“Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and kneeling down asked a favor of Him. ‘What is it you want?’ He asked. She said, ‘Grant that one of these sons of mine may sit at Your right hand and the other at Your left in Your kingdom.’ ‘You don’t know what you are asking,’ Jesus said to them. ‘Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?’” (Matthew 20:20)
She didn’t realize the implications of her request. It annoyed the other disciples and surprised our Lord Jesus. Here is what seems to be an incidental anecdote hardly worth including in the serious business of salvation, which is the major theme of this and the other gospels, and yet it has great value for us to explore.
At a basic level here is a typical Jewish mother wanting the best for her sons. But it’s not just Jewish. Mother love is normal and essential for all cultures, races and people. Mrs. Zebedee, Susanna’s sons James and John, are with her. They don’t balk, hesitate or protest. They trust her wisdom. It’s natural for all living things to protect and promote what they bring into life. Well, not all—at least not all mothers of human beings. In our society selfishness and unconcern for their offspring are no longer a rare phenomenon. We are torn apart by the rampant demands of so many women for the legalization of abortions, an unfortunate law enacted more than a generation ago. Even those who do give birth often have conflicts of interest that deprive their children of total care and an overriding love for their infants transcending all other concerns. When a child realizes he or she is not really loved, the results are shattering to the self-worth of that little person. Nothing can substitute for the devotion of a mother. All that society can do is to try somehow to compensate for what is missing in the human heart of someone who feels he or she was not welcomed into the world by the one person who made that gift of life possible.
The Bible presumes that natural parental care. The Psalms and Proverbs refer to that assumption. Our Lord Jesus builds on the love we have for our children in comparing that to the heavenly Father’s love for us, His children. The son who comes at midnight for help in feeding unexpected guests and the loving father welcoming the prodigal son are examples of what is not just expected but assumed in our relationships.
Would the Zebedee brothers have been as consistently devoted to the cause of Jesus had they not been nurtured by such a loving mother? We can only speculate. What sort of mother did Judas Iscariot have? Compare also Shakespeare’s famous Hamlet and his rage at his own mother. Indeed it makes a difference. Some Church fathers go as far as to claim that there has never been a saint without loving parents. Imagine what that bodes for our fractured times.
The irony of the passage from St. Matthew’s gospel is that while Jesus’ caution about sharing His cup was something to ponder, indeed both brothers did share His cup of glory and suffering. The elder, St. James, was the first of the apostles to give his life on behalf of Christ, and the younger, St. John, had the courage fortified by a self-confident love to Christ that came from a loving, consistent mother, to overcome his basic instinct of self-preservation and be at the Lord’s side even at the Cross. Then to take the Lord’s mother as his own, and share uncounted cups with her at supper until she passed from this life, and to go on living, suffering in devoted service to the Lord Jesus even beyond his hundredth year of life on earth. His love learned and imbibed from his own mother was sufficient to provide for the care of Christ’s mother for her lifetime.