Read: Mark 10:35-45
You’re probably familiar with the EZ Pass lanes on many of our turnpikes. You sign up and are given a little gizmo to put in your car. It lets you cruise through the toll booths without having to stop. Many of us are looking for an EZ Pass in our spiritual lives, an easy way to the front of the line, a quick way to success and glory.
That certainly includes James and John. They didn’t know the specifics of EZ Pass. But they certainly knew the concept. All they were asking for was front-row seats in God’s kingdom. And they saw Jesus as their EZ Pass to those seats.
Mark tells us this about James and John because he knows that you and I are prone to the same desires. We’d all like to have privilege and status if we could get it. Especially if it was just handed to us. We want a Jesus who will give us what we want, a Savior who can make us better than we are, without too much effort on our part.
It’s a theme that runs through Christianity today. We believe that Jesus Christ is the answer, but the answer that benefits us. We’re guilty of selling our faith to others just that way, of trying to win people to Christ by listing all the benefits of following him, without mentioning the duties that come with it.
Let’s see what Mark has to say about that. First of all, Mark wants to reach people with the message of Christ. His gospel begins: "Here is the good news of Jesus Christ." And yet in that good news, Mark has very little to say about our needs, our desires, our difficulties. Mark mainly just talks about Jesus as a fairly demanding Lord.
Take today's scripture. As the disciples walk along with Jesus, two of them say: "Lord, grant us to sit at your right and your left when you come into your kingdom." In human terms, it’s an understandable request. After all, they’ve left everything and followed Jesus. It wasn’t an easy life, so why shouldn’t they benefit?
Jesus’ reply is to tell them they don’t know what they’re asking. Can they drink the cup he will drink, or be baptized with the same baptism? They don’t yet understand that Jesus must die on a cross. The "cup" that Jesus is to drink isn’t the sweet wine of success in this world. The "baptism" that he speaks of involves the horrors of crucifixion.
The disciples show that they are clueless when they respond, in effect, "Sure! We can do that! We are able to drink your cup and be baptized with your baptism! No problem!" They fail to see that Jesus doesn’t promise his disciples immediate glory. He offers them the chance to share with him in his sufferings and challenges, to take up their own crosses and follow him.
This is the message that we are reluctant to proclaim to the world today, possibly because we haven’t fully heard it ourselves. Jesus is not a way of getting what we want out of God. Jesus is God's way of getting what he wants out of us. And that is a world redeemed, restored to God, achieved through ordinary people like us, people who are willing to walk like Jesus, talk like Jesus, and even suffer like Jesus.
James and John were bold when they came forward to make their request of Jesus: “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” The irony is that Jesus had been trying to instill in them, and is still trying to put in our hearts, just the opposite attitude.
The question we should ask is not, “Teacher, what will you do for us?”, but “Teacher, what do you ask of us?”