The Glory of Christ Jesus in His Baptism and His Cup

As the Christ of God, the Lord’s Anointed, in order to enter into the Glory of His Kingdom as our Savior, Jesus is on His way to suffer and die as the Servant of all, to shed His holy and precious Blood in Atonement for the world, and to give His own Body and Life as a Ransom for the many.  Appearances notwithstanding, His Cross and Passion are not His defeat but His divine Glory as the Son of God, the very way by which He establishes His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

In the footsteps of this Crucified King who serves the people of His Kingdom with His own Body and Life, His disciples are called to carry His Cross, to live and die by faith under His Cross, and to find their glory and their life, not “in spite of” His Cross, but precisely in the Cross of Christ.

To this end, His ministers are called to serve His people — like holy “waiters,” as it were — with His Cross and the Fruits of His Cross, as servants and slaves of His Cross, not seeking fame or fortune for themselves, but giving their entire lives for the benefit of others in His Name.

Because the Church is the Body and Bride of Christ Jesus, the Son of God who became Flesh and suffered death, she is altogether different than the world and its enterprises.  The Church is not a business, nor a political entity, nor a marketplace, nor a social club.  None of these models fit the Church.  She lives in this world, but not of it.  She rather takes her cues from Christ and follows His example; her “Declaration of Independence” is the Cross, and her only “Constitution” is the Word of her Lord.  And what He says to those who jockey for position, who plot and scheme and maneuver to get their way, is that greatness and glory in His Church and His Kingdom are a matter of humble, self-sacrificing service; and if you want to be the first, you must become the last of all.

It’s much easier, of course, and far more instinctive to your fallen flesh, to follow the bad example of the disciples in this case, instead of Christ Jesus.  If you’re honest with yourself, you know what I’m talking about: The way you cozy up to those in authority, seeking to wrap them around your finger in order to get what you want; and how you justify such manipulation on the presumption of your good intentions.  Or the way you may be too timid or too passive to attempt such things, yourself, but — coveting the same opportunities — you gossip and complain about those who do.

How shameful it is to engage in such worldly pride, sinful ambition, and passive aggression at the very foot of the Cross, in the presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the almighty and eternal Son of the Living God, who humbled Himself and became obedient even unto death.

Handed over by His own Father to His innocent suffering and death on the Cross — and handed over to the Gentiles by His own people, the very ones He came to seek and to save and to serve — mocked and scourged, beaten up, and crucified — His divine greatness and glory as the Son of Man are precisely in these depths of His humble service.  But look at your own life in contrast!

Thanks be to God that Jesus does and suffers all these things, not to shame you or condemn you — and not only to provide you with a good example (though it is that) — but chiefly to save you from yourself and from your sinful pride and arrogance.  He does it to atone for all your sins with His own Blood, shed for you upon the Cross and now poured out for you in His Cup of Salvation.  So does He bear your sins and griefs and sorrows, all your burdens and sadness, in His own Body on the Cross, which He now gives to you in His Holy Supper, in order to strengthen and sustain your faith and life in Him, and to prepare you in both body and soul for the Life everlasting.

All of this He has done for you, and once-for-all, upon the Cross.  But so also, to this very day, and even to the close of the age, your dear Lord Jesus continues to care for you and serve you with His own Life, with His Body and His Blood, for the forgiveness of your sins and the Life everlasting.

You could not make it on your own, nor could you follow the example of Christ Jesus in this body and life as you should.  Rather, you daily succumb to pride and arrogance, to lust and ambition, to envy and jealousy, selfishness, backbiting contempt, and countless other temptations and sins.

The solution isn’t found in trying harder or doing your best, but in the daily forgiveness of your sins by the Gospel.  Which is why the Lord has so arranged everything in His Church on earth for the forgiveness of your sins through many and various ways and means — the preaching of His Holy Gospel; the washing of water with His Word in Holy Baptism; His spoken and personal Word of Holy Absolution; His Body given and His Blood poured out for you in the Holy Communion; and the mutual consolation and support of His Holy People, your brothers and sisters in Him.

So has He also called, ordained, and sent (apostelled) some of His Christian disciples to be His ministers of this Gospel of forgiveness within His Holy Church to each and all of you in His Name.

To be a “minister” of Christ Jesus is to be a waiter at His Table — not a Table at which He is seated as the honored Guest — but the Table of His Church, at which He serves and feeds His people with Himself.  That is what the Greek word for “minister” (in the New Testament) really means and implies: a waiter, serving his Master’s Food to his Master’s people at his Master’s Table, under the authority and according to the rubrics of his Master.  Such a minister of Christ  serves his fellow Christians by washing them in preparation for the Meal (in Holy Baptism), by carefully going over the “Menu” with them (by way of ongoing catechesis in the Word of Christ), and by faithfully feeding them with the Meat and Drink of their Lord (in His Holy Supper).

You have heard it yourself, again this morning, in the Words of Christ Jesus Himself.  He sums up everything that matters in His Kingdom in the terms of His Holy Sacraments, the Baptism with which He is baptized and the Cup which He drinks.  For it is by and from His own Baptism, first of all, that He fulfills all Righteousness; and His Cup is the New Testament in His Blood, which He pours out for you and for the many, for the forgiveness of sins, unto eternal Life and Salvation.  These Means of Grace are at the heart and center of His own Life and Ministry, intimately bound to His Cross and Resurrection, and so also at the heart and center of your faith and life in Christ.

