What is it you want?

The question, ‘What is it you want?’ is one that Jesus often asks in the gospels. How people answer that question is an indication of what their priorities are. When Jesus asked the question of the blind man, he answered, ‘Let me see again’. When Jesus asked the question of the disciples of John the Baptist at the beginning of John’s Gospel, they answered, ‘Where are you staying?’ In both cases, Jesus could respond to the answer given to his question. When the same question was asked of the mother of two of the twelve, James and John, Jesus could not respond to the answer he got to his question. The answer given by the mother revealed that her priorities were for her sons to have positions of status and honour in Jesus’ kingdom. This was to misunderstand the nature of the kingdom that Jesus came to proclaim. It was at the moment when Jesus was devoid of all status and honour, as he hung from a Roman cross, that he was publicly proclaimed king. This was intended in mockery, but, ironically, it proclaimed a truth. Jesus revealed God’s kingdom of love most fully at that moment of greatest shame and humiliation. James, John, and the other disciples needed to know that they were signing up to a kingdom that bore no relationship to the kingdoms of this world. Jesus was not to be found among the ‘rulers’ and ‘great men’ who ‘lord it over’ their subjects and ‘make their authority felt’. His authority showed itself not in being served but in the self-emptying, loving service of others. The same goes for all who would be his disciples. Jesus’ work today remains that of bringing God’s kingdom to earth, not building another earthly kingdom.

Martin Hogan, The Word is a Lamp on my Path