“Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant; whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.â€
My Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ
Today’s Gospel again shows us how the disciples thought. It shows us what they expected. See, they misunderstood Jesus totally. They truly thought that Jesus would be the King of Israel as the nation’s leader. They did not grasp yet that Jesus in all His teachings tells them about heavenly kingdom. They are on lower level. They see Jesus as the one who will overthrow King Herod and stop cooperation with the Romans. They thought that Jesus is the one who will set the Israel free from foreign occupation.
Again, Jesus is very patient with all of them. He explains to them that there is a more powerful being, a more powerful kingdom. He tries to tell them that He did not come to establish His own kingdom, where he would be in a position to allocate authority; He establishes the kingdom of GOD.
See, Jesus does not abandon his ignorant disciples, but he teaches them of true Christian authority. There is no place in Christianity for an authority that lords it over others. Rather, it is a call to service.
See, Jesus does not lay down laws as some distant legislator. He points to His own life of service unto death as the model for the Christian life: “For the Son of Man himself did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
To be a Christian means no more or no less than striving always to live and love as Jesus lived and loved.
The way we relate to and serve one another must mark us out in today’s society. We must not be like the Gentiles, like those people who never heard, or do not wish to hear of God’s ways.
God’s ways were reveled to us by many prophets and in the best way by Jesus Himself.
My brothers and sisters in Christ, As Christians we must start educate ourselves about God’s ways. We must start to understand what Jesus tells His disciples, and through them, what Jesus tells us. And one of that is: Love one another as I have loved you.