Who’s the Greatest?

It must have been the dumbest or at least the dumbest timed argument ever. It’s Passover night. Not only is it Passover night, it’s THE Passover night. Because this meal was a poignant reminder of what all of the Passovers were about. That all of the Passovers starting in ancient Egypt 1400 some years before leading up to this one were all a prefiguring of what was about to happen on Monday, Thursday night, and Good Friday morning. That the Lamb of God was going to lay down his life to pay for the sins of the world. And Jesus had told the disciples clearly and plainly that that’s what was about to happen. They’re eating THE Passover. And Jesus has just instituted the Lord’s Supper. “Take, this is my body, take this cup and divide it among you. This is my blood of the new covenant.” And you know what’s amazing is we don’t even hear the disciples asking many questions about it. Now maybe they did and it’s just not recorded for us, we don’t know. But it does seem sort of striking that we hear no record of them. “What is this about? Can you explain this to us? What have you just given us? Lord, what’s just happened here?” None of that. But what do we get? We get an argument amongst them as to which of them was the greatest. What? Really? Really? It’s not exactly like the disciples have this fabulous track record, is it? Yeah, it wasn’t that long ago that Jesus was saying to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan. You don’t have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” And over the course of this evening, what’s going to happen? Well, every one of these guys is going to run away from Jesus. Peter is going to deny Jesus. Judas is going to betray Jesus. They’re going to prove themselves to be horrible. And they’re arguing about what? Well, which one of us do you think is the greatest? Oh my. What an incredibly dumb argument. What an incredibly poorly timed argument. Amen. [laughter] And the conversation that happens between them amongst this whole thing is just sort of crazy. “Simon, Simon,” Jesus says. Notice he doesn’t call him Peter there. He calls him Simon. Why? A little hint to Simon that he wasn’t as strong as he was thinking he was? “Simon, Simon, Satan is asked to sift,” and the NIV 11 does a nice job of translating here, “has asked to sift all of you.” It’s plural. “Has asked to sift you as wheat.” And what’s Simon’s reply? Simon’s reply is, “Oh, I’m prepared. I’m ready. I’m ready to go off to death with you. I’m ready to go to jail with you. Whatever needs to be done, I’m ready to go.” Simon, Peter, before the rooster crows tonight, you’re going to deny three times you even know who I am. “Even if I’ll fall away from you,” one of the other accounts tells us, Peter says, “I never will.” Do you remember last week the voice from the cloud said to Simon, Peter, and the rest, “This is my son whom I have chosen. Listen to him.” And what is Simon Peter doing? Not only is he not listening to Jesus, he’s basically telling Jesus that Jesus is wrong. If Simon Peter was listening to Jesus, he would have said, “Lord, that’s awful. Please tell me what I should do to not have that happen. Is there some way that you can tell me what I should do so that I don’t do such a horrible thing?” But instead, it’s, “No, Lord, I’m prepared.” But isn’t that just like us? How often like the disciples don’t we get caught up in the things of this world? We like to rate things, don’t we? What’s the greatest movie of all time? What’s the greatest song of all time? What’s the greatest musical of all time? What’s the greatest NBA team of all time? Very easy for us to slip into the “which one of us is the greatest?” mentality. Well, I don’t know if most of us are doing that in regards to our salvation, but I guarantee we’re doing it. Because just like those disciples, we are oh so quick to get caught up in the things of this world. And we are oh so slow to focus on the things which are eternal. And like Peter, how quick we are to fail to listen to Jesus and instead listen to self. I know that God tells me to do this, but I’m going to do that instead. And you know, God must be pretty happy with me because I show up at church. I even give offerings. So God must be pretty happy with me. Ugh. How much we are like those ancient disciples. Having really dumb discussions about really dumb things and focused on really foolish things rather than focusing on the things that are eternal. And so it’s really helpful to see how Jesus reacts to his disciples. And it’s just grace upon grace upon grace. He’s just given them the Lord’s Supper. Oh my, what grace that he’s giving them himself, his true body and his true blood together with that bread and the wine. Wow. What else? He speaks to those disciples and he says to them, “You are the ones who have stood by me in my trials.” What a wonderful compliment. And what’s going to happen tonight? Whoo, we’re all running away. But Jesus’ focus is on, “You’ve stood with me.” Oh, what grace. And so have you. And so have I. We’ve stood with Jesus. Oh, it’s been in weakness. Oh, like those disciples. We’ve had our horrid moments, but at the end of the day, you believe in Jesus, don’t you? I ought to get an amen on that. And so you stand with Jesus just like those disciples did. But perhaps it comes to its apex as they’re discussing this whole, “Who is the greatest thing?” Jesus asked them a question. So who’s greater? Is it the one who is sitting at the table being served or is it the one who’s coming and serving that person? Well, duh, it’s the one who’s sitting at the table being served, right? And then Jesus goes on to say, “But I am among you as one who serves.” This is God. This is God become human. This is the one who that very night were told that he had all things under his authority. And yet what does he do? He gets down and he washes his disciples’ feet. He spends time talking with them. And in just a few hours after the events of our text, he will be off to the Garden of Gethsemane where he will be taken captive, led off to the cross, and he will serve you and serve me with the ultimate love that he will lay down his life for us. Instead of self-focus and pride, in Jesu,s we see self-sacrifice and humility from the one who had every right to be proud and to have others serving him. Instead, we see just the opposite. And if all that weren’t enough, he says to them, “You’re going to sit at my table. You’re going to sit at the feast in my kingdom. And you’re going to be judging the 12 tribes of Israel.” Can you imagine? That he gives us the honor that we will sit with him in glory, taking part in his ruling activity. Oh, what grace! And all of this happening in the midst of what? An argument about which of them was the greatest. Years later when they thought back on this, how do you think they thought about it? Do you maybe think they had a bit of a chuckle? Saying, “Wow, we had God in our midst. We had God who was ready to go off and sacrifice himself on the cross for us. And here we were arguing about which of us was the greatest. Man, what a bunch of idiots we were.” I don’t know that that happened. It makes sense to me that it might have. And whether it happened exactly that way or not, of course, we don’t know. But I’m going to guess that as they reflected on that really dumb, really badly timed argument, that it helped them. That it helped them to focus not on themselves, not on how great they were, but on how great their Savior was. And I would think it helped them to think not about what they thought but to listen all the more closely to what he said. And if this dumb, incredibly poorly timed argument does the same for you and for me, that it leads us to appreciate Jesus more fully, that it leads us to listen to Him more zealously and eagerly. Oh my, what a wonderful, amazingly cool argument that was. Amen? And Amen.