On the Way to Jerusalem

171:0.1The day af­ter the mem­o­rable ser­mon on “The King­dom of Heaven,” Je­sus an­nounced that on the fol­low­ing day he and the apos­tles would de­part for the Pass­over at Je­ru­sa­lem, vis­it­ing nu­mer­ous cities in south­ern Perea on the way.

171:0.2The ad­dress on the king­dom and the an­nounce­ment that he was go­ing to the Pass­over set all his fol­low­ers to think­ing that he was go­ing up to Je­ru­sa­lem to in­au­gu­rate the tem­po­ral king­dom of Jew­ish su­prem­acy. No mat­ter what Je­sus said about the non­ma­te­rial char­ac­ter of the king­dom, he could not wholly re­move from the minds of his Jew­ish hear­ers the idea that the Mes­siah was to es­tab­lish some kind of na­tion­al­is­tic gov­ern­ment with head­quar­ters at Je­ru­sa­lem.

171:0.3What Je­sus said in his Sab­bath ser­mon only tended to con­fuse the ma­jor­ity of his fol­low­ers; very few were en­light­ened by the Mas­ter’s dis­course. The lead­ers un­der­stood some­thing of his teach­ings re­gard­ing the in­ner king­dom, “the king­dom of heaven within you,” but they also knew that he had spo­ken about an­other and fu­ture king­dom, and it was this king­dom they be­lieved he was now go­ing up to Je­ru­sa­lem to es­tab­lish. When they were dis­ap­pointed in this ex­pec­ta­tion, when he was re­jected by the Jews, and later on, when Je­ru­sa­lem was lit­er­ally de­stroyed, they still clung to this hope, sin­cerely be­liev­ing that the Mas­ter would soon re­turn to the world in great power and ma­jes­tic glory to es­tab­lish the prom­ised king­dom.

171:0.4It was on this Sun­day af­ter­noon that Sa­lome the mother of James and John Zeb­e­dee came to Je­sus with her two apos­tle sons and, in the man­ner of ap­proach­ing an Ori­en­tal po­ten­tate, sought to have Je­sus prom­ise in ad­vance to grant what­ever re­quest she might make. But the Mas­ter would not prom­ise; in­stead, he asked her, “What do you want me to do for you?” Then an­swered Sa­lome: “Mas­ter, now that you are go­ing up to Je­ru­sa­lem to es­tab­lish the king­dom, I would ask you in ad­vance to prom­ise me that these my sons shall have honor with you, the one to sit on your right hand and the other to sit on your left hand in your king­dom.”

171:0.5When Je­sus heard Sa­lome’s re­quest, he said: “Woman, you know not what you ask.” And then, look­ing straight into the eyes of the two honor-seek­ing apos­tles, he said: “Be­cause I have long known and loved you; be­cause I have even lived in your mother’s house; be­cause An­drew has as­signed you to be with me at all times; there­fore do you per­mit your mother to come to me se­cretly, mak­ing this un­seemly re­quest. But let me ask you: Are you able to drink the cup I am about to drink?” And with­out a mo­ment for thought, James and John an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, we are able.” Said Je­sus: “I am sad­dened that you know not why we go up to Je­ru­sa­lem; I am grieved that you un­der­stand not the na­ture of my king­dom; I am dis­ap­pointed that you bring your mother to make this re­quest of me; but I know you love me in your hearts; there­fore I de­clare that you shall in­deed drink of my cup of bit­ter­ness and share in my hu­mil­i­a­tion, but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give. Such hon­ors are re­served for those who have been des­ig­nated by my Fa­ther.”

171:0.6By this time some­one had car­ried word of this con­fer­ence to Pe­ter and the other apos­tles, and they were highly in­dig­nant that James and John would seek to be pre­ferred be­fore them, and that they would se­cretly go with their mother to make such a re­quest. When they fell to ar­gu­ing among them­selves, Je­sus called them all to­gether and said: “You well un­der­stand how the rulers of the gen­tiles lord it over their sub­jects, and how those who are great ex­er­cise au­thor­ity. But it shall not be so in the king­dom of heaven. Whoso­ever would be great among you, let him first be­come your ser­vant. He who would be first in the king­dom, let him be­come your min­is­ter. I de­clare to you that the Son of Man came not to be min­is­tered to but to min­is­ter; and I now go up to Je­ru­sa­lem to lay down my life in the do­ing of the Fa­ther’s will and in the ser­vice of my breth­ren.” When the apos­tles heard these words, they with­drew by them­selves to pray. That evening, in re­sponse to the labors of Pe­ter, James and John made suit­able apolo­gies to the ten and were re­stored to the good graces of their breth­ren.

171:0.7In ask­ing for places on the right hand and on the left hand of Je­sus at Je­ru­sa­lem, the sons of Zeb­e­dee lit­tle re­al­ized that in less than one month their beloved teacher would be hang­ing on a Ro­man cross with a dy­ing thief on one side and an­other trans­gres­sor on the other side. And their mother, who was pres­ent at the cru­ci­fix­ion, well re­mem­bered the fool­ish re­quest she had made of Je­sus at Pella re­gard­ing the hon­ors she so un­wisely sought for her apos­tle sons.