Читать книгу The Crucified Is My Love - Johann Ernst von Holst - Страница 27

19

Friday Morning

The Disciples Quarrel

A dispute also arose among them, as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. And he said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves. You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”

Luke 22:24–30

THE WEAKNESSES and mistakes of his own disciples were among the heaviest burdens that the Lord had to bear, even during his farewell meal. While he was expressing the longing of his heart all should have been filled with heavenly peace, yet a quarrel arose among the disciples as to which of them was the greatest. So the Lord now had to reprove their pride. He did this by pointing out that it is a characteristic of the worldly mind to strive to be great. Pride, ambition, and the lust for power are here exposed as the motive of world history. How many thriving countrysides have been laid waste, how much blood, how many tears have been shed simply because the mighty of the earth want to rule! Similar sins are to be found in smaller circles and in many families as well. Children rise up against their parents, subjects against their superiors – because each wants to be lord himself. Christ, on the other hand, emphasizes that to serve in humility is an essential principle of his kingdom. The Lord himself, for whom all the crowns of this world are too paltry, whom the angels of heaven worship, became the servant of all. His whole life on earth was continual serving.

He obeyed his parents; he helped the most wretched of the poor; he washed the feet of his disciples; he bore the heaviest and most infamous of all burdens, the curse of our sin, in inconceivable degradation. And we, pitiable human beings, want to give ourselves airs and in beggarly pride place ourselves above others! We do not become small and humble until under Christ’s burden (that is, under the heavy load of our own sin and guilt and under the wonderful load of his compassion) the heart of our old nature is broken. When we become humble the Lord will become our highest and loveliest, our all in all. Only then can a beam of the comfort that he gave his ashamed disciples rise upon us too. He accepted the faithfulness that they had shown him, such as it was, and looking ahead regarded it as perfected and assured them that they would have full share in the kingdom of his future glory.

The time they spent with him was also a school of humility, a daily lesson in becoming smaller. We too must go through the true school of humility in the discipleship of Christ; then our whole life and work become self-sacrificing service. Blessed is the Christian who bears others, even the most unworthy of them, in love for his Savior’s sake! Blessed is the king who in all his ruling strives only to serve his people! In view of the glory that the Lord promises his faithful followers, it must become clear to us that it is contemptuous folly to risk eternal happiness for the passing honors of this world. In the final, perfect kingdom the most humble one will be the first – Christ, the eternal king. All the redeemed will be close him, but those who resembled him most in humility will be closest of all. Free from all envy, each will rejoice at the honoring of the others, and all will know that it is only out of grace that they wear the crown of life.