On their way to Jerusalem, there are several clashes between Jesus and his disciples in Mark’s Gospel. There is one in today’s Gospel today, too. Jesus is going to his death, to his crucifixion. After spending several years with him, the disciples clearly are on different wavelengths. The questions they ask each other are so different. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, ask Jesus for very worldly, human things – privilege and power, for honour and status: they want to sit, one at his right hand and one at his left, in his glory.
What does he ask of them? To concentrate on experiences of serving, of suffering, the very kind that he must face. He asks them: “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” He was referring to the cup of suffering and a baptism of fire. By their questions, James and John showed their interest in promoting themselves. Instead, the question of Jesus showed his interest in giving of himself. At the very heart of being a disciple of Jesus there is this kind of selfless love, of service, of becoming servant of others.
Just as Jesus knew from his own experience, we, too, know only too well from the experiences of our own lives that choosing this kind of love often mean taking the way of the cross, the road less travelled. And he embraced it, and came out the other side with renewed life. James and John – and certainly all of us – are being called daily to follow the one who did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life … the one whose purpose in life was not to promote himself, or to puff himself up with pride for his accomplishments, but to empty himself for others. And in being emptied in serving others, continually being replenished. So, who am I being called to serve today? Whom am I being invited to promote today? Who needs my words of encouragement and praise today? In following this way, we encounter the one who is the Way, the Truth and the Life..