Two Proud Men

The Lord’s Day Evening

June 28, 2009

Mark 10:35-45

“Encounters with Jesus:

Two Proud Men”

The Reverend Mr. Jeremy H. Smith

Turn with me, if you would, in your Bibles to the tenth chapter of the Gospel of Mark, and we will pick up our reading in the thirty-fifth verse. Before we read this passage, let’s look to the Lord in prayer.

Our heavenly Father, this is Your word. It is a lamp to our feet, a light to our path. There is nothing impure, there is nothing untrue, there is nothing in Your word which we do not need. So we ask that as we read it, as we consider it, that You would use it: use it to convict; use it to build up; and, use it to assure us. We ask these things in Christ’s name. Amen.

Mark 10, beginning at verse 35:

“And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came up to Him and said to Him, ‘Teacher, we want You to do for us whatever we ask of You.’ And He said to them, ‘What do you want Me to do for you?’ And they said to Him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at Your right hand and one at Your left, in Your glory.’ Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?’ And they said to Him, ‘We are able.’ And Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized, but to sit at My right hand or at My left is not Mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’ And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. And Jesus called them to Him and said to them, ‘You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But 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 slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.’”

Amen. Thus far the very words of our God.

Just one word by way of introduction. This is one of those passages which, if you compare it to the parallel account (in this case found in Matthew 20), becomes an occasion for critics of the Bible to use it as a way of saying that the Bible contains errors. Now this account that we just read tells us that James and John come and make this request to Jesus. If you were to flip back to Matthew 20, you would find that there Matthew tells us that it’s their mother who actually makes this request of Jesus. And there are those who would take such a parallel account and say, ‘Well, here is proof positive that the Bible contains errors. They might be minor errors; we might be able to trust it on the whole, but in several of its parts there are discrepancies and errors, and we’ll just agree to overlook those things.’ Well, what do we do with that?

First, we could say that’s certainly not what the Bible thinks about itself. If you were to ask Paul or if you were to ask Peter – quite frankly, if you were to ask Jesus – they would tell you something very different about what the Bible is. It is not a book that is correct on the whole but in error as to its occasional part, but the Bible uniformly tells us that it is God’s word to us. It is inspired by Him. And if we take the Bible seriously about what it teaches about itself, then actually these two passages don’t give us any trouble whatsoever. You have to be pretty skeptical for this to really trip you up.

How could we answer that charge? Well, in one of several different ways. It may be that their mother was standing behind this request. They had a conversation about it…she said You ought to go and ask Jesus about this request. And so she is standing behind that request. Though it comes from their mouth, she is in fact pulling the strings, as it were, on her sons, in which case Matthew could be pointing us to that. Or it could be the opposite. James and John may have had this idea first, but they didn’t want to make the request of Jesus themselves and so they employed their mother...perhaps it would be more favorable to receive this request from her…in which case Mark could be telling us that James and John were really the ones asking this question. Of course, it also may very well be that both are true. We have about 45 seconds worth of this conversation; surely this could have gone on for several minutes, or any number of minutes, at which point both James and John and their mother could have made the request. There’s really no discrepancy or tension between this, but you may have a little note in your Bible that points you to Matthew 20, and you may have gone to look at that. And so just to be sure that we’re all on the same page, I say that by way of introduction.

But since our passage is focused on James and John, that’s where I’ll focus our attention tonight. To do that I want to consider a couple of things, because I think we have several things to learn from this passage: first, by looking at the request itself, and then in the second place by looking at what Jesus has to say about the kingdom of God.

1. The request and the kingdom – what do we make of this request? The disciples are traveling with Jesus. They are on their way to Jerusalem. Both Matthew and Mark record as one of the next events the triumphal entry which begins the week which will include His death on a Friday and His resurrection on a Sunday. Jesus is on His way to fulfill His purpose. He is making His way to Jerusalem. They will stop by Jericho on the way, but we are days away from the final week of Jesus’ life and ministry here on earth. And as they are making their way, James and John (who apparently have been having this conversation…you can imagine them around the dinner table with their mother saying, ‘Here are some thoughts that we’ve been having,’ and they’ve been encouraging one another)... ‘We ought to make this request known to Jesus, and now is the time to do it. We are on our way to Jerusalem; we ought to ask now.’ And so they get the occasion. They pull Jesus aside, or perhaps they approach Him while He is alone, and they come with this request. They say, first of all, ‘Master, would You give to us whatever we ask You, but we’re not going to tell You up front what that is.’ It’s kind of a juvenile request to begin with. And Jesus says, ‘Now what is it that you want?’ And they say, ‘We would like to sit at Your right hand and at Your left hand in glory.’

