I do not usually use this blog to work on a book or research project I am working, but this week is an exception. I am currently trying to turn a dissertation into a book for Christian and other leaders—a project I hope to complete in the next couple of years. In writing this dissertation some years ago, I decided to focus on the spirituality of leadership. The techniques and personality traits that make a good leader vary from organization to organization and congregation to congregation depending on a number of factors, not the least of which include size and complexity. However, it is my belief that the spiritual characteristics of good leaders remain the same. We must all learn to love and lead like Jesus.  In this work, just as in the two others I’ve written, I am exploring the unity of wisdom and love that we find in God and which is revealed in Jesus.

Each of the Gospels spends about a third of their total words describing the last week of Jesus’ life. It is as if the way that they organized their gospels was intended to reflect the surpassing importance of his last week, arrest, death, and resurrection. If we are to fully understand who Jesus was and what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, then we must think carefully about the last week of his life as he experienced first approval, then opposition, rejection, betrayal, arrest, unfair prosecution, and death. This week, I am focused on the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and what it shows us about the love of God and about the character of Christian leadership

Some time ago, I was reading an article about the contemporary church. In America, we spend a lot of sermon and teaching time showing how the Christian life is the “Abundant Life.” We spend a lot of time showing how Christian faith makes life in this world better and more complete. We have Christian exercise and diet classes designed to see that we live longer and healthier. We have books on Christian sexuality proclaiming that our faith will make our love life better. We want a happy church and a happy faith. As a result, pastors seldom preach on the verse “If anyone would be my disciple, let them take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). The writer went on to say, “It should not surprise us that people desert the church the moment there is any suffering involved in the Christian life. We have misled them about its fundamental nature. We have preached a Christianity without the Cross.”

If we examine the last week of Jesus’ life carefully, we see the true character of God’s self-giving, Christ-like love as Jesus showed that love to us in the most dramatic possible way. We see that suffering for others, far from being something we can and should avoid, is something we must accept as an inevitable part of the Christian life. If we believe that Jesus incarnated the character of God fully in human form, then we are left with an understanding that no part of Christian life, including Christian leadership, can be conducted without its share of cross bearing. In fact, the love of God shown on the cross is at the center of Christian leadership. And, if God is the God of all creation, then this same love is at the center of great secular leadership as well.

Jesus Revealed as David’s Heir

In Mark chapter 11, the beginning of Jesus’ last week is described this way:

As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’” They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, “What are you doing, untying that colt?” They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go. When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” Hosanna in the highest heaven!” Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve. (Mark 11:1-11).

 In our church, almost every Palm Sunday, we read or hear these verses at some point in the service. We even act them out with the children. I always think that it is sad that we don’t read them earlier in Lent because the story of Jesus joy-filled entry into Jerusalem and the Easter story of his resurrection always dominate Easter week in a Protestant congregation with lots of children. Our Easter begins with the joy of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and ends with the Empty Tomb. We don’t spend much time thinking about what lies in between. Frequently, the cross is an after-thought, except for the few diligent and often older members that attend a Maundy Thursday or Good Friday service. Unfortunately an Easter without the cross represents only half the Gospel. It is not even half the Gospel, for it forgets that Christ came to bear the sins of the world—a world which did then, and does now, reject his gracious offer of forgiveness of sin and new life.

Leaders in the Ancient World and in Our World

There are certain articles you can be sure you will see in magazines and newspapers every so often. Not long ago, I looked at a magazine with an article purporting to give important new information on Jesus. It was a rehash of information that has been talked about for over a hundred years.  Another inevitable kind of article in election years, and at other times, includes those decrying the lack of leadership in America. It is true. There has been a decline in leadership in America and in the West for a long, long time. However, this complaint can mask the continuity between our leaders and leaders throughout history. The world has always produced more bad and mediocre leaders than wise, loving, great, and good ones.

