Devotion - Thursday, September 15

Today's appointed Gospel text is Mark 10. Here we read the story of James and John coming to Jesus to ask that in his glory they be assigned to the seats to his immediate right and left. They are reminded that they don't know what they are asking; that the way to Jesus' glory is the way of rejection, the way of the cross.

They wanted honorable seats in his glory; they were ignoring what lay between them and that glory.

At last night's LCM program, I tried to share "What makes us 'Lutheran'?" I talked too long as it was, but one of the things I could have included (should have included) is that Lutherans speak a theology of the cross as opposed to a theology of glory. We want to make sure that we don't attempt to arrive at Jesus' glory without having taken up Jesus' cross. We are insistent that in order to experience a resurrection like Jesus, we must share a death like Jesus.

This doesn't mean that our bodies will be struck with whips and hung on a cross outside the city walls. But it does mean that enter each day looking for opportunities to serve; chances to bind up; ways in which a sacrifice on our part might enhance the life of another.

We don't ask Jesus for the seats of honor; we ask Jesus to reveal to us how we might take up the cross and follow his way of humble service.

Theologies of glory abound. They are found in the encouragement to see Christian faith as a salve for whatever ails us. They are revealed for what they are in promises that everything will be fine in our lives if we just make this one confession or recite this one creed.

Jesus responds to James and John by telling them that they will indeed drink the cup from which he is about to drink. But, he tells them, to be assigned to the seats of honor is not his (not even his) to grant. He teaches all of us that as real as the promise of eternal glory might be, it is not to be our aim. Our aim is to follow where he has lead, leaving the eternal things to eternity.

A theology of the cross is a theology which continues to follow Jesus, even when the destination is Jerusalem. It is a willingness to focus on needs of God's creation rather than on the desire for glory.