Now when we hear that language of “sitting at Your right hand or Your left hand in glory” probably our minds immediately turn to heaven, to the new heavens and the new earth, to eternity…that this would take place in heaven, as it were. But that’s probably not what is in John and James’ minds. They probably are not asking that in the life to come they receive this honor. They are still operating under some very faulty assumptions about what Jesus has come to do, and especially the nature of His kingdom. They’re on their way to Jerusalem, and they know something big is about to happen in Jerusalem. They’ve been hearing Jesus teach about this kingdom. They’ve heard Him say time and time again that part of His work is going to entail dying, but they have been unable to come to grips with that, to understand it, to really assimilate that. They’ve been hearing Him speak about the institution of His kingdom. As they head up to Jerusalem, surely in their minds they would have been thinking, ‘Perhaps now Jesus will bring the kingdom – bring the kingdom here on earth that this Son of David, this royal line of King Jesus will reign in earthly Jerusalem. He will put an end to our misery; He will re-establish the glory days of Israel; He will defeat the Romans; He will put all that is wrong back to right.’ That’s probably what’s going on in their minds as they make their way up to Jerusalem, that now as Jesus establishes His earthly kingdom they might receive the honor of sitting to His right and to His left. And it’s an astonishing thing for them to say!

In 1969, Joe Namath famously predicted the outcome of a very important (at least in football circles)…very important game…what would be known as a third Super Bowl. His team, the Jets, were decided underdogs in that contest. They were going up against the world champion Baltimore Colts, and when asked about the outcome of this game (of which no one gave them a chance), Joe Namath famously declared, “I guarantee a victory.” It was an outlandish thing for him to claim, although as it turned out they did win, completing one of the great upsets in professional football history. It was an outlandish claim for Joe Namath to make.

This was by far a more outlandish thing to ask.

These are humble men on the way up to Jerusalem. Jesus is a 33-year-old pauper. He has at times received accolades, He’s been popular, but that popularity among His kinfolk has been in decline for some time. He’s at decided odds with the religious leaders who are in control of the religious institutions in Jerusalem. He surely is gathering no army which would be able to defeat Rome. Israel had never been much more than a mild annoyance to Rome at times, never really threatening to secede from the empire. For John and James to come and make this request to sit in honor at this kingdom (which from all outward experiences doesn’t seem like it’s going to be able to be inaugurated) is on their part a tremendous exercise of faith. They trust Jesus. Now they are misguided, to be sure; but we can commend them for their faith. We could say more about this request, to be sure. It’s a request for special honor. They want to sit next to Jesus when He’s sitting on the throne. They want to be one to the right and one to the left. They want to be next to power. They want to be next to the decision-maker. You have seen those who have hitched their wagons to a shooting star, and they have sought to bask in the reflected glory of one who is making a name for himself. That seems to be part of what James and John are asking – to sit near to the decision-maker, Jesus, in this kingdom in Jerusalem.

They’re asking for even more. They’re asking for status, for some privilege, for recognition in this kingdom. Not only do they want to be near to the decision-maker, they themselves want to enjoy some of the privileges of that power.

What in the world would have led them to believe they could make such a request? I think there were probably several factors that went into their discussion. They were talking about this with themselves: ‘Don’t you think this would be a good idea, John, for us to ask for the seats at the right and the left?’ Well, what reasons would they have piled on? They would have pointed out the fact that they were part of the twelve. They had been with Jesus for several years now. They had been listening to Jesus. They had been following Jesus. They had been receiving His instruction. They had been even working miracles in His name. If Jesus was going to have a vice-king or if Jesus was going to have governors, surely those positions would be occupied by one of the twelve who have been with him.