Many years ago, I read Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. [1] What struck me was the fact that, from the beginning of the empire until its fall,  a period of hundreds of years, there were relatively few good emperors. By the time most of the New Testament was written, the empire was often in the hands of poor, corrupt, and often-insane leaders. Gibbon described the decline in leadership as follows:

“The manly pride of the Romans … left to the vanity of the East the forms and ceremonies of ostentatious greatness. However, when they lost even the semblance of those virtues which were derived from their ancient freedom, the simplicity of Roman manners was … corrupted by the stately affectation of the courts of Asia. The distinctions of personal merit and influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so feeble and obscure under a monarchy, were abolished by the despotism of the emperors….” [2]

In Jesus’ day, as in our day, leaders often excelled at the art of the politics of power and flattery. Pontius Pilate was just such a man—a friend of the Emperor, a capable administrator, but lacking in true virtue. [3]  He was known to be corrupt and weak. Pilate, like most of the Roman governors was addicted to power and the perquisites and symbols that come with power. Like most of the Roman bureaucracy, he was out of touch with the reality of the lives of the common people. We, therefore, should not be surprised that our leaders are often mere politicians, addicted to power, surrounded by increasingly meaningless symbols of power, and unaware and unconcerned with the problems of the common, average person.

A Biblical Symbol of Humility

David began his kingship as a soldier who had once been a shepherd. Although in his later years, he was corrupted by his power, he still had the love and respect of the common people. Near the end of his life, one of his sons, Adonijah, attempted to prematurely become king. Adonijah had a better claim to the throne than Solomon, but David had promised his favorite wife, Bathseba that her son would sit on his throne. So David had Solomon placed on a mule, and enter the city of Jerusalem where he was made king. This action, filled with symbolism of service and humility, was part of the expected entry of a new king into the city. [4]

The prophet Zechariah prophesied that the Messiah would enter the city in just such a way: as follows:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, your king coming unto you; he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon a donkey, even upon a colt, the foal of a donkey (Zechariah 9:9).

The Messiah would not ride into the city on a white charger, like a conquering hero, but on a donkey as a servant king. Jesus’ entry was a part of the revelation that he was the expected Messiah.

Jesus: The First Servant Leader

Jesus may have been the expected Messiah, but his nature was completely unexpected. The people who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem that Palm Sunday so many years ago still expected Jesus to turn out to be a military leader, a king like other kings, and a deliver from the centuries of oppression they had endured under the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Medes, Greeks, and Romans. They expected Jesus to found a kingdom that looked pretty much like the other kingdoms around them, only better. But that is not what God intended and not what Jesus did. This is a lesson we need to learn today. The Kingdom of God is not the United States of America, only better. It is something completely different that dwells in the hearts and minds of those who follow the God of Wisdom and Love. Our human kingdoms can be made better, more reflective of God’s love and wisdom, but they cannot be made into the Kingdom of God. Only God can create the Kingdom of God, and he has chosen to do so using only the power of wisdom and self-giving love.

When James and John came to him asking that they be designated as leaders due special honor because of their association with him, Jesus replied that they had no idea what they were asking (Mark 10:38). When the other of his disciples were furious at James and John, Jesus gave them a teaching about what it means to be a leader in Jesus’ kingdom:

You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:42-45).

Jesus came to be a leader. In fact, he came to be long awaited Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace for whom the Jews waited (Isaiah 9:6). He came to establish a kingdom that would never end (v. 7). He also came to reveal God’s love and serve in love—not just any kind of love but the self-giving, merciful, sacrificial love of God to save a lost world he would show the world the very next Friday as he died on the Cross. As a leader, Jesus was still the God of Wisdom and Love he incarnated, and his kingdom and kingship could, therefore, not look anything like our kingdoms or our kings and rulers.

Everything Jesus did he did embodying the All Wise, All Powerful, All Merciful love of God. He came in love as one of us. He called his disciples (and us) in love to follow him. He communicated his message in love, revealing that all the laws and all the messages of goodness of all the ages could be reduced to loving God and loving others with the agape love of God. Even when Jesus rebuked the disciples, as he did from time to time, he rebuked them in love. Finally, in love he empowered them by his Holy Spirit, just as he gifts and empowers us by his Holy Spirit.

