Another book I don’t get to often enough. In these verses from Mark 10 we encounter a human trait that requires Godly guidance. Ambition that is driven by the possibility of personal gratification and reward will find no place in the Kingdom of God or in the earthly works of God’s people. We pick up here on a difference we find in Matthew’s account that tells us something about Mark.

Matthew writes that Jame’s and John’s request to sit on the left and right of Christ on his throne was not made by them. It was requested by their mother Salome. Most likely Matthew thought that such a request was inappropriate for an apostle and to save their reputations he attributed such ambition to their mother. From this story we are shown the honesty of Mark. No need to but I will point out that it did not go over well with the rest of the disciples. We sometimes forget that these were not a company of saints, they were ordinary men that had set out to do quite an unordinary thing…change the world…and they did. But we just can’t leave this hanging…they were, John and James, both ambitious.They knew well the task ahead of them and they were confidante of victory and their intentions were to be Jesus’ chief ministers of state. We have wrote these were ordinary men, so perhaps they were reading something more into what might lie ahead because it is fact that Jesus often included them in his inner circle of three. There are a couple of other reasons for their behavior but their ambitious approach to Jesus still reminds us of earthly failings we all succumb to. Now that other stumbling block. They had by now walked and been with Jesus for a bit now and they still could not completely rid their minds of the idea of a Messiah of earthly power and glory. As we read on there is still the wonder of their faith…Confused  as they might be, they still believed in Jesus. 

We should always be aware that Jesus never left any doubt in the minds of his followers. Instead of rebuking them he ask them a question…‘Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?’ Here it is important to realize what type of baptism Jesus is speaking of. This was not what we picture baptism to be. Jesus is saying is, ‘Can you bear to go through the terrible experience which I have to go through? Can you face being submerged in hatred and pain and death, as I have to be?’ They would in the future experience just that but at that time I don’t think they knew what they were saying yes to. So…what do we take away from these verses? All Things are of God and the final disposition of such an issue was God’s prerogative. With Jesus it was always the ‘will of my Father’. Jesus spent his earthly life in total submission to God’s will and he knew in the end that will was supreme.

Life is Good

jk