This is the third and most detailed of the Passion predictions, as Christ paints a picture of His fate while also describing the challenges we often have in recognizing what God wants of us.

The Gospel passage relates Jesus literally walking these men through His death and Resurrection, a quick yet serious commentary, but little is expressed about the disciples’ reaction. However, subsequently, we understand that they are indeed blind to what he is saying. Otherwise, why the silence? Indeed, Luke describes this scene in his Gospel when he says “they understood none of these things.”

At this stage in the life of Christ, we know that each of these men has been with Jesus long enough to most likely feel pride in being one of the chosen few. Perhaps they are so focused with the “coolness” of their positions that they have lost sight of God’s true word. Just as we are often deceived by worldly distractions, our hearts are eclipsed from God’s true light.

Such fallacious perspective is reinforced later when the mother of John and James makes a typical motherly request in favor of her two sons, asking Jesus if He would be willing to provide them preferential treatment. Perhaps she envisions an earthly kingdom with courts and privilege. But Jesus asks, “do you really know what you are asking?”

Jesus’s cup is a cup of suffering. The irony of the privileges she requested will one day be revealed to James, as the cup which he will share with Christ will lead to his own crucifixion and, for John, exile on Patmos. Indeed, Jesus states that the “Son of Man came to serve.” Just as He will one day give his life for us, we too are being asked to give ours to God.

N. Turner Simkins began his writing career as a staff writer at the Augusta Herald and is co-founder of NewFire Media and Blue-Beech, LLC, a new urbanist development company. Author of Possibilities, Simkins dedicates his life to pediatric cancer research through his efforts with the Press On Fund. He is a member of St Mary on the Hill in Augusta and lives in North Augusta, SC with his wife and three sons.

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