I suspect that every mother desires great things for her children, that they will grow up and become successful, dignified, someone who others respect and look up to, someone a mother can be proud of.
No mother had greater aspirations for this than Mrs. Zebedee, the mother of Jesus’ disciples, James and John, also known as the Sons of Thunder, a nickname given to them by Jesus referring to their bold and aggressive personalities (Mark 3:17). Their personalities were most clearly displayed in their response to the Samaritan people’s rejection of Jesus, where they were ready to call down judgement upon these people if Jesus would give them the word (Luke 9:51-55).
Their father, Zebedee, was a well-known and successful fisherman in Galilee and the two sons worked with their father in the family business. One day they were called by Jesus to leave the fishing business and follow Him, who would make them fishers of men (Mark 1:16-20). I am not sure how the parents took to their sons leaving a prosperous business, of which they were heirs, to follow an itinerant preacher who had no place to lay His head let alone theirs, but we see no protest from them in scripture (Luke 9:57-58).
Like the ten other Apostles, they were given miraculous power by Jesus similar to His to proclaim and display the coming Kingdom of God, a kingdom of everlasting peace and joy of which Jesus Christ, God the Son – the prophesied descendant of David, is its glorious King (Luke 9:1-2) (Matthew 4:23) (Revelation 11:15-17) (Isaiah 9:6-7) (John 18:33-37).
Now this Gospel of the Kingdom, this good news of God establishing an eternal kingdom of peace, prosperity, health and wellbeing (Shalom) was the foremost message of Jesus’ three-year ministry (Luke 4:43-44) (Luke 8:1) (Mark 1:14-15). And it becomes obvious in Matthew 20:20-23 that Mrs. Zebedee has heard about it. In a bold display of motherly pride, in verse 20 we read, “Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, bowing down and making a request of Him. And He said to her, “What do you wish?” She said to Him, “Command that in Your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit one on Your right and one on Your left.” Mark, in His Gospel, has the brothers themselves making the request, but it appears to be one and the same event as there are significant similarities in both, beginning with Jesus making clear that it is not His decision to make regarding their request for preeminence in His kingdom (Matthew 20:23).
Of course, the other ten Apostles do not take kindly to this immensely selfish request, even though they may have harbored the same selfish desire, though unspoken. Jesus then uses this event to speak to them regarding the true and essential nature of one who would be among the great in His kingdom, that it would be one who would sacrificially serve others (Philippians 2:3-4) (John 13:12-17) (Luke 22:27) (Matthew 25:31-40).
In both Mark and Luke’s sharing of this event, Jesus concludes His exposition to His closest disciples on the preeminent value of humility and service to others in His kingdom when He proclaims, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many”.
The term or title Son of Man is used by Jesus of Himself 80 times in the four Gospels. Although used to identify Himself as both human and divine (Son of God), it is foremost a Messianic prophecy found first in Daniel 7:9-14, wherein this Son of Man will receive from God the Father – the Ancient of Days, an eternal kingdom in which all who are in it will gladly and joyfully obey God from their heart; a kingdom consisting of not just Israel but all peoples, nations, and languages who would (gladly) serve Him (Psalm 86:9). This passage is a prophesy of the fulfillment of God’s promise to the Son in Psalm 2:1-12 that He will give to Him the nations/people groups who are presently in rebellion against God, as an inheritance, a promise we see actually fulfilled in Revelation 7:9-12.
His kingdom will not be established by military might nor political power as the nation Israel was expecting when Jesus first came into this world (Zechariah 4:6). It would be established by Jesus, God the Son – the Lord of Glory described in Psalm 24:7-10, humbling Himself and veiling His glory in human flesh, taking unto Himself a full human nature in addition to His divine nature. As a man, He would live a life of service to God and mankind, a life of perfect righteousness/sinless perfection described in Psalm 24:1-6, which is required for a man to enter into the presence of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). He would then take upon Himself, on the cross, the just penalty of death and Hell we deserve for our failure to live such a life (Philippians 2:5-8) (Matthew 27:46). In doing both, Jesus accomplished everything necessary to satisfy divine justice, such that God’s glory would be vindicated and all who would repent of their sin and believe the Gospel – the good news of all that Jesus achieved on their behalf through His sinless life, sacrificial death and miraculous resurrection, would become joyful subjects of His eternal kingdom (John 17:4-5) (Mark 1:14-15) (Romans 14:17).
It is for this purpose that God the Father sends His eternally beloved Son into this sin-cursed, sin-condemned world in the fullness of humanity, in the frailty of human flesh (John 3:16-17) (1 John 4:2). Jesus is supernaturally conceived by God the Holy Spirit in the womb of a virgin (Mary), such that He would not have inherited Adam’s sinful nature (Matthew 1:18-22). He would be the fulfillment of the promised seed of Abraham, born of the tribe of Judah and the linage of King David as prophesized (Revelation 5:5) (Matthew 1:1).
As a member of God’s covenant people, Israel, Jesus was be born under the law, thus circumcised on the eighth day (Galatians 4:4-5) (Luke 2:21). He likely cried during that procedure as he would grow and develop as any other human child although without sin (Hebrews 4:15) (Luke 2:52). He would do so not as a king in a palace or a dignitary in an upper-class family or neighborhood, but in poverty, in a backwater town called Nazareth (John 1:45-46).
I would note however, that despite His lowly status, Jesus was rightly recognized at around age two as a divine king, worthy to be worshiped by the wise men who came from the East (Matthew 2:2-11). But after that, nothing kingly or Messianic would be evident.
That is until age 30 (Luke 3:23), when Jesus would begin His earthly ministry of service to God the Father, who sent Him into this present evil world to deliver His people from it – from both its sinful allurements and final judgement (Galatians 1:4) (1 John 2:15-17). It was then as it is now, a world cursed and condemned by God because of our sin, a world of spiritual darkness in which the devil and his kingdom hold sway in the hearts of fallen, spiritually dead mankind (1 John 5:19). Thus, it is a world in which all of humanity, lost and enslaved to sin, live under the just judgment of God – destined for an eternity in Hell (Romans 3:23) (John 8:34) (Psalm 9:17). Only the servant of the Lord can save anyone from this horrific destiny, and that is what Jesus came into the world to do (Isaiah 42:1-4) (Luke 9:56) (Luke 19:10).
Jesus begins His life of sacrificial service at the event of His baptism, wherein He is affirmed in His identity and commissioned for service by God the Father and at the same time empowered by God the Holy Spirit to carry out His mission of giving His life a ransom for many (Matthew 3:16-17) (Acts 10:36-38) (Luke 4:16-21).
It is His fulfillment of that mission we will begin to look at in my next post.
Grace and Peace ×