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A few years ago, I remember hearing a radio interview of Ra McGuire who was the lead singer of a Canadian rock band called Trooper. Trooper was huge in the late 70’s and 80’s. There were a couple of others on the show as well: Mike Reno, the lead singer of Loverboy and another guy, Jim Vallance who co-wrote a lot of Bryan Adams’ material. These may be unfamiliar names and bands to you, but it was a fun show for me. It took me back to my High School days and cruising Main Street with my buddy Darren cranking some tunes.
The host asked them if there was a moment when they realized they had made it big. Ra McGuire told of a time when Trooper was playing Memorial Stadium in St. John’s, NF, a smaller venue for them of only 4,000 seats. It moved him that the people were singing along with him. They knew the words as if they were there with him in his living room when he wrote the songs. In that moment he knew they were now a Canadian band not just a Vancouver phenomenon.
Ra reminisced again about a show Trouper did in Winnipeg at Pacific Hall. It was a sold-out crowd of 100,000 and Winnipeg was his home town. Just before Trooper went onstage one of the guys told Ra he should take a moment and just enjoy what was happening there. Instead of running out on stage as they normally did, he walked out and there were his family and friends down front and the home town crowd cheering. He knew he’d hit the big time and had made his hometown proud.
Well, I wonder what Jesus would say was the moment he knew that he’d hit it big. I don’t think he would say that it was the time he preached at his hometown synagogue and almost got thrown off a cliff. I rather suspect he would mention this moment when these un-named, unremarkable Greeks came to see him. Their significance lay in that they were the first Gentiles to seek him. “How so?” you may ask. Well, let me take you back in time.
The Book of Isaiah was quite popular in Jesus’ day especially among those who were expecting the End to come at any moment. Judging by how often he quotes it, Jesus knew the Book of Isaiah very well. There are several prophecies in Isaiah (Isaiah 11:10; 60:1-14; 66:19-21) which indicate that the Gentiles seeking the LORD was a sign that the end times were beginning. That “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” If he had left it at that, it would have sounded like a good thing. He, the expected end times Son of Man was ready to be honoured by delivering Israel and taking his throne to establish the Kingdom of Reign of God, a reign that was to extend to and over all peoples. As it says early on in Isaiah: “In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Is. 2:2,3)
Yet, enthronement was not the kind of glory that Jesus was after. He wanted to be honoured by the God whom he called “Father”. In order for him to receive honour from God he had to be obedient and, in his case, obedient unto death. Isaiah also has some prophecies about a Suffering Servant who though innocent would be punished and suffer on behalf of all the people in order to heal them. Jesus knew that as the Son of Man he had to suffer and die so that reconciliation between God and humanity could happen, so that he could bear our sins away and that by his wounds we be healed and all with the result of the gift of eternal life, life of an eternal nature be given to humanity in him and through union with him in the Holy Spirit. To be who he is and do what God the Father desired he could not love his own life more than the Father’s purposes and plans for us. Therein lay a deep, painful struggle for Jesus’.
This moment of realizing he had hit the big time, so to speak, deeply troubled him. Get this, the Greek word for troubled could and should also be translated here as terrified him. Jesus was in a crisis of faith. His soul, his psyche not his heart, was deeply troubled. If you remember from a sermon a few weeks ago, the soul is the totality of our being as we stand in relationship with God, ourselves, and others. Jesus was struggling with his relationship to the Father and what the Father had sent him to do and it was terrifyingly agonizing. Here we see just how very human Jesus was/is. It says in the Book of Hebrews that he was tempted in every way that we are. This struggle with the Father’s will and Jesus’ having to be faithful unto death really tried him. It was indeed possible for him to say no, but he didn’t. He chose faithfulness over love of his own soul., his own self, his own “I did it my way.”
For us, the struggle to subject ourselves to God’s way and will is one we all know. Being the persons that the Lord would have us to be and discerning what it is that the Lord would have us do in serving and following him is deeply troubling and at times even terrifying when we consider the risks and the costs particularly to the ego. Speaking honestly for myself, I would do almost anything Jesus wanted me to do as long as it catered to my ego, but if there is the slightest chance that I might be embarrassed, appear weird, or vulnerable, I struggle. If it is something I feel safe doing like preaching and teaching, no problem. But, when it comes to unsafe things like dealing with difficult people and difficult situations or sharing my faith, I struggle. Yet, I can not imagine what kind of person or even who I would be apart from this struggle. In the midst of this struggle the Triune God of grace changes me, really all of us to be more Jesus-like. Through this deeply troubling struggle God uses us to be ambassadors of reconciliation and ministers of his grace to those around us.
But there’s something else that is really special about this struggle to follow faithfully. Jesus says, “Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be. My Father will honour the one who serves me.” We have Jesus’ promise that he will be present with us and that we will be honoured by the Father when we follow him faithfully. This I can say without a doubt in the times of my life that have been most difficult, the more I strove to be faithful to Jesus and to handle those difficulties faithful to him, the more I felt him present with me, his strength, his comfort, his guidance, his assurance. I’ve grieved the death of a loved one, been through a divorce, been unemployed, been without a home to call my own, suffered what they now call Alcohol Use Disorder and in the midst of it all he has never abandoned me, but rather drawn me closer and given me a stronger faith.
Moreover, Jesus says those who serve will be honoured by the Father. That reminds me of the story of Ester in the Old Testament. Ester is a beautiful, young Jewish women who was taken to be the Queen wife of King Ashuerus when the Assyrians to the Jewish people captive into exile. Mordecai, her uncle, informed on a couple of men who were conspiring to kill the king and saved the king’s life. So, as a reward Ashuerus gave Mordecai a ring and a royal robe and had Mordecai paraded around the city on a horse the king himself had ridden. We don’t necessarily get honoured like that that though it is a honour for God to give us his Spirit to dwell in us. To be honoured means to have God looking out for us, listening to us, acting on our behalf. Serving Jesus, living loyally and faithfully for him has the benefit of God being for us. In all matters, God will work for our good. Things may take time and require great patience from us, but in all things, God will be with us and working for our good. That’s what it is to be honoured by God.
So, serving Jesus, faithfully following Jesus, has a reward. Our efforts to love as we have been loved, the things we feel led to, these may at times appear to be wasteful exercises in futility. In this world where things have value only if there’s “something in it for me”, serving Jesus, seeking to live faithfully in ways that bring honour to him, will often be viewed as suspect or ridiculous. So what! In the end it is the faithful servant of Jesus whom Jesus rewards with his own peaceful, reassuring presence and whom the Father listens to and works all things to the good. Amen.