But even more, James and John were part of that inner three. We often find Peter, James, and John near to Jesus. They will witness some of the miracles that the other disciples do not. They will see the transfiguration. John himself will be referred to as the disciple whom Jesus especially loved, and it will be given to John to care for His mother as He’s hanging on the cross. Jesus and John were very, very close. Maybe John was His best friend in His life. And so as they’re weighing these things, they’re thinking of their place within the twelve and within the three, it may also even be that James and John were related to Jesus by their mother. Their mother very well may have been Mary’s sister, so that they were first cousins. And we understand how family is, right? We understand that special privilege would come by family connection, and so that might have been playing into their thinking as they make this request for special privilege and honor.

But whatever would have factored into their thinking, this is a request born out of self-interest. It is a request born out of pride. Who will be the greatest? In that sense, it’s part of an ongoing conversation the disciples have been having with themselves. Just a couple of chapters ago, John recorded for us an argument that broke out among the disciples. They were debating the very important question, ‘Who is the greatest?’ In fact, Jesus interrupted. It is as if Jesus walked into the room and they stopped talking, and He said, ‘All right, guys, what were you talking about?’ And they look at the floor in embarrassment and say, ‘Well, Jesus, we were debating which one of us was the most important.’ That’s already happened, and I think this is a continuation of that. In a couple of days, in a week or so time, they’ll be in an upper room, and not one of them will want to serve the others by washing the feet. And it will be Jesus who washes the feet of the disciples. They were having this ongoing debate about who was the greatest, who deserved privilege and honor – all born out of a question, a desire, self-interest and pride.

The other ten disciples hear what they have asked, and they become indignant and start talking among themselves: ‘Who do James and John think they are? How could they ask this of Jesus? How could they go behind our backs and make this request for the special place? Why them and not us? Why should they get to sit…? I’ve had just as much ministry in this band of twelve as those two have. Maybe Judas piped in, ‘Jesus trusted me with the money; why shouldn’t I have that spot?’’

And as we examine the indignation from the other ten, we see that pride and self-interest is an all-pervasive problem. Not only has it motivated James and John to make this request for special privilege, it’s moved the other ten to be indignant for what they have done. You don’t get the sense that they are upset because some principle of righteousness has been violated, because James and John have stepped ahead of them and perhaps occupied a position which they wanted.

Pride is…well, it’s everywhere, isn’t it? It’s everywhere.

For a year or so I lived on the Gulf coast in Florida. One of the things you learn from living on the Gulf coast in Florida is that sand is everywhere. It’s there when you go to the beach, and then no matter how much you brush it off or try to wash it off, it gets in the car. Every time I would sweep the kitchen I would find a pile of sand as the result, and not infrequently when I would crawl into bed I would reach my legs down there and feel the grittiness of sand! I had not been to the beach. I don’t know where it came from. But when you live on the Gulf coast, sand is everywhere. Oftentimes you don’t even notice it. You don’t even notice the sand necessarily at the beach, but you do notice it when it gets in your bed! [Laughter.]

Pride is kind of like that. Pride is so pervasive we hardly even notice it. But when we do notice it, it is an ugly and abrasive thing that motivates us to do all sorts of things…at the end of the day, to serve ourselves. And I can tell you, there is no tyrant greater than you are to yourself, seeking to serve and to further your own cause; there is no despot, there is no government, there is nothing in this world that can bring tyranny on you like you can in trying to serve yourself. Such is the nature of pride in our lives.

But Jesus has such a kind response to them. Well, it’s hard, but it’s kind. It reminds us again of the passage we read from Isaiah 42, that not a – I think it renders it a smoldering wick (ESV) that Jesus would not snuff out, and not a bruised reed would He break. They’d made this terribly conceited request, and Jesus’ response is…well, it’s hard, but it’s kind. He does say to them, ‘You don’t know what you are asking for. You’ve asked for this seat of privilege, but you do not understand the things that are entailed in that request.’ He says, ‘Listen, James and John. Do you think that you can drink the cup that I’m going to drink, and be baptized with the baptism with which I am going to be baptized?’ That’s the question that He asks, and I think we understand the metaphors pretty well. Jesus will employ that cup metaphor again in the garden of Gethsemane when He asks that ‘this cup be taken away from Me, but not My will, but Your will.’ The cup metaphor…to be able to go into the experience by drinking it, by taking it in. That’s what Jesus means by “the cup.”

