Wednesday in the Second Week of Lent, February 28, 2024

Matthew 20, 17-28

As Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the Twelve disciples aside by themselves, and said to them on the way, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”  Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee approached Jesus with her sons and did him homage, wishing to ask him for something. He said to her, “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.” Jesus said in reply, “You do not know what you are asking. 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, but to sit at my right and at my left, this is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” When the ten heard this, they became indignant at the two brothers. But Jesus summoned them and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you. 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.”

“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”  We ought to try and imagine Jesus saying this to his Apostles, and them hearing this.  The way that the Lord phrases it, the reason they are going up to Jerusalem is so that this will happen.  He addresses only his Apostles, away from the crowd.  Does he do this at night as they are preparing to sleep out of doors?  It would seem so, for the road during the day is crowded with pilgrims either following him or making their own way to Jerusalem for the coming Passover: there would be little opportunity to speak privately to them then.  How would he speak to them?  Calmly, seriously, very deliberately, and without any hint of apprehension.  He would have taken care to speak slowly and clearly enough for all to hear him.  He looked them all in their eyes, and he let them see a glimpse of the commitment to redeeming us that filled his heart.  He had already told them, “The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men: And they shall kill him, and the third day he shall rise again” (Matthew 17, 21-22).  But now he tells them that the time had come.  In addition, he tells them who it is that will have him put to death: the chief priests and the scribes, the Jewish leaders.  These were the ones who should have recognized him as the Son of Man.  They were not the busybody Pharisees who buzzed around the towns of Galilee and Judea and ran their mouths.  These were the rulers over Israel, at least in the religious sense.  The expectation was that when the Son of Man, the Messiah, came, he would be recognized by the high priests, made King over Israel, and the revolt against the Romans would commence.  His rejection by the high priests, which the Lord was foretelling to them, made no sense.  His imminent Death made no sense.  This was not what the Pharisees had been telling them the Scriptures said since they were children.

The Twelve listened in silence and did not respond in words.  Some must have shaken their heads even as they were shaken to their cores by the Lord’s news.  One, though was affected by his words in a different way: Judas Iscariot.  One strange twist in the Lord’s words caught them, though.  Often before, when they thought they knew what he was saying, had figured out the message of a parable, the Lord threw some bit of detail in that changed the story or their perception of his teaching altogether.  He had said, at the end of his statement, “He will be raised on the third day.”  What did this mean?  Death, they understood.  But “he will be raised” was something new.  The Lord did not attempt to explain this to them either.  He tells them only what they needed to know.  We can compare his reserve to that of the Angel Gabriel’s Annunciation to the Virgin Mary.  She is told that a most stupendous, unprecedented wonder would occur within her, the Incarnation of the Son of God.  She is told what she needs to know regarding how it would happen — that her virginity would be preserved — and almost nothing more.  She is not told anything in regards to Joseph, how to prepare for his Birth, where the Child should be born, how to care for him, whether she might tell this news to anyone else.  The Angel waits to hear her consent and then he is gone.  It is the same with us.  God gives us only what we need to know at the time.  It never seems enough, and yet it is, so long as we are obedient.

“Command that these two sons of mine sit, one at your right and the other at your left, in your kingdom.”  The mother of the sons of Zebedee, whose name comes down to us as Salome, does not know what the Lord has told her sons.  She glows with confidence at the coming restoration of Israel and wants her sons to have a prominent place in it.  This is why he answers her as he does: “You do not know what you are asking.”  He does not explain  further.  But to James and John, the “sons of thunder”, he turns and asks, “Can you drink the chalice that I am going to drink?”  That is, Can you share in my destiny?  Having heard his declaration to them that he was going to Jerusalem to die at the hands of the Jewish officials, and not understanding what he meant by his being raised on the third day, they make a courageous answer: “We can.”  This too can be compared to the Virgin Mary’s consent.  Her love of God and fervent desire to serve him overrode any concerns she might have had for how she was to carry out her part in her Son’s life.  James and John so loved the Lord and were so zealous in his service and they, with Simon Peter, formed a special subset of the Apostles, did not fully understand to what they were consenting, but they knew they had to be with their Lord whatever it meant for them.

The other Apostles saw this as a ploy for power over them, for if they were to sit at the Lord’s sides, they would be understood as nearly his equals and they would have authority even over them.  Suddenly we are back in the realm of petty human rivalries and jealousies.  The Lord decisively makes it clear that inasmuch as they belong to him they must imitate him in their lives and no one else.  Their model was not to be drawn from the conquerors of the past but the One who would conquer sin for our eternal benefit.  “The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  

This is the “chalice” Jesus offers those who wish to reign with him, the cup of service, the chalice of obedience to the Father.  We drink his Blood with this chalice and so enter his life, in whatever form it may take for us.