I already began touching on this Sunday's Gospel here when I worked some with Sunday's Psalm. But talking with my friend, another fine pastor, had me stirring a few thoughts. Let me throw it out there for ya. As always, let me give you the text:
35 James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." 36 And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?" 37And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." 38 But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" 39 They replied, "We are able." Then Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; 40 but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." 41 When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. 42 So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 43 But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. 45 For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."
If before I talked about our desire for glory, I'm going to continue that. Mainly because my friend noted that two people do in fact get placed on Jesus' left and Jesus' right. I'm speaking of course about the cross. Where does our quest for glory really lead? To nails in the hand and feet, to slowly dying. Who wants to sign up for that? But again it shows that our quest for glory is not Christ's.
But I am particularly taken by a simple thought, and that is the comparison then of those who end up on Jesus' right and left to the request of James and John. And the different response. Here we turn particularly to the Gospel of Luke. I know the anti-harmonizers out there hate it when someone crosses Gospels, as if they cannot be in dialogue together because they were written by different authors, but I don't care. Start your own blog with a no-cross Gospel theology rule. Here in this blog scriptures, even different gospels, do speak to each other.
In Luke's crucifixion account, the thief beside him on the cross has his own request: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." The man, who is in the very place the disciples wanted to be (at Jesus side) is seeking not power but rescue. Jesus in turn gives him a promise that he will be at his side again - in paradise!
The comparison and dialogue then between the texts is that following Christ is not raising us to new heights, nor is it a reverse theology of glory that assumes we're supposed to put ourselves in new lows. It's about faithfully walking ahead, even when the road is to Jerusalem.
It is unclear if James and John believed they earned that place at Jesus' side (it certainly seems that is how the other disciples understood it), but what it clear is they wanted it at a specific moment - when he comes into glory. But what if the Gospel is not about getting a better lot in life - which is usually the problem with most Christian novels and films by the way - but instead is about discovering that in the hour of our death, the Savior is actually on the cross next to ours! The request to be remembered then is not the desire for the place of honor at the good part, but it is knowing where to put a desperate cry. It is instead to receive the one promise that can make one meet their cross with grace, and see in even the worst moments of this life that in fact life springs forth and God remembers and acts.
Baptism is this! It is facing our mortality and the death of the old creature that rebels, yet at the same time it is Christ beside us promising us the same passage into new life. Paul puts it this way when he says that we have been baptized into a death and resurrection like his. And here in Mark we see Jesus using the same term when he says you will be baptized with the same baptism. And like the disciples who want glory, we often don't want our baptism. We have it done (or it was done to us), but we rarely mark it unless we are honoring ourselves, and our decision to be baptized and give our life to God. Only when baptism is a step to glory it seems we want any claim to it. Yet what if that were the place we know that God was crucified beside us? What if there we received the words "you will be with me"? If discipleship is neither about attaining greater things or an escape from all the bad things in this world, but rather being able to continue on this walk of life, then baptism is a promise to use every day. So every day we not only face the death of sin, and live in the repentance and new life, but so that every day we see like the thief on the cross Christ beside us giving us a promise for the day events ahead just as he did to that thief. That is what he said to James and John, they would receive. A death. A day. And all the while. A promise.
Who needs the right and left seat in glory? We have Christ daily in baptism.
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