Jesus served us in the greatest way possible. He didn’t just serve us with food and drink, or by preparing or cleaning up after a meal. When he served us by going to the cross, Jesus served us with his life. Like people in a restaurant who don’t get the meal we ordered, we might think that isn’t what we want. However, when we receive the gift of his life through faith, we find that it is everything we need. When Jesus served us by giving his life for us on the cross, he gave us freedom from guilt and shame, a new identity as God’s holy and dearly loved children, a love which withstands every challenge we might face and is even stronger than death. When Jesus served us by giving his life for us on the cross, he assures us that he is with us in the darkest, loneliest and most painful times of life. Jesus gives our lives value, meaning and purpose, he fills us with hope, and he gives us strength when we need it most as we learn to trust him for everything we need. In Jesus’ death for us on the cross, he served us by giving us everything we need for life in this world and the next.

Jesus serving us by dying on the cross for us might not look very appetizing or appealing. However, when we taste and see that he is good (Psalm 34:8), we find that faith in him gives us everything our hearts, minds and souls need. Jesus served us by giving his life for us so we can serve others. A serving mindset or attitude grows out of faith in what he has done for us, and flows through everything we say and do. The next time you’re either serving or being served a meal, whether at home, a fast-food franchise, the local pub, or an expensive restaurant, remember that Jesus served you. The Lord of heaven and earth came to serve us by giving his life as a ransom for us. As he served us with his love and grace by giving his life for us, so we can learn to serve each other in the same way.

More to think about or discuss:

• Would you rather serve or be served? Can you explain why you prefer that…?
• In your Christian walk, do you tend to focus more on serving Jesus or Jesus serving you? Why do you think that is? What difference might it make to focus on Jesus serving us?
• Does your congregation or parish tend to focus more on people serving the church or the church serving people? What might your church family be like if your priority was to serve others like Jesus served us?