Mark
10:35-45
“Are you able to
drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism
that I am baptized with?”
(Mark 10:38b)
James and John, also known as “Sons of Thunder,”
created quite a storm among their friends when they asked Jesus for preferential
treatment. Seems they wanted to have special places of prominence
in what they perceived to be Jesus’ coming kingdom. Actually, their discussion
with Jesus was more demand than request. The Common English Bible
translates the beginning of this conversation, “Teacher, we want
you to do for us whatever we ask.” We have little background from
which to discern the character of these brothers, but their audacity strikes us
in much the same way as it did their fellow
disciples.
Jesus, as he is known to do, calmed this storm by
bringing the brothers and their friends back to the reality of what he and they
were to be about. The question he asked in Matthew 10:38, though taken lightly
by James and John, led Jesus to affirm what they would soon become in his
kingdom…servants.
The words of Jesus still speak to sons and
daughters of thunder today; “whoever wishes to become great among
you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you
must be slave of all.”
Prayer: Help us, Lord, to drink once more from the cup of
humility and be immersed yet again in the servant waters of discipleship.
Amen.
Jim Abernathy
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