On The Jerusalem Road
ON THE JERUSALEM ROAD
MATTHEW 20:17-28
Jesus says, aim for maximum service if you want to be ambitious.
Our Lord’s third prophecy of his passion is more detailed than the preceding ones (16:21; 17:22f.); his being handed over to the Gentiles (ie the Romans) for execution is explicitly mentioned for the first time, although it may already have been implied in the reference to the cross (10:38; 16:24). They are now on the way to Jerusalem, and the twelve must have the imminence of the crisis impressed upon them. But the fact that here (as in Mark 10:35ff.) the incident of James and John’s request follows immediately suggests that, in the evangelists’ opinion, the disciples’ minds were not yet sufficiently attuned to their Master’s to appreciate the solemnity of his warning.
The part played in the incident by Salome (cf. 27:56 with Mark 15:40) is peculiar to Matthew’s account. Mothers are sometimes more ambitious for their sons than the sons themselves. The lesson of greatness in the kingdom (cf. 18:1-4) was hard to learn. Had James and John in due course been crucified on either side of Jesus instead of the two robbers, their request would have been in a fair way to being realized; but such distinction as this was far from their thoughts. The “cup” of 20:22 was their Master’s passion (cf. 26:39); they professed themselves ready to share it, and in a sense they did, as Jesus assured them they would, but long after he himself endured it (cf. Acts 12:2 and possibly Revelation 1:9). As Jesus himself was subject to his Father’s good pleasure, so his followers must be content to accept those places in the kingdom which the Father assigns them. The indignation of the ten was due, not to the impropriety of James and John’s request in itself, but to the feeling that they had stolen a march on them: the honor was one which each would have coveted for himself. So once again they had to be taught the secret of true greatness: their pattern must not be the Gentile rulers who command service but the Son of Man who gives lowly service. And the place of honor is not a reward or compensation for the service: the service is the honor. Is there any greater honor than to be allowed to serve God—and our fellow men? So the Son of Man rendered the lowliest and simultaneously the noblest service of all by becoming “a ransom for many.” It is as his people’s Savior that he receives highest honor, and the shameful cross to which he was fastened has become the object of his people’s chief glorying (Galatians 6:14). The language in which this service is described is reminiscent of the oracle of the Servant who gave his life as a “reparation offering” and thus “bore the sin of many” (Isaiah 53:10-12).
“Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned he stood;
Sealed my pardon with his blood:
Hallelujah! what a Savior!’