Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent
See how difficult it was even for the apostles to allow the teachings of Jesus to change their hearts! Just yesterday Jesus exposes the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees: teachers who do not teach because they cannot themselves learn, fathers who do not nurture or protect their children, masters who have mastered nothing, for they have not permitted God to master them. So while the apostles will not vie for titles of honor they will yet vie for places of honor, and thus when the mother of two of them asks for such places for her sons, the others are envious. Jesus teaches them, however, that things are not like this in the Kingdom He will establish: the seats of honor go not to the great warriors but to the peacemakers; not to the conquerors but to those who have conquered their pride. Those who sit beside Jesus are those who have allowed Jesus to sit on the thrones of their hearts. For the chalice He will drink will not be a royal one of gold and jewels and filled with sweet wine; His will be the bitterest and crudest of all cups, served to Him not in a throne room nor banquet hall with guests, but in a dark garden, His closest friends asleep with indifference to His suffering.
But we know that James and John will both drink of that chalice; in fact, by the death of John, all of them will. Thus when Peter said in the previous chapter, We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us? Jesus said, Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt 19:27-28). How does one come to inherit such a throne, to drink from that chalice? How do we follow Him in the new age? Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me (Matt 16:24).