Screeech!

[Note: I am reading through the Bible in 2026 and blogging each day on one of the passages I’ve read. These won’t be “perfect” posts, but this exersize helps me think though and apply some portion of scripture to my life each day.]

I’m not in the mood to write today. But I made a commitment. Just being honest here. So, now I am going to pick up my One Year Bible and see what of all I read earlier today I want to blog about. Here goes…

I had to laugh when I saw two passages juxtaposed next to one another. First, there’s this:

And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.” Matthew 20:17-19

Pretty sad news, even if the disciples didn’t quite understand. And then there’s this – the next paragraph:

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” …And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. Matthew 20:20-21, 24

Screeech!

Those two paragraphs right next to each other… Now that’s a show stopper.

I can’t imagine that the Zebedee boys’ mom heard what Jesus has just said (about his death), or would she have ever asked for such a favor? Bad timing to say the least!

But can you imagine the cognitive dissonance for Jesus?

Maybe these two incidents happened at different times. If that’s the case, then Matthew likely arranged them right next to each other to highlight the fact that the disciples and Jesus were living in two different realities. Way different realities (sound familiar today?!).

Here Jesus (for the third time in the Gospel of Matthew) is telling his friends he will soon die.

And they are preoccupied with who gets more power, who gets the best seat at the table.

Ugh. If I were Jesus, I can’t tell you how put out I would have been! Seriously, people?

So what does this have to do with me? I would like to think I’d do better than James and John Zebedee. Or their mother. But would I?

These guys (the disciples) were so sure that Jesus came to throw off the Roman yoke and become Israel’s new king, that they somehow couldn’t hear the warnings of his death. It made no sense. (By the way, The Chosen does a great job of showing how hard it was for them to “get” that he would die). I imagine the disciples all wanted to be big deals in this new kingdom, at some level desired power, but the Zebedees and their mom were the only ones with the guts to ask for it!

I am ashamed to admit that I am like these guys. I want something outside of me (seats on the right and left of Jesus) to help me feel like I am worthwhile. I am SO TIRED that this is the case. But it is. Peoples’ opinions determine how I feel about myself. I am so self-preoccupied at times that if Jesus were here today telling me he was going to the Cross, I might not hear it either.

Oh, what’s the solution? I think Jesus gives it in the next verses:

Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Matthew 20:25-28

He stops the disciples up short and tells them to seek service, not power. He uses Himself as an example. And then he returns to his death, only this time, he talks about its purpose: to be a ransom for many. He would purchase many back from the consequences of sin by His death.

I imagine the disciples were still lost about the “giving his life” and “ranson” part of what Jesus said. But they couldn’t miss the serve like I’ve served part. Because they had seen him serve over and over again. He’d served them. He’d served the people he healed.

As I pontificate (I guess I was in the mood to write, after all), I have to come back to myself. What’s the solution to my need to be recognized by others? By the fact that others’ opinions weigh too heavily in my own self-evaluation?

I think the solution is not just that I need to serve others.

I think there’s a bigger solution: to remember that Jesus came to serve me. Not to judge me. But to serve me. To the point of death.

Dear Lord: I am so frustrated that I am like the Zebedee boys, wanting to be recognized, but more than that, measuring myself by others’ opinions. Yuch. I want the fact that you came to SERVE me, that You loved me that much, to be what controls my view of me. I just don’t know how to get there. Help. Amen.