Greatness after Christ.
Three things claim our attention.
I. APOSTOLIC FAILURE. When the apostles of our Lord came to look back on this most memorable evening, how pained and how ashamed they must have felt as they recollected this unseemly contest (Luke 22:24)! At the very hour when their Lord was manifesting his love and his forethought for his Church in two most striking and touching ways—at the very hour when his heart was torn with distracting sorrow by the desertion and treachery of one of his chosen band, and when he might well have been looking for some consolation in the attachment and the obedience of the others, they must needs show their unlikeness to himself and their unworthiness of their position by an untimely dispute about their own importance in connection with that condescending service of their Lord's, how small such a controversy seems! And in connection with such a trial as that through which he was passing, how unbecoming and ill-timed was any anxiety about their own affairs! It was in their power to render to Jesus Christ a most helpful sympathy, and, instead of doing that, they grieved him by the exhibition of a contentious and an ambitious spirit. It was a sad failure on their part. How often do his disciples fail him now! How often do they let the opportunity of loving and effective service pass unused! When the hour strikes for faithfulness, or for courage, or for self-sacrifice, or for humility, or for energetic action, is there not found unfaithfulness, or timidity, or selfish time-serving, or pride, or a culpable inactivity, that loses everything and leaves behind nothing but failure and regret?
II. WORLDLY VANITY. (Luke 22:25.) What a poor thing indeed is mere official dignity, or even arbitrary power, or servile flattery! Official dignity without moral worth is a miserably hollow thing. Arbitrary power, exercised in caprice and apart from a pure desire to do good and to enrich, is an evil thing; it is injurious to the possessor and it is burdensome to the objects of it. Servile flattery is a false thing. It is simply contemptible on the part of those who pay it; it is morally ruinous to those who accept it. Let the "Gentiles" act thus if they must; but "ye shall not be so." Ye who care to be true, to be loving, to be humble—ye shall not sit on that seat of honor, ye shall not run into that serious temptation, ye shall not pursue such a worthless prize. Other and better things are within your reach; for you there is—
III. CHRISTIAN GREATNESS. (Luke 22:26, Luke 22:27.)
1. Jesus Christ, the greatest One, was the Servant of all. He came to serve; it was his holy, heavenly errand; he came to seek and to save the lost. He lived to serve. That act of menial service in which he had just been engaged (John 13:1-5) was only a picture and illustration of the whole spirit and substance of his life; to bear the burden of others was the law of his life (Galatians 6:2). He lived to heal, to help, to comfort, to enlighten, to redeem; his life from end to end was a loving ministry, a gracious and generous service (Mark 10:45). He suffered to serve. He died to serve. He had a perfect right to say,, I am among you as he that serveth."
2. We are nearest to our Lord as we live to serve; we rise towards the spiritual stature of Jesus Christ as we are filled with this his spirit and as we live this his life. There is a path for ambition to tread in the kingdom of Christ; but it is not the path that leads to high office and official dignity and popular applause: these things may come unsought, and be used for good. But the one road along which true Christian greatness travels is the way of self-forgetting service. To be touched and moved by the sorrows and the sins of our fellow-men; to be stirred to helpful, earnest, sacrificial effort on their behalf; to pity the poor and needy; to seek and to save the lost; to breathe the air and to do the work of an unpretentious but effective kindness, to have the right to say, "I am among you as he that serveth; "that is greatness after Christ himself.—C.