Thomas remembers:

I still can’t believe the bare-faced cheek of it!  Those two boys – who would credit it?  Okay, so some say their mum put them up to it (and they might be right; she has always been ambitious for her sons). But that’s no excuse, really. They are old enough to think for themselves.

And just what were they thinking?!  Perhaps all our minds have gone along the same lines at some time or another (which could explain why we were so angry when he heard what they had asked for) but how could they ask for such a thing now, of all times?  After all he has been saying, and in fact, just spelled out to us again only an hour or two ago?  The more I think about it, the more obscene their request becomes.  What on earth came over them? What were they thinking?!

I don’t know who it was who heard what they had said first.  Like the others, I had seen James and John draw Jesus aside. They were obviously in earnest conversation with him, but who could have guessed that it was this they were asking; for a seat next to him when he came into his Kingdom, one on his right and the other on his left. 

 What cheek!  And where did that leave the rest of us?  And what right did they think they had to usurp us like that?  Perhaps there are some of us better qualified or more deserving?  Maybe we had all hoped for but never dared ask for the same thing, but their manoeuvring and grabbing for power felt like a stab in the back. It was a betrayal. They wanted one up on us, and when we found out we were livid! We rose with a united voice of disbelief and fury.  Each one of us was at first dumfounded, then fuming with indignation.

No wonder Jesus had to step in and calm us down.  He knew that what the brothers had asked for, we each longed for secretly.  So, we all had to hear his answer. We had to learn to understand that this was not the way of his kingdom. For some time, we had been trying to get our heads round the fact that Jesus really was talking about turning the world upside down.  Actually, as he saw it, he was really aiming to turn the world the right way up again.  Either way, we had to get used to thinking about things completely differently.  That is never easy, so Jesus took this opportunity to set things out plainly and underline them once again.

‘That is not the way it is in my kingdom’, he told us.  ‘In this world, as you know, the rulers lord it over you – they use their position to demand privilege and power.  They expect lesser mortals to bow to them and serve them. It is just the way it is.  But not in my kingdom!

“Where I rule among you, it just cannot be like that.  I say, if you want to be great then you must be the greatest servant.  And if you want to go further and be the No. 1 man, then actually you must become the slave of everyone. My rule involves a totally different way of being great.

“Learn from me; I don’t boss you around, do I?  And I didn’t come to be served by you or anyone;  I came to serve and to give my life for you, like a ransom paid to buy you out of slavery, so that you can be free. 

‘Soon you will see what this means.  You will see the fearful cup that I must drink and the bloody baptism I must undertake.  And, believe me, it is not at all going to be what you think and expect.  Just the opposite, I suspect.’

It was then that I remembered what Jesus had told us earlier in the day about what would happen to him. He was repeating words he had said before, that day at Caesarea Philippi. They were not words I found easy to take in and digest. For my mind, how could the Messiah, God’s promised and anointed one, ever suffer and be condemned?  How could he ever be handed over to the gentiles and mocked and abused, spat on and killed?   That just could not happen!  It made no sense at all!  How on earth was that ever going to save us and restore Israel to power as we all knew the Messiah would?  

As far as I was concerned, Jesus was talking nonsense. He’d got things all muddled and the wrong way round. But, still, he was heading for Jerusalem with such a firm resolution. The rest of us felt such a dark foreboding. Many who had followed quaked with fear and quit.

“God forbid that this should happen to you!”, Peter had spoken for us all.

“But this must happen!” Jesus insisted. “I must face this. It is the Father’s way.

“If I am to be lifted above you, it is in quite a different way to what you expect. If I am to wear a crown, it will be a very different kind of crown. Just you wait and see.  And when you see it, then perhaps you’ll understand and remember all you have heard me say today.”

Looking back and thinking it over, James’ and John’s ambition seems even more outrageous and obscene in the light of what Jesus had said already. But at least they had the guts to take the step and ask the question, believing that Jesus is about to come into his kingdom.  As for me, I hope it is true.  I see he is determined to see this through. Without doubt, He is headed for a showdown of some kind in Jerusalem.  But I am afraid.  I dread to think what the ransom price he must pay will be.

It is not a cup I‘d ask for, nor a baptism I’d be in a hurry to request but, if it really is what he says it will be, then I am prepared to go to Jerusalem and die with him. 

scroll down for earlier posts