It is by His Baptism and His Cup that His Cross and Resurrection become yours, that your sins are all forgiven in His Name, and that you are seated with Him in the Glory of His Kingdom.  Thus, He gives to you what James and John requested, though they knew not what they were asking.

Let’s think about His Cup, first of all, which is the “New Testament” the Lord had promised to His people.  That is somewhat ironic and paradoxical to begin with, since “the Cup” was used by the Prophets as an image and description of God’s wrath and His judgment against sin; and that is indeed the first sense in which Jesus refers to it here, as again in the Garden of Gethsemane on the eve of His Passion.  It is no joke when He prays, “Father, if possible, take this Cup from Me!”

The physical pain of the Crucifixion would already be enough to cause the bravest and strongest hearts among us to faint.  But “this Cup” that Jesus drinks is far worse than that, as He takes upon Himself and bears in His own Body and Soul the divine wrath and eternal judgment of hell against the sins of the whole world.  That is the Cup He drains down to the dregs for you and all people.

But how, then, are James and John and even you given to drink this Cup of Christ?  And how are you able to drink it?  Surely you could not bear the wrath and judgment of God against even your own sins, far less the sins of the world.  But you are able to drink the Cup of Christ Jesus, because He has already drained it of God’s wrath and filled it with His Blood of the New Testament for the forgiveness of all your sins.  Consequently, what was wrath and judgment for Him is now mercy, grace, and blessing for you and all His people.  In drinking from His Cup, which He pours out for you in the Holy Communion, you drink to the dregs the fullness of His divine Life and Salvation.

It is quite similar in the case of His Baptism, with which you are also baptized.  From the moment that He stepped into the waters of the Jordan River and submitted Himself to St. John’s Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, our Lord took the sins and iniquities and frailties and burdens of the entire world upon Himself and bore them in His Body to the Cross.

As we considered at our Lenten Vespers this past week, Christ Jesus entered those waters sinless, holy, and perfect, but He emerged thoroughly soaked in all our sins.  And as such, He describes His Life — in this Holy Gospel and elsewhere — as one long continuous Baptism unto death, whereby He undergoes the death-dealing Flood of God’s wrath and judgment against all our sin.

So, then, as in the case of the Cup which He has drained in your place, the waters of Baptism are one thing for Him and quite another for you and all who are baptized in His Name.  In each case, it is a Baptism into His crucifixion, death, and burial; but whereas this Baptism is for Christ Jesus a drowning of judgment and wrath, it has thus become for you a rich and full washing away of sins and a gracious water of Salvation.  You enter into those waters thoroughly sinful and unclean, but you emerge and arise from the waters of your Baptism — not only once-upon-a-time, but day by day throughout your life, unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting — clothed in the beautiful white robes of Christ’s perfect righteousness, united with Him as a beloved and well-pleasing son of His Father, anointed by His Holy Spirit, and born again as a new creation.

Now, as you receive this Gospel of Christ Jesus in His Baptism and from His Cup — as you are served by the ministers of His Cross — so do you share His greatness within your own calling and station in life.  So, too, your “greatness” as a Christian is not that of the world but of the Cross.

That does not mean that you go looking for martyrdom and persecution, nor that you must revel in suffering and pain.  Rather, your greatness in the Cross of Christ means that you live by faith in all manner of circumstances, neither prideful nor despairing, but confident in His Resurrection.

So do you dedicate your life to others, beginning with your own family and extending from them to your other neighbors in the world, according to your office and vocation.  You submit your will to the Will of the Lord, and you sacrifice your own ambitions to serve those He has entrusted to your care.  You do your job and work faithfully to glorify God and to support your family, but you decline the promotion that would take you too much away from them.  You prioritize time with your neighbors over leisure, entertainment, and wealth.  And you invest yourself in caring for those who cannot pay you back or advance your career, preferring what is good over what is popular.

The list of examples could go on and on, as there are countless ways that Christians patiently bear the Cross, living by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ, sharing His glory in humble service, and trusting all the while — not in themselves — but in His Baptism and His Cup.

Yet, all the while you’re rejoicing in this life that you live in Christ Jesus, in the greatness and glory of His Cross, by His Word and Holy Spirit you also recognize the many and various ways that you are still seeking and striving for the glory of this perishing world — often as not at the expense of others, and certainly not to the glory of God and the benefit of your neighbor: When even your own husband or wife is neglected; when your friendships are selfish and self-serving; when your job is just a job and not a means of serving others; and so on and so forth, on and on.

Which is, of course, why the Son of Man was handed over by His Father to His Cross, that He should thus become the sacrificial Lamb who takes upon Himself and takes away the sins of the world — the Bridegroom who is always faithful and attentive, though you are not — the Friend who seeks not His own but always the best interests of others, even at great cost and hardship to Himself — the One who has come, not to be served, but to serve us with His own Body and Life.

So has He come, and so is He always calling you back to Himself, raising you up from your sins and death by the Gospel of His Cross.  By the ongoing significance of your Baptism in His Name, He continues to cleanse you of all unrighteousness, to anoint you with His Holy Spirit, and to usher you into His Kingdom.  And here within His Church He seats you at His Table, He girds Himself to serve you, and with His gracious Word of mercy He gives to you His Cup, the New Testament in His Blood, which is poured out for you and for the many, for the forgiveness of all your sins, unto the Resurrection of your body and the Life everlasting of your body and soul in Paradise.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.