As Jesus made his way to Jerusalem, and to his Passion and death, the Apostles James and John put to him a request. In doing so they put us all forever in their debt. Thank God for this instance of tactlessness and stupidity! Their ambitious striving for the top places in the coming Kingdom evoked from Jesus a response that gives us a privileged insight into into his own mind, into the Christian life; into God’s plan of salvation.
Please note anyway that Jesus does not here rebuke James and John. Why? Because it’s good to be ambitious for the higher gifts, as St. Paul puts it (cf. 1 Cor 12:31). We should all long for a full share in the glory, the Kingdom, the victory of Jesus! We should earnestly desire perfect union with Him; real transformation in holiness; final elevation from our current lowly state to the height of heaven! As a matter of fact, James and John would be granted much honour among the Apostles. James would be the first of them all to suffer martyrdom. John would lean on the breast of Jesus at the Last Supper, and receive his mother at the foot of the Cross, and beat Peter to the empty tomb on Easter morning. But places on the left and right of Jesus were reserved to two thieves; acolytes of his humiliation and suffering and shame. For Jesus entered his glory via the Cross, and this must always be our pathway also. We go to glory via self gift; via humility; via love to the end; via letting go of life itself. Then we will have glory as God wants to give it to us; glory as won on our behalf, and for our benefit, by Jesus. As for pride, sense of superiority over others, desire for celebrity status: these have no place whatever in Christ’s Kingdom.
We’ve just read in our refectory a life of St. Damien de Veuster, the Priest of the leper colony on Molokai Island in Hawaii. Like his divine Master, this man spent himself to the end in service of the least and lowest of his brethren. He served them not because they were particularly worthy, but simply because they were wretched; he laid down his life for them because they were unloved by others and outcast. Not in his life time, but afterwards, he was very much glorified as a result; both on earth by reputation, and we believe, even more so, in heaven. One more brief example: that of St. Gregory the Great. He did all he could to avoid the Papacy, because he wanted only to live a contemplative monastic life. But when he was made Pope, he called himself “the servant of the servants of God”. This beautiful title has stuck to his successors to this day.
Allow me anyway to underline for us all now the strong lesson of today’s Gospel. It will always be inappropriate for Christians, for Church people, to struggle for position, for promotion, for honours; to want to be over other people, in order to dominate them, for our own glory. To do that is to fall away from the heart of the Gospel, and into the mindset of the world, or even of the devil himself. Yet: lots and lots of Christians do this, and many of them without ever noticing that they’re doing it! It remains always extremely easy for any of us to slip into mediocre worldliness, at any time! Maybe only the Saints avoid it altogether? So all of us need to be ever on our guard, against pride and inflated self esteem. We must know that the only way to cultivate and possess appropriate humility is to focus constantly on the words, and example, and person, and presence of Jesus himself.
The Son of Man, said Jesus, came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Oceans of ink have been spilled, as commentators and theologians, from New Testament times to the present, have tried to unpack the meaning of our ransom, or redemption, in Jesus.
At the simplest level, we instinctively understand it. We find ourselves somehow in a state of slavery here, from which we are radically incapable of freeing ourselves. This is slavery to death, because of sin; slavery to sin itself; slavery to the flesh, to our passions, to this world. Such slavery is modelled for us in the Old Testament by Israel in Egypt, oppressed by cruel task masters, whose ultimate aim was their extermination. As well as slavery, there is debt. We owe what we cannot pay. Jesus, our ransomer, then comes and pays on our behalf what he himself does not owe. He anyway is our Redeemer, our Saviour, our Liberator, to whom we owe everything. He is the only one able to set us free, and he does that, at total cost to himself. But then: because of the sacrificial death of Jesus, we know that our sins are in principle forgiven; that death is not the end; that God really does love us. We also know, because of who Jesus is, that no sin whatever, no bad news of calamity or affliction or grief or pain or loss can ever nullify the good news of what he has done for us. His blood has infinite power. Jesus has redeemed us, so we always have cause for hope, and for joy, in all circumstances whatever; including at the moment of our own death.
Can you drink my cup? asked Jesus. With Saints James and John, we boldly answer Yes, we can! In the first place, we are ready and eager to receive the salvation Jesus brings; to benefit from his victory; to embrace it, with all its life-giving consequences, as James and John certainly did.
But also, we are ready to drink his cup, in that we are ready to share his sufferings. Understood aright, to do so is our privilege and joy, because this gives us a real share in his redemptive work. This is an idea very dear to Catholics, but disliked by Protestants, as if it could somehow detract from the unique redemption won by Jesus. But of course we insist that we don’t add anything to what Jesus has done. On the other hand, we do very much participate in it. And we do so in our own way. Jesus himself, after all, never suffered from mental illness, or old age, or physical handicap, or widowhood, or indeed from any of my own particular difficult circumstances. So when I have anything at all to suffer, this can in principle become for me a precious gift, which I can offer, in union with Christ’s Cross, for the life of the Church, and for my own salvation too.
Jesus symbolically indicated all this when he blessed the cup of the holy Eucharist. This, he said, is the cup of his blood, of the New and eternal Testament. Drink from this cup, in order to have my life in you. Drink, in order to share in the fruits of my redemption. Drink, in order to participate in my saving work. Drink, in order to possess a pledge of my love for you to the end.