For the past month in our gospel readings, Jesus has been making his way to Jerusalem. He has been preparing his disciples for what awaited him there. They have rebuked him, been afraid to ask what   he meant, and squabbled over who would have positions of leadership in his movement after he left them. Mixed in with his instruction and preparation to his disciples are stories of Jesus healing people seized with demons, disputing with the Pharisees, and lifting up the needs of children and “little ones,” those weak in their belief and new to the Christian faith. While this is happening they were slowly working their way to Jerusalem. The clock was ticking and the disciples still didn’t get it.

This morning it’s James and John, two of the inner circle, the executive committee of the twelve, the two who, with Peter, went up the mountain with Jesus and saw him transfigured into a dazzling brightness while he talked with Elijah and Moses. They asked a favor of Jesus; they wanted positions of power, status, and authority with Jesus in glory.

Jesus made an interesting response; he asked, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” Mark 10:38 (NRSV). He was making reference to some images from the Old Testament that are not widely remembered. The cup that Jesus spoke of was the cup of wrath, which symbolized God’s judgment of human or national sin. To drink from the cup of wrath was to be punished. When Israel returned from exile in Babylon, God spoke to the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, saying that they had drunk all they needed to from the cup of wrath. Elsewhere in scripture, cups were used to symbolize one’s fate. In Old Testament times people understood that there was only so much of anything. If they were blessed with an abundance of food; that meant someone else was going hungry. In the same way, if one was afflicted with trouble, say drinking from the cup of calamity, then someone else wasn’t. They viewed the world as a zero sum game, which meant that the cup of wrath didn’t go away, but another nation had to drink from it.

In Matthew’s gospel when Jesus was praying in Gethsemane he prayed, “let this cup pass from me.” Matthew 26:39 (NRSV). About a week earlier he’d asked James and John if they were able to drink from the same cup, they said that they were, but that night in the garden, they could not stay awake. They said they could drink from the cup that Jesus would drink from but they couldn’t. They abandoned him just as Peter and the other disciples had.

Jesus also asked if they could be baptized with his baptism. Before Christians like (here insert the name of the person most recently baptized in your congregation) were baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Jews regarded passing through water as a sign of trial. Psalm 69 begins:

Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. 
I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold…. Psalm 69:1-2 (NRSV)

And in the 43rd chapter of Isaiah, the Lord reassured the prophet:

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you,
And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you…. Isaiah 43:2 (NRSV)

Passing through water had great significance for a people who had fled slavery, pursued by a mighty army, which was drowned in the sea. Passing though water had great significance for a nation that finally reached the promised land after each tribe set a stone in the Jordan River and the waters piled up so they could cross the riverbed on dry ground. Even today we talk about being “swamped” or “drowning” when the amount of work overwhelms us. This was the baptism that Jesus spoke of to James and John on the way to Jerusalem. It was a much graver kind of baptism, a much deeper kind of baptism than the one Jesus had at the Jordan River. That was a baptism of repentance, a sign of turning away from one old way of life. That was a sign of turning over a new leaf and making a fresh start.

Jews had been practicing baptism of repentance for generations before John the Baptizer baptized Jesus. (A quick note about that terminology: many people in today’s society hear “Baptism” the same way as “Presbyterian,” that is, identified with a specific denomination. When John was baptizing out at the Jordan River, when he wasn’t eating bugs and honey, he was a “baptizer;” there were no “Baptists” back then.)

Perhaps you’re wondering which type of baptism we do here, which kind we have whenever a family presents a child to be baptized, or when an older person asks to be baptized. Is it the kind that Jesus talked about in response to James and John, in which one is overwhelmed by the chaotic power of a flood? Or is it a baptism that marks a turning point in one’s life, a washing, a cleansing? In our tradition it is both — we hold up water’s power to destroy and its power to cleanse. We hold up the fact that water is essential for life on earth but also can be perilous and destructive. “Baptism points us back to the grace of God expressed in Jesus Christ, who died for us and who was raised for us. Baptism points us forward to that same Christ who will fulfill God’s purpose in God’s promised future.” (The Book of Order (Louisville, KY: Office of the General Presbyterian Assembly, W-2.3002.)

All this talk about cups and baptisms is important because some   of the disciples were looking ahead to a future where they expected to be rewarded. Even though they repeatedly misunderstood what Jesus told them plainly, they still were looking ahead to power and status. Christ surprised them - again. Before, he had told them they had to take up their cross and follow him and that they had to become like little children. But in this morning’s lesson from Mark, he told them plainly that they were not like the Gentile leaders who lorded over their people as tyrants. He said: If you want to be great, be a servant, and if you want to be first, you must be a slave of all. It was not the path they wanted to take. But it’s the path Christ invites us all to take.

And it’s the path that Jesus himself took - to serve - to die - to set us free.

It’s a path of sacrifice, a path of cups of wrath and flood waters.   It is not easy glory or cheap grace. It’s a path of shared burdens and joy at the knowledge of God’s presence in our midst. It is the joy we celebrate every time we celebrate the sacrament. A joy that the universal church of Jesus Christ shared whenever someone is baptized. Remember, we are baptized into Christ’s death… and resurrection.

With that baptism we also make a commitment. Churches promise to take on the duty, the responsibility of sharing the good news of life in Christ with the newly baptized one. No one is a Christian alone. The joy we share binds us together, as does our call to serve binds us together. Just as our gratitude to Christ for dying for our sins binds us together. Just as our call to serve God in Christ on this side of the cross binds us together, with a mission, and a purpose and an identity, in this joy we are in Christ.

Amen.