“If anyone would be first, he must be last of all, and servant of all.

And He took a child and put him in the midst of them. And taking

him in his arms, He said to them, ‘Whoever receives one such

child in My name, receives Me; and whoever

receives Me, receives not Me but Him who sent me!’”

(Mark 9:35-37)

We get terribly concerned about some things sometimes: the creeping inflation that sends prices up and up; the effect of the weather on our crops; the drift toward socialism and the welfare state; the growth of violence in our society.

And when we get concerned, sometimes we write heated letters to the editor, or hold indignation meetings, or blow off to our friends and family about our concerns.

A newspaper columnist writes of us and our contemporary expressions of concern: “We have evolved into a nation of needlers, knockers, and nit-pickers… The picket line of protest has replaced the pat of approval as the national image.”

In this Lenten Season when we Christians again remember our Lord’s journey up to Jerusalem to suffer on a cross, if our religion has the slightest Biblical orientation, we must take note of the concerns of Christ as he moved steadfastly toward that cross. What does the gospel record show that His concerns were, and how did he express them?

Last Sunday we examined the gospel account that revealed one of His concerns on the way to the Cross was to show mercy to suffering humanity along the roadside. Blind Bartimaeus came crying: “Jesus of Nazareth, thou son of David, have mercy upon me.” And Jesus stopped and restored his sight.

As we read the last half of Mark’s gospel we are impressed with how our Lord’s most persistent concern on His way to the cross was with the consciences of His disciples. All the way from Galilee to Jerusalem Jesus was teaching the Twelve. Every incident and encounter He turns into a learning experience for the disciples.

The Gospel of Mark shows that quite early in His ministry, Jesus had despaired of doing very much with the Galilean crowds. He had seen that the multitudes gathered to get what they wanted of Him: healing, or bread, or excitement. Their presence was no indication of their deep commitment. When they got what they wanted they wandered away. Consequently, Jesus knew that the crowds could not be counted on in a crisis.

Jesus determined to place the major emphasis of His ministry upon the enlisting and training of a small cadre of hard-core, committed workers — The Twelve. In forming this group, on which so much depended, our Lord had to use just ordinary people, frail human nature. There were available no geniuses or men and women with university training.

What would distinguish the hard-core, hand-picked group from the crowd was just their consciences. That was all. They must be people who for conscience sake were His at all costs. They must be like England’s Thomas Becket who fell in love with the honor of God and in defense of that honor would sacrifice friendship and position and life itself.

So, on His way to Jerusalem Jesus is desperately concerned with capturing and fashioning the consciences of His disciples. Here He knew that He was fighting the battle of the centuries, the Armageddon of all history. For in the consciences of men and women lay their computer of right and wrong; their ultimate court of appeals for duty and honor and value. For conscience is the control center of concerns. Yes, conscience is the cockpit of history, where the ultimate issues of light and darkness, of humanity and bestiality, of spirituality and sensuality, of God and the devil, will always be fought to the finish.

Jesus’ concern for the consciences of His disciples expresses itself in these discourses along the way to the cross chiefly under two symbols: the symbol of the child and the symbol of the servant.

The figure of the child is the ruling image Jesus gives His disciples to inform their consciences of who they must always be in relationship to their God. “And Jesus took a child and set him in the midst of them and said … Unless you become as one such little child, you cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.”

In Jewish thought of Jesus’ day “Childlikeness” had nothing to do with sentimental ideas of innocence and purity. A child in that age and culture was one who had no claims. His status was one of total dependence. He was the example of being the least and the last.” (Layman’s Commentary — on text). As the child depends completely upon his parents, so the disciple of Jesus must depend utterly upon God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

In the delightful and inspiring Opera for churches, written and composed by Benjamin Brittain, called Noye’s Fludde, all the animals are played by the children’s choirs. Costumed as animals, the children come running down the center aisle of the church to climb up into the choir loft converted by the stage sets to look like the ark. As the sound of the rainstorm thundered out by the organ begins to grow in intensity, the animals come singing, “Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison — the ancient Greek cantical of the church whose words mean: “Lord, have mercy! Lord, have mercy!”

