Christian Ministry

Book 2 Servant Ministry

PART TWO

SERVANT MINISTRY

Our Lord Jesus through the Incarnation has revealed to us the true nature of SERVANT MINISTRY. The prophet Isaiah through the ‘Servant Songs’ prophetically announced the coming of a ‘suffering SERVANT’ who would bring salvation to God’s people. Centuries later the Eternal Son of God stepped into the pages of human history and fulfilled Isaiah’s words in his own life and ministry.

Jesus the Pre-existent Son had lived in filial love with his Father within the glorious Holy Trinity. To undertake his SERVANT MINISTRY he laid aside his eternal glory and clothed himself in our garment of flesh which became his SERVANT’S robe. This was not a denial of his Sonship but a manifestation of the nature of his Ministry. His SERVANT MINISTRY became the expression of filial obedience to the Father; an obedience which finally led to his death on the Cross.

At his baptism Jesus prophetically enacted the character of his MINISTRY. The baptismal waters of the Jordan immersed our Lord into his SERVANT MINISTRY, through which the eternal implications of the Cross would be realised. Baptism for Jesus meant death. Clothed in a SERVANT’S robe and baptized into SERVANT MINISTRY, Jesus demonstrated that the eternal nature of filial love was sacrificial service. The disposition of a Son was to be that of a SERVANT.

For the Christian baptism not only symbolises a Filial relationship but also signifies SERVANTHOOD. Through this sacramental act we are not only symbolically incorporated into Christ through baptism but are also identified with Christ in his death. Our baptism is a baptism into ‘death’ — death to self and life in Christ. The life we have in Christ is our Filial relationship while the death to self is the nature of our SERVANTHOOD.

SERVANT MINISTRY is the path of the Cross: “If any man would come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Mk 8:34). We are called by our Lord to deny ourselves, to experience ‘death’ to self and to lay down our lives. As we do this we enter into the true meaning of SERVANT MINISTRY. Jesus knew that to be his disciple, to become his SERVANT, would require sacrificial service as exemplified in his own ministry of the CROSS. When our Lord entered into the waters of baptism, he saw depicted in that moment the “baptism” of the cross. Everything which occurred within his SERVANT MINISTRY was related to that baptism and only when he finally entered into death on the Cross was his SERVANT MINISTRY fulfilled.

While we may not be called to die for Christ, we are nevertheless to enter into everything the “baptism” of Jesus symbolizes for our SERVANT MINISTRY; as we are “baptized into Christ” we are immersed into this MINISTRY; ministry in which the Cross of Christ is always central and which is to become a part of our own Christian experience. “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20). Baptism symbolises crucifixion: a total participation in our Lord’s Cross where we are “crucified with Christ”.

Our “baptism” without the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit remains sacramentally inert. The imagery and symbolism of “baptism” will not be transformed into a living experience within us, until the Holy Spirit releases into our lives the eternal reality of the Cross. Our “baptism into Christ” is complete only when we are “baptized with the Holy Spirit”.

Water-baptism symbolizes SERVANT MINISTRY, Spirit-baptism actualizes it. When our Lord Jesus baptizes us with the Holy Spirit he immerses us into the experiential dimensions of SERVANT MINISTRY. Empowered by the Holy Spirit’s presence we enter into this MINISTRY knowing we are truly participating in Christ’s sufferings. The reality of the Cross becomes our conscious experience and its power within our own lives becomes the basis of our entire SERVANT MINISTRY.