Serve the Lord!

[AI translation] We will now leave for a short while the series we began on the letter of the Apostle James and turn our attention more sharply to the last events of the earthly life of our Lord Jesus. From this colourful story, I would like to highlight the figure of just one person, the unknown man who has been mentioned several times in this congregation, who placed his donkey at the disposal of Jesus. He is the only one in the whole story who took part in the loud, joyful, hallelujahing celebration in the most dignified way. And he wasn't even there! But he did it in silence! And he did what Jesus asked him to do. He put his donkey at Jesus' disposal. He helped Jesus to do this next part of His messianic work according to His will. And that's why I love this anonymous man in this story of the Flower Sunday. I see in his figure a kind of illustration of the Word that I have read as a basic verse: 'Serve the Lord with joy!I am very glad that the Word of God is now again reminding us of this, because it speaks of the most important thing in our Christian life and the most important matter of Christianity, which cannot be repeated often enough. For let us think carefully: what does it mean to be a Christian? To believe that the Jesus of Nazareth was the best man in the world, or that he was a religious genius like no other on earth? Or to believe that he was the Son of God? To believe what we say so precisely in our Creed, "Conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary"? And that "He rose again the third day from the dead, and ascended into heaven, to the right hand of God the Father"? Or that we can stand in a celebrating congregation on a Flower Sunday or even on Good Friday, and with tears in our eyes we can say "Blessed is he who has come in the name of the Lord" (Canticle 331:1). - Of course: we are Christians by believing in Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, but this faith is by no means a mere calling to historical or dogmatic truths, but it is a personal relationship with a living Person, or even better: a personal commitment, a linking of my life to that One, a total surrender of myself, a giving of myself in service to the One in Whom I believe!
In faith, then, the decisive factor is not what I believe to be true and what I do not believe to be true from the Gospel accounts, what I understand and what I do not understand from the person and things of Jesus, but how much of my life, of myself, I am willing to give up voluntarily, out of love, to Jesus, to place under Jesus' lordship, to place at His disposal. This is the decisive factor in the genuineness of faith. This is very evident especially in the scene of the flower on Sunday. On the one hand, there is the crowd, enthusiastic, singing psalms, and thus uttering biblical words, and it seems and sounds as if every expression of their joyful faith in Jesus is expressed in their celebration. On the other hand, there is the nameless man who, at the only message of Jesus, gives up his donkey and makes it available to the Lord. Which one really believed in Him: the crowd that celebrated loudly, or the other, the one who served in silence?! Is there no doubt about it! To believe in Jesus is to serve Him in silence. And the Lord is telling us today to believe in Him! So, as our basic verse sums it up, "Serve the Lord with joy!"
What did this man's service consist of? It was simply that when two unknown men, two disciples of Jesus, came to him as instructed by their Master and told him that the Lord needed his donkey, he was ready to give it to him immediately. So it's actually not a big deal and yet it's the greatest thing in the world. Because to serve Jesus is to look at oneself and all that one has in such a way that the Lord has need of it. God honours man best by using him as his fellow-worker. I can think of no greater dignity for a man than to be free to serve the Lord. For God would not need us in such a way that he would need us for anything! What could we do that He could not do more greatly and more perfectly without us? But this is our great dignity, that God does not want to do without us, but with us and through us! So it is not divine arbitrariness that is expressed in the message that this man with the donkey received from Jesus, "The Lord has need of him" (Mk 11,3), but a commission that elevates man to the highest human dignity. And the man must have felt in some way that it was a great privilege for him to place something at the Lord's disposal. So to serve the Lord is to take it as such an honourable, elevating commission when he asks me to use something because he wants to use it. To serve the Lord: it means to consider the many occasions of life as the Lord asking for your hand to help carry the burden of someone else who can no longer bear it. The Lord asks our money to pay someone else's rent or bread with it. The Lord asks for our smile to lift a suffering fellow human being on the tram. The Lord asks for our lips to send someone a stern warning. The Lord asks for our strength, with which we work the day or night shift, because he wants to build, to make the country more beautiful and happier. Or the Lord is asking for your child, or your spouse, or your mother, because he needs her in that unseen world. The soul that serves the Lord is the soul that keeps itself and all it has always ready for the privilege of being needed by the Lord. So believe in the Lord, so that you may serve the Lord with joy. Rejoice in the fact that where we are, even if it is in a difficult job, in the home, in the office, in the factory, in the workshop, in the school, the Lord needs us. Our life and our work become at once joyful and interesting and varied if we do it with the willingness to serve the Lord in the way he needs us.