Then when the storm is over and the waters recede and the rainbow appears, the little animals come trooping out of the ark and standing on the earth once more lift up their voices to sing the lovely “Alleluia, Alleluia,” the most ancient of all the Christian and Hebrew canticles of praise to the Lord God of the universe from whom come all the marvelous works of creation, providence and redemption.

Until our consciences direct us in all sincerity to join in the universal chant of all creatures of this world and all worlds in every threatening emergency: “Lord, have mercy, Lord, have mercy;” and then when our merciful deliverance has come, sing with all our hearts, “Alleluia, Alleluia,” — until our consciences so direct us we cannot enter the Kingdom of God. We cannot be formed into the troops of His command until our consciences are instructed to describe our relationship with God under the figure of a child in complete dependence upon a loving Heavenly Father.

The second Symbol Christ uses as He struggles for control of the consciences of the disciples is the figure of the servant. The figure of the servant is the ruling image Jesus gives His disciples to inform their consciences of who they are in relationship to their fellow men.

[Here read Mark 10:32-45]

Do we get the bitter irony of the gospel record? Jesus on His way to Jerusalem and the cross — the Son of God going up to suffer and die willingly for the lowest, cheapest, most unworthy sinner, in order that the sinner might experience salvation — and, going along with Him are His select Twelve, arguing over which one of them is the greatest, the biggest, the most important!

Later on James and John come to Jesus with their ambitious request: “Lord, when you come into your Kingdom let us sit on the highest thrones of authority on either side of you.”

These men were missing the whole meaning of the thrust of His life and death in the world. “The Son of Man has come,” says Jesus, “not to be served, but to serve. The great of the gentiles lord it over them and great ones exercise authority over them. But not so shall it be among you. He who would be the greatest among you must become the servant of all.”

[Return to John 13]

Still Jesus struggles with these consciences of ours and our concerns are so far from Him. Visitors from foreign countries to the United States seem to be more interested in what we Americans are doing in the realm of race relations or in what we are not doing that they think we ought to be doing, than in anything else about our country. I talked some time ago with some tourists from India who were quite incensed over discriminations they found in American society, but they had little conscience about the caste system in their own land.

I heard recently some students from South America ask intelligent, well-informed, discerning questions about black and white relationships in the southern part of the United States, but when these young South American University trained people were asked about their relationships with the poor Indians of Brazil and Peru, they shrugged and said: “Oh, these people are savages. They cannot read or write. They have a high mortality rate and know nothing about personal hygiene or morals. They are really outside of civilization. Nothing can be done for them.”

A Memphis minister tried to lead his congregation in serving the people in the poorer community right around his church. One of the congregation’s most loyal members straightway moved his membership saying: “I was born in this poor, run-down, forlorn neighborhood. All my whole life I have spent struggling to get away from here and build my house and raise my family in a newer, better section. I’m willing to drive across the city and come back here to worship out of loyalty to this church, but I’m not going to be a party to relating this church to this community and welcoming these people to come in here with me and my children.”

When Pope John 23rd was elected to the Papacy he chose as his title not the customary designation for popes: “The Prince of the Princes of the Church,” but rather: “The Servant of the Servants of God.” There was a man shaped by his conscience by the concerns of Christ.

St. Paul wrote to the Philippians: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, our Lord, who being in the form of God, did not cling to His prerogatives as God’s equal, but made himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant … and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Philippians 2:5-8)

Unless conscience is concerned, nay, obsessed, with service Christ’s name, and after His example, in obedience to His commands, it is no Christian conscience or concern. Unless Christ reigns as Lord of the conscience, He does not reign at all.

This week, as we go our appointed ways, concerned and troubled about many things, let us not forget that our Lord is concerned about our concerns — that He would shape these consciences of ours — our control centers — and His will for us is that the figure of the child and the figure of the servant should instruct our consciences and control our concerns in every relationship with God and man.