Getting Ready to Live in the New Creation

 32 They were on their way up to Jerusalem, with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. 33 “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, 34 who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.” 35Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.” 36 “What do you want me to do for you?” he asked. 37 They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”  38 “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said. “Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” 39 “We can,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “You will drink the cup I drink and be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with, 40 but to sit at my right or left is not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they have been prepared.” 41 When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John. 42 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 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 10.32-45 (NIV)

Ever thought of what you will be doing in God’s promised New Creation after your mortal body is raised from the dead and you are given your new resurrection body? If so, pay attention to today’s passage as it gives us some general guidelines. As Jesus makes clear, anyone who follows him had better be prepared to love and serve others because that is how it is going to be in his kingdom.

The disciples clearly don’t get this. Jesus has just told them that he must go to Jerusalem where he will be killed by the authorities there. While they don’t completely understand this they know enough to make them afraid and wonder what on earth he is thinking. In effect, Jesus has just told them that his way is the way of suffering and the cross with his self-giving love about to be poured out for the forgiveness of sins and for our ransom from our slavery to sin and death.

This context makes the conversation between Jesus, James, and John even more remarkable because James and John clearly do not have a clue, not unlike many of us who continue to try and follow Jesus. James and John aren’t interested in the self-sacrifice and suffering stuff. Heck no! They still think Jesus is the ticket to power and glory, the kind of political Messiah that the world of their day would recognize and celebrate (as does our world today). They still equate the kingdom with political power and wealth, with status and prestige.

But Jesus calls them on it and does so rather sharply. “Do you guys have a clue? Do you really know what it means to be a leader in God’s kingdom? Your very question indicates you are clueless and immature! Can you face suffering and death the way I do? Are you willing to give yourself up for the sake of others? Do you even know the meaning of real sacrifice?”

“We do,” they answer. But of course they really do not–at least not yet. James and John sadly will drink the cup Jesus drank and will be baptized with Jesus’ baptism of suffering and death because both would end up being violently martyred. But before Jesus’ death and resurrection they clearly did not get it. They clearly didn’t understand what it meant to be a leader in God’s kingdom.

You see, leadership is not about self-aggrandizement or about being able to have your way whenever you want it. No, real leadership is about self-giving love and service. Real leaders do not look out first and foremost for themselves. They look out for the welfare and benefit of those whom they lead and they put those interests above their own. (They will also spend a lot of time helping to form and cultivate a common purpose so that those who follow can recognize that their leaders are indeed working and acting on their followers’ behalf, but that is a different subject for a different day.)

Servant leadership is Leadership Principle 101 and if you don’t believe me, check out any great leader. He or she won’t be perfect but he or she will consistently demonstrate this principle in his or her conduct. And this is what it will be like in the New Creation. If you want to lead there you had better get prepared for it by training here and now. If you expect this to come naturally you are only kidding yourself because the human heart, hard as it is, is geared toward self-centeredness and self-aggrandizement. It has to be broken and a new set of holy habits have to take its place.

Of course, if you are going to be a servant, you have to have humility, faith, hope, and love. You have to be humble enough to know you are not the center of the universe, that God calls you to serve others. You won’t much want to do that if you do not have a real love for others or if you think you are better than the folks around you. You have to have faith that you are indeed training to be a citizen of God’s kingdom in his New Creation. In other words, you have to have faith that there is a New Creation awaiting you for which you are training. Otherwise, you’d best eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow you will die. And of course the hope you have will stem from this faith. Without faith you will not have real hope.

As I suggested yesterday, these virtues do not come easily or naturally. We have to practice them in our own life and together with fellow Christians so that we have some accountability. It isn’t quite as simple as this but you get this idea. Neither do you have to be a leader to practice this because all citizens of the kingdom will have a servant’s heart. We will have that heart because we have learned to develop it over the years and we do that because we love the Lord and love always results in obedience. Not mindless obedience, mind you, but obedience that manifests a keen desire to serve the One who loved us first and gave himself for us in a terrible and costly act.

On the other hand, if you are not inclined to do any of this, chances are you will find the New Creation quite hellish because selfish, self-aggrandizing, and proud behavior will not be allowed there. If you make this kind of living pattern your god, you will certainly find yourself in hell, it seems to me.

But when you learn to live to love and serve others, you learn to be truly free and truly human because you are living in ways that you were created to live and when that happens you will discover that you have peace that passes all understanding as well as meaning, purpose, and contentment. It will be easy for you to do this in the New Creation, in part, because you will be living in God’s direct Presence; whereas here you are not. But it will also be easy to have a servant’s heart because you spent a lifetime here on earth honing and cultivating that kind of heart, with the Spirit’s help of course, so that living in this manner will seem natural and joyous to you in the world to come.

Don’t misunderstand. I am not suggesting that we will have to practice the Christian virtues before we can get into the kingdom. We get into the kingdom by believing in the great love and mercy of God expressed to us in Jesus. But developing the virtues needed to have a servant’s heart will help us live our mortals days with greater richness, meaning, and purpose than if we muck about trying to make life all about us and what we can accumulate. We will find a joy that comes from pleasing our Creator and that is not to be sneezed at.

If you haven’t started to follow Jesus so that you can learn the holy habits of the kingdom, what are you waiting for? It will be the hardest and best decision you will ever make.