Commentators are divided on what exactly He means in the metaphor. Does He mean something of inauguration? When we baptize someone in this church, we are bringing them into the covenant community, bringing them into the fellowship of this church. We are (they are) being inaugurated into that relationship. Is that what Jesus is saying, that there’s some sort of inauguration into His suffering, or is it that they would be covered into the suffering? Either way you come out on that question, the point is clear: Jesus is saying, ‘You don’t understand what you’re asking, what you’re asking to take part in, to participate, to follow along in My suffering.’ James and John are like so many of us. They want the glory without the suffering. They want the glory without the pain, but that’s never the way of the cross, is it? Jesus would descend from heaven, be humiliated in His life, and go to the cross. You remember very early on in Jesus’ ministry that Satan would come and tempt Him by saying, ‘You can receive the kingdoms without going to the cross.’ Well, that’s what James and John are looking for. They want the glory, but they don’t want the way of the cross.

And their response is breath-taking. He says, ‘Do you think you can drink that cup?’ And they say, ‘We are able. Yes, we can do that. Yes, we will follow along.’ Do they completely understand what Jesus is saying? Probably not. But He does make it clear: “You will indeed drink from the same cup which I drink, and you will be baptized with the same baptism with which I am baptized.” James will be the first disciple killed. It will happen maybe ten years or so into the future from this. Herod will put him to death. And John, although he probably wasn’t martyred, certainly endured suffering. He endured imprisonment, beatings, and even exile in later life. Yes, both James and John would drink from the cup which Jesus drinks.

And so in the request we see something of a pair of proud disciples, taking Jesus as a means to obtain a promise.

2. But there’s a second thing I want us to see, and that has to do with Jesus’ words about the kingdom. In the first place, we have a second lesson from Jesus’ response. Look again at verse 37-38:

“James and John said to Him, ‘Grant to us to sit, one at Your right hand and one at your left, in Your glory.’ Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?’”

And on and on and on, it says.

Interestingly enough, when John and James ask, 'We would like the positions of honor in the kingdom,' it’s interesting to see what Jesus doesn’t tell them. Maybe we expect Jesus to say, ‘James and John, you completely misunderstood the kingdom. There are no such things as places of honor within the kingdom. There is no right hand and there is no left hand. Equality reigns in the experience of everyone in heaven.’ That might be what we expected Jesus to say, but that’s absolutely not what He says. In fact, that’s not what Jesus says ever when He speaks about the kingdom of heaven. That’s not what the Bible teaches with respect to the kingdom of heaven. The Bible never affirms that the experiences of heaven are uniform. It doesn’t tell us that. In fact, the Bible over and over again will say to us that there are ramifications, there are implications, there are results of the things that go on in this life in eternity. The Bible will speak about rewards…rewards in heaven. Now we can stop and say these rewards are not the things that we earn, as if we can put God into our debt by the way we live; that all of these things are by grace. And yet, the Bible continues to hold out the promise of rewards based on things that happen in this life. We might say very clearly that Jesus here in this passage is linking the places of honor with suffering. When they say, ‘We want to sit at Your right hand and Your left hand,’ He says, ‘Do you understand what you are asking? Because the places at My right hand and My left hand are tied to the notion of suffering and persecution.’

Now to those of us sitting in this congregation in Jackson, Mississippi, that’s a million miles away from our experience. Persecution for the sake of Christ is a million miles away from our experience. But they’re not a million miles away from the experiences of the Bible, the experiences of believers throughout the ages. Even the hymns that we sang…I was struck as we were singing the opening hymn, All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name, a powerful song of praise to Jesus, the second stanza begins as we call out to those saints who are beneath the altar, and we call on them to sing praises to God. That’s a reference, an allusion, to Revelation 6 (I think?) where we find the saints who have been martyred in this life underneath the altar calling out to God, ‘How long until You return?’ Even in our hymnody we are reminded of the persecutions and the martyrdoms that Christians have suffered in this life – a million miles away from our experiences, and yet Jesus is saying that the place of honor in the kingdom comes to those who suffer for My sake. It makes you wonder…it makes you wonder if there are any box seats in heaven reserved for those of us in the West, we who have not know the persecution that our brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world have known. Jesus here links the place of honor in the kingdom with suffering for His sake.