At the root of Jesus’ leadership, and at the root of any Christian idea of leadership is God’s character, and the Bible teaches us that God is love (I John 4:8). Furthermore, God is not just any old kind of love, but a love that loves us while we are still far from God. “This is love,” John says, “not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (v. 10). A Christian who is a leader is to be a disciple of the one who said, “If anyone would come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).

What this Means for Us

For the last several months, a group of our elders and a few others have been meeting and thinking about what it means to be a leader in our church. They have been thinking about this question in light of our commitment to become a more intentional discipling church. It has taken them about a year and a half or two years to think through this important question and what it means for the selection and training of new leaders for our congregation. Interestingly enough, they were able to reduce this very complex subject to a single graphic in addition to producing a curriculum and other materials.

To be a Christian leader is first of all to be a Christian. We have to hear the voice of Jesus calling and saying to us, “Come and follow me” (Mark 1:17). To be a Christian is more than believing that Jesus is the Son of God; it is following Jesus and trying to be like Jesus day after day. It is praying, reading our Bibles, exercising our wills, and in every way trying to become like the one we, like Peter, proclaim to be the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Mark 8:29).

Then, as we grow in Christ, we begin to model Christ for others. This means that as we grow in Christ we reach the point where other people can see the character and person of Jesus in us as we react to our day-to-day problems. We begin to be a person that others look to as they seek to walk the Christian walk and live as Christians. This can last a long, long time as slowly but surely God transforms our character in prayer, Bible Study, service, and other elements of the Christian life.

Finally, we begin to mentor others in the Christian life. A mentor is someone who helps another person achieve a goal, gain a skill, or deserve a position. A mentor is a Christian leader who is also involved in helping another person become a Christian leader. Too many leaders, Christian and otherwise, cling to a position of leadership until they are too old to do anything else but give up and never mentor another to replace them. I think that generations of Presbyterians have been guilty of this, and it is part of the reason that the Presbyterian Church is in such disarray.

We cannot mentor another person unless we ourselves have taken the time to learn what we intend to mentor them to be. We cannot mentor another person unless we understand our Christian duty to the future to prepare another generation of leaders. Finally, we will never mentor anyone until we have learned to love that person unconditionally. In the beginning, it is always easier to do something yourself than to train another person. But, like raising children, unless we think we can live forever, we must do so in love—love for the person and love for the church or family of which we are a part.

Conclusion

Anyone who has read any of my books or any long selection of sermons knows that I am committed to seeing the Word of God as revealed in Christ as the ultimate revelation of the wisdom and love of God—what I sometimes call a Deep Light and Deep Love. By this term I mean a wisdom and love that is deeper than anything found in this created universe, because it finds its source in the being and character of God. [5]

Christians as leaders, not just in our churches but also in our day-to-day lives must embody a kind of leadership that is founded on the leadership of Christ. He is the source of the only really enduring leadership there is or can be. To do this, we must first look at the leadership Jesus embodied—and that leads us straight to a love revealed on the cross.

[1] Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (New York, NY: Random House: Modern Library Paperback Ed., 2003).

[2] Id, at Chapter 17.

[3] Pilate was a friend of the emperor, or at least his wife was a friend of the emperor, from whom he received his appointment as prefect. He served a relatively long time, indicating that he was a capable person. The Jews felt that he was unfeeling and insensitive to the Jewish people. Eventually, he was removed from office. The gospel accounts portray him as aware of the injustice that is being done to Jesus, but unwilling to face Jewish disapproval and possible appeal to Caesar if he releases someone who claims to be a king. See, Ronald F. Youngblood, ed. “Pilate” in Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary Rev. Ed. (Nashville, TN: Nelson, 1995,1986).

[4] The entire incident is portrayed in First Kings 1:1-53.

[5] See, G. Christopher Scruggs, Centered Living/Centered Leading: The Way of Light and Love Rev. Ed. (Memphis, TN Permisio Por Favor/Book Surge, 2014).

Copyright 2015, G. Christopher Scruggs, All Rights Reserved