Our basic prayer specifically emphasizes serving the Lord with rejoicing. We do something with joy only when we do it truly and fully. One who does it casually, trying it once in a while, will never be able to serve the Lord with joy. It is not service to pray now and then, to go to church, to sing there, to listen to a sermon. Just reading the Bible now and then: it's very boring. Doing something half-heartedly, half-heartedly: no joy! Perhaps that is the main reason why most people do not find joy in living in the service of God. We serve with joy only when we do it with all our love and all our strength. Just as it is true that everything we have comes from God, so it is also true that He has given us everything He has given us so that we may serve Him: with our bodies as well as with our souls, with health as well as with sickness, with our work as well as with our leisure. Everything we have is from Him and for Him. If our worship is limited to a few hours of celebration: it will definitely be a dull affair. But if we seek to serve Him in all our actions every hour, our lives will become more and more interesting, varied, joyful. We will be amazed at how many new and fresh opportunities the Lord will give us to serve Him!
And what does the Lord want to use us for? Jesus brought and spread the kingdom of God, or rather the reign of God, on this earth. He fought a terrible battle against evil on Calvary for the realisation of the kingdom of God, the righteousness of the kingdom of God triumphed on Easter morning. And the kingdom of God is not to be imagined as an otherworldly, otherworldly uncertainty, but as the influx of that otherworld, of the world of God, of holiness, of joy, of love, into this world, where a man believes in Jesus, serves the Lord. The kingdom of God, then, is very much for this world, this earthly world, because it is the outpouring of those very powers, divine powers, which make this earthly life beautiful and good: that is, the powers of love, joy, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, peace, brotherhood, justice. This is why Jesus died and rose again. This is what he is working for, this is what he continues to work for on earth. And for this and for this He needs you who believe in Him. In this great work of spreading His kingdom, of making life on earth happier, more joyful, He needs you, your hands, your mouth, your family, your work. That's why he tells us to pray, "Thy kingdom come" (Mt 6,10). Believe that God wants people to be happy, to live happily, to enjoy themselves. And let us believe that he wants to use us as co-workers in his work. So it is not only that you, who believe in Jesus Christ, should secure your salvation through faith in Him, but that you should take care of your soul, avoid sins, try to keep yourself pure, live morally. It's much more than that: do what Jesus wants you to do, on a case-by-case basis, in his kingdom work.
He asked this anonymous man to lend him his donkey on Palm Sunday. He asked the same man to lend him his house at the Last Supper, because he wanted to eat the Passover lamb there with his disciples. Then, there on that front line of God's kingdom was what he had to do for God's kingdom. For you, today, in your place, it is something else again; it is only important that everyone on the front line of the kingdom of God, where he is, does at all times what Jesus now wants him to do. What Jesus wants to accomplish in the situation that he is now giving us, out of the powers of love, peace, joy, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, that make the world beautiful and happy! Of course, to do this, I must listen to Him, I must pray up and down within myself, like the Apostle Paul: "Lord, what do you want me to do?"
Just as I can turn the radio knob just once and listen to a beautiful Bach cantata instead of the noisy jazz music I just heard, so it is up to me to choose which wavelength my soul tunes to. It is also possible to tune our soul to the wavelength of the transmitter of the kingdom of God, through the kind of faith in Christ that we have just been talking about, and then we will also receive the message in every situation of what the Lord wants from us now, in this particular situation. He who is truly ready to serve the Lord with joy will always receive from Him the way and the means of this service! Just ask with confidence, in this way:
Your ways, Lord, show me,
That I may not go astray;
Teach me thy paths,
By which I will walk.
And guide me
In your holy true Word;
Protect my life,
For in you, Lord God, I trust.
(Psalm 25:2)
Amen
Date: 29th March 1953.