There’s been a rift in the disciples. They are at odds with each other, and so He calls them together and He begins to talk to them, and He begins to explain to them how things are in the kingdom of God. And He begins to explain to them especially how they differ from the kingdoms of this world. He says on the one hand, in this world these are the principles that are in operation, whereas in the kingdom of God they are different. They’re not opposite necessarily, but they are radically different. In this life, Jesus says, it is the strong who lord it over the weak. They lord over their authority, they lord over their rights, they lord over their power, they exercise their strength against those who are underneath them. But that’s not the principle that operates in the kingdom of God. Instead, it’s the slave who serves.

Greatness in this world is measured by the powerful who lord it over another, but in the kingdom of heaven it is the slave who serves others. In this life it’s the proud who insist upon their rights, that’s who we think of as great. But in the kingdom of God, Jesus says, it is the humble who do not insist upon their rights. Actually, that’s a pretty good definition of humility, I think.

That’s a pretty good definition of humility. What does a humble surgeon look like? Well, if you were going in tomorrow for heart surgery and your surgeon came to you and said, “Listen, I just want to tell you, I’m not very good at this. My hand often shakes when I cut, and I frequently forget basic human anatomy. Sure, we’ve had some success in the past, but I can’t really explain it. I’m not very good at my job.” That would be an incompetent surgeon, not a humble surgeon. Humility is not saying we’re bad at something when in fact we’re good at something. In humility, that’s just lying.

Humility for John and for James was not to say ‘We hardly knew Jesus. No, we weren’t His disciples. We hardly knew Him at all. I can barely remember…Jesus who?’ That wasn’t humility for James and for John. Humility is not saying they have no standing, to say that they weren’t disciples. Humility for James and John is that they do not insist upon the rights that would naturally accompany the position that they occupy. That’s what true humility for James and John is. They come to Jesus in pride and say, ‘We think we deserve these things based on our position.’ But humility for James and John would have been not to insist upon those things which they perhaps had thought were coming to them.

Jesus is telling us that kingdom greatness is marked by sacrifice. It’s marked by humility. And that’s a terribly important lesson for us to learn tonight. It’s a terribly important lesson for us to learn, who live in the West where we can gather on a Sunday evening without any fear of persecution. None of us harbor any questions about who will be greeting us on the other side of the doors when we finish what we have come to do here tonight. Few of us will ever find ourselves having to choose between our Lord and a career; between Jesus and job; between Jesus and property; even between Jesus and our lives. We’re learning here that kingdom greatness is marked by sacrifice.

But it’s also marked by humility, and that’s a helpful reminder that we cannot see too often, we cannot hear too often, especially those who enjoy certain stations, certain privileges, certain resources in this life: God marks greatness by a different measure.

Two final words, the first for those who are believers. To the believer I would say that in this passage we have strong warning – strong warning against pride, pride which we so often and so easily can make peace with. Many of you have read the book Respectable Sins with much profit. I’ve talked with several of you about those sins. I’ve even heard conversations that go something like this: “Which of those respectable sins do you hold most dear?” “Pride.” Pride. It’s all-pervasive. It’s all around us, and we make peace with it so easily. This passage stands as a warning to us against pride – that pride which is life-destroying and joy-robbing. It’s hard to diagnose, and yet it’s one of those sins which Paul would tell us we must put to death. But it’s also one of those sins that is utterly repulsive to a watching world. To a watching world that sees a proud Christian, it is occasion to bring harm and to disparage Christ and His church.

But there may be some who don’t know Christ, who don’t believe. And I think this passage has a word for you as well. Well, if we warn believers about the dangers of pride, to the unbeliever I would say this: that pride in a believer ought not to prevent you from coming to Christ. Maybe you’ve seen the life of a Christian and you’ve said, ‘If that’s what a Christian is, I don’t want anything to do with it. I’ve seen how ugly that is. I’ve seen the pride in that person’s life and I want nothing to do with Christianity if that’s what Christianity is.’ And yet, based on this passage I would say to you again, pride in a Christian ought to be no occasion for you to stay away from Christ. Look how Christ deals with the proud disciple. Look how Christ deals with the proud disciple. He says, ‘No, even the Son of Man came to serve. In fact, My service looks like this: I give My life as a ransom, even for two proud disciples.’

Let’s pray.