"What do you wish?"
She answered him,
"Command that these two sons of mine sit,
one at your right and the other at your left, in your Kingdom."
The third prediction of the Passion of Jesus caused James, John, and their mother to apparently engage in damage control. They didn't want to deal with the fact that Jesus said who was going to die. What could that mean but the end of his whole project and mission? They knew, and knew correctly, that Jesus was the Messiah, meant to be the true king of Israel. But how could his death possibly square with this destiny? It almost seemed as though they put on blinders so as to focus on the royal throne rather than acknowledge the barren cross. How else could they make this request immediately on the heels of a prediction of his Passion?
Jesus said in reply,
"You do not know what you are asking.
The request of the sons of Zebedee contained a good impulse in that their faith in Jesus did not allow them to entertain the possibility that he would not eventually achieve his messianic destiny. But it was limited in that both the way by which he would achieve it and the way that he would conduct his eventual reign would be quite different from earthly models. He was more than King David, greater than Solomon, and his Kingdom was more (though not less) than the unified Israel they had governed.
Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?"
They said to him, "We can."
He replied,
"My chalice you will indeed drink,
Jesus did want to give royal responsibility to his disciples. But the only way to achieve these positions was to share in the self-offering of Jesus himself. The positions of honor in his Kingdom were not those from which they would lord it over others. Rather, they were the positions were the greater service, sacrifice, and self-gift was required.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.
Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
James and John and the others needed to learn the lesson that no slave was greater than his master, first by actually accepting what that master said about his own cross, and then by sharing it. The fact that the master himself chose the cross for the sake of all was meant to reveal the absurdity in the posturing for worldly position that all of the disciples seemed to indulge. Rather than the cross provoking them to figure out what they could still salvage for themselves it was meant to draw them to desire to give themselves together with Jesus.
We hold this treasure in earthen vessels,
that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.
To be fair to the disciples they were being called to something that was beyond merely human capabilities or natural powers. They thought they had to adorn their earth vessels to the maximum in order to outshine all others. But what actually mattered was what they allowed to fill those vessels. And that was meant to be from God. Jesus revealed how a life entirely directed by the Spirit of God was to be lived. His disciples were then meant to share in that Spirit.
Since, then, we have the same spirit of faith,
according to what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke,
we too believe and therefore speak,
knowing that the one who raised the Lord Jesus
will raise us also with Jesus
and place us with you in his presence.
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