DAILY NEWS

SPEAKING TO THE SOUL

Mark 10:37-39a And they said to him, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” They replied, “We are able.” 

James and John want a piece of the glory Jesus will attain. They eagerly affirm willingness to endure the suffering and death awaiting Jesus, but without understanding that “the cup” and “the baptism” Jesus speaks of are the inevitable and necessary steps preceding glorification. The privileges and power James and John lust after will crush Jesus, but his death and resurrection will ultimately dismantle them.

“We are able,” is an assent to enter a deeper baptism than the one experienced in our infancy. It is a baptism that calls for us to completely renounce this world’s divisive and abusive forms of power and privilege and become vulnerable and powerless servants. As it did for Jesus, “We are able” may require suffering and physical death. May we seek to honor his boundary-breaking ministry by not only saying, “We are able,” but by becoming the disciples he has called us to be. 

MOVING FORWARD: How will you answer Jesus? Are you “able”?


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