REVEREND Ben Haslam led the service at Crediton Methodist Church on Sunday, March 23.

The Lenten Cross was dressed with a money bag reminding us of the way money changed hands for Jesus’s betrayal.

We remember those who have lost their freedom because of other people’s greed.

We are told that America is going to be great again. It raises the question of what greatness means?

What does it mean when politicians talk about their country being great? What does it mean to achieve greatness? That is the burden of the Gospel reading where James and John came to Jesus.

We don’t know what was going through their minds when they came to Jesus with a request to be seated either side of Jesus in His glory. Did they want personal glory for themselves or did they want good seats and be part of this exciting thing that they thought would happen?

Jesus uses this as a teaching opportunity and we need to understand what is happening. Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem and He knows He is journeying towards the cross.

If the disciples are expecting some victory march, some sort of spectacular gesture that will confound Jesus’s enemies, then they will be disappointed.

So, perhaps Jesus is trying to prepare them for what is coming. Perhaps He is trying to prepare them to see greatness and glory where they might not have recognised it. Perhaps He is trying to teach and guide them so that when they see Jesus dying on the cross they may be able to see real glory and recognise that this is Jesus’s hour of glory and His ultimate triumph – not the failure and humiliation as some of the bystanders would think. Perhaps He is hinting that His full glory will be seen on the cross.

Jesus asks James and John if they could drink from the same cup as He drinks from. We know that the “cup” is God’s wrath as mentioned in Jeremiah. Wrath in scripture means the inevitable consequence of people ignoring God.

It is not God punishing people but is what inevitably happens when people either reject God outright or never see the need for God in their lives. Things go wrong.

It is inevitable. The world was created by God and for God and God it is who holds everything together. Try and cut God out of the equation and things fall apart and the cup is the wrath of God.

Jesus is saying that He will hold the cup in His hands and instead of pouring it out on you and me, He will drink it himself. Part of Jesus’s glory will be the drinking this cup so that we all can be free.

Jesus asks if James and John can be baptised with the baptism that He is baptised with.

He is not talking about baptism with water. He is referring to dying for self and sin and being born again in God and for God. The coming death that the disciples will witness is not a final defeat of God’s purposes but is a death that will bring life.

A death that will mark a beginning. In saying this, Jesus is pointing towards real glory not military might, not the wrong punished and the right people being lifted high. Instead, before the cross all are equal.

The sinner in need of grace and glory is to be found in the Saviour who is perfect and who died so that those who are cut off from God can be brought back into the fold. This self-sacrificing love is where real glory is to be found.

Sometimes we think of greatness and glory in relation to Jesus as a blinding light and voice from Heaven on the Mount of Transfixion. This glory in our lives is not by glorifying ourselves but by giving ourselves to God and sharing His life.

As one saint said “the glory of God is a human being fully alive”. We start to be fully alive when we join our lives with God’s.

None of us are fully there yet – no-one is perfect. What matters is that we are journeying in the right direction. But sometimes there are things we do or say which stop us from flourishing as God wants us to flourish. Sometimes we neglect the means that God gives us to grow in our faith – reading the scriptures, spending time in prayer and with our brothers and sisters in fellowship. Sometimes we can nurture things which damage us whether it is resentment or anger. Sometimes we compare ourselves to others and feel inferior.

That can be unhelpful but what matters is that we are fulfilling the call of God in our lives and using the gifts and graces that He has given us. God never calls us to be a different person. God always calls us to be a unique individual that He calls us to be.

As another saint said: “Be who God created you to be and you will set the world on fire”. It is a person being what God calls them to be that shows God’s glory to the world.

The more we push our egos from the centre and allow Christ’s light to flood in, the more we participate in the glory of God. Glory is Heaven. Glory is where God is. So, knowing the heavenly glory which surrounds us and suffuses our lives is a great and wonderful calling.

When we take part in the Communion Service we say “with angels and archangels and the company or heaven we join in the unending hymn of praise”. So, when we worship we are not just worshiping in this church and in this town, we are worshiping with our brothers and sisters throughout the world and also with the hosts of heaven. We are joining our praises with theirs and participating in the business of heaven. When we worship we are connecting ourselves with the glory which we cannot see but which is all around us and, over time, we become better able to reflect God’s glory back to Him.

We see glimpses of God’s glory in our lives today from the natural world, in expressions of joy, through our times of worship when we feel especially close of God and when we see glimpses of the beauty, glory and majesty of our final home.

Ultimately what matters when we get things wrong because the sin that stands between us and God is that it was dealt with on the cross.

That barrier which we cannot get over has been broken down for us so we have the assurance of glory.

We have the assurance of a place in heaven’s courts and the sheer beauty of God and the understanding of what Jesus achieved for us on the cross and then living lives of thankfulness and praise in response.

Bronwyn Nott