'Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.'
Mark 10:35-36
Last week saw the third biggest national lottery win since the national lottery began. In case you missed it, the winning ticket was worth £177 million.
That makes the winner, according to the Independent, richer than Harry Stiles and Anthony Joshua. That’s a lot of money for one or two people, out of the eight or so billion on earth right now.
I guess that if you had asked the winner, what they wanted for Christmas last week they might have said ‘a lottery win’. After-all, if they didn’t want the money, why would they play?
But that’s not the whole story. Ask a person why they want to win the lottery, and they’ll say the money, obviously. But ask someone, why they want the money, and the answer is never ‘for the sake of money’.
Playing the lottery is about a deeper desire than amassing money. There is a lot you can do if you have that kind of money. Money opens the door to broader dreams than just a number in the banking app.
That is true. But money also holds promise with respect to prestige. The number alone makes people impressed with the person who has it.
And then there’s the prestige that comes with a new lifestyle that only money can buy.
So, with motives for prestige in mind, I don’t think it’s insignificant that Jesus asks identical questions of two out of the three of his closest disciples - James and John - and of the blind beggar Bartimaeus who are in our passage this morning.
The question Jesus asks them both is in verse 36, and also in verse 51: ‘What do you want me to do for you?’
So, I would like to ask you all (me included) at the beginning now, ‘what do you want Jesus to do for you?’ You can be thinking about the answer to that question whilst we work through this passage. It could be, ‘give me a lottery win’. I hope not!
What we are going to see is, just as there’s a deeper motive for winning the lottery, there is a deeper motive that is at work behind every answer to this question, ‘what would we have Jesus do for us?’
The question from Jesus, ‘what do you want me to do for you’ is prompted by a request from James and John. In verse 35, they say, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask’.
Now, Jesus just dealt with the rich ruler who came to him in search of eternal life - we had that last time. And, if you remember, that man went away sad because he had ‘great wealth’ and Jesus had told him to give it all away to the poor and to come follow him.
On the back of that encounter, Jesus told the disciples again - for the third time - that he would shortly be handed over to the authorities, be mocked, beaten and crucified. That he would die and then rise again.
So, with that as the immediate context in which James and John approach Jesus, what will their request of him be? What will their answer be to his question ‘what do you want me to do for you?’
Their answer says a lot about their hearts. And it testifies to how little they have grasped of all that Jesus had been teaching them of late.
The reply comes back: ‘Let one of us sit at your right hand and the other at your left in your glory’.
On surface value, this could be a well-motivated request. They are, after all, Jesus’ closest friends - it would not be surprising if they wanted to be at the closest quarters possible with Jesus when he entered his glory.
If only that were there motivation though. There, sadly, a deeper and more sinister motive behind their request. And Jesus exposes it with one scalpel-like question! Verse 38, ‘Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with?’
It strikes me as a very odd response by Jesus when you step back and think about it. Who speaks like that? ‘Can you drink the cup I drink? Can you be baptised with baptism I am baptised with?’ What does he even mean? And what is he driving at with such a question?
Let’s answer those questions whilst observing that in verse 39, the disciples say ‘they can’ in response to his question. And Jesus says, ‘they will’. That is, they will drink the cup, and they will be baptised with the baptism he is baptised with.
So, what is the cup and what is the baptism he is referring to? The Psalmist, the prophet Isaiah and the prophet Jeremiah all refer to a dark and dreadful cup that God holds, which is what Jesus is referring to here.
It is the cup of God’s wrath. Isaiah says, ‘Rise up Jerusalem, you who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath’.
And Mark confirms this interpretation for us when in chapter 14, he records Jesus saying in the garden of Gethsemane, ‘Abba Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will’.
So, by ‘cup’ he is referring to the inconceivably great weight of God’s anger that is going to fall on him as he goes to the cross to takes away the sins of the world - my sins and your sins, if we believe in him.
And with respect to his baptism, he means his own death. In Luke 12, he spoke about being constrained until he had been through the baptism he was about to undergo.
So, the cup and the baptism anticipate what Jesus is walking towards. He is walking a path to the place where he will drink the cup and where he will go through the baptism of death.
But what is Jesus driving at by asking this question of James and John, ‘can you drink the cup I have to drink and be baptised with the baptism I am baptised with?’ And I think he’s saying, ‘if only you knew what it will take to enter my glory, you would not ask such a thing - you would be too terrified to ask such a thing!’
The glory of Jesus, coming in his kingdom, with his people, is about to be the costliest purchase in the history of the world.
It will mean that Jesus will have to drink, to the bitter dregs, the cup of the wrath of his Holy Father and Almighty God.
All the anger that would have fallen on people, like me because of my unholy sins,is going to fall on him. And yet he committed no sin to warrant it.
It will mean that he will have to go through the baptism of death and experience the consequences of the sins of his people to save themfrom eternal death. Though he was not, by nature, subject to death.
The length and breadth of what it cost Jesus to take up his glorious throne in his kingdom was beyond anything that any of us can conceive.
And John and James do not know what they are saying when they reply, ‘we can’. They have not understood what Jesus has meant, the three times he has told them where he is going.
In their minds Jesus was glorified on the mount of transfiguration, and he is going to Jerusalem to be crowned king and take his glorious seat in the city of King David. And they think to themselves ‘we will, if you please Jesus, sit at the right and left of the new King David’.
Little do they know, two thieves will take those places in Jerusalem - not on thrones, but on crosses!
Jesus’ question is a rhetorical one that James and John fail to grasp the meaning of. ‘Can they drink his cup and undergo his baptism?’
No. Only the divine Son of God can do that. If they had eyes to see, they would know that by now.
If the wrath of God were to fall on them as it will on Jesus, they would be banished to the lake of fire forever.
If they were to go through the death he will go through, they would never emerge from it but would perish for all eternity.
This is why Jesus’ divinity is so central to the gospel of salvation. We’ve got to love the doctrine of Jesus’ divinity to our very cores, or else we have no hope of salvation.
And yet, there is a sense - and Jesus confirms this by running with their answer to his rhetorical question - there is a sense in which they, and we, will drink the cup and go through the baptism he drank and went through.
The cup of wrath that Jesus will drink down will be experienced in suffering. And the death Jesus undergoes will be experienced in the drawing of his last breath, and the closing of his eyes for the last time. Death will not hold him ultimately though, and he will rise up from the grave.
And Jesus is sharing with James and John and us that we will, as followers of Christ, experience a measure of the same. We will suffer for Christ, and we will die in Christ, and we will rise because of Christ. Our experience will be a measure of his experience.
Now, what is so blessed about all of this is that Jesus exposed James and John’s motive. They were moved by a desire for the best positions in Christ’s kingdom so that they would receive prestige. They were notmotivated by closeness to Jesus, as might have at first seemed to be the case.
And yet, Jesus ties them as closely to himself as anybody can be tied. To put it in the words of Paul the Apostle in Philippians 3, ‘I want to know Christ - yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings [cup], becoming like him in his death [baptism], and so somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead’.
That’s what Jesus holds out to these two disciples who are vying for prestige! If it is not prestigious to rise with Christ having gone through suffering like his and a death like his, then we don’t know what prestige really is! Paul says, ‘I want to know Christ’.
That would be Paul’s answer to Jesus’ question ‘what do you want me to do for you?’ - ‘I want to know you Jesus’.
James and John will have the honour of sharing in Jesus’ glory when they walk in his footsteps into his eternal kingdom. And we will too, but we’ve got to come to terms with God’s plan for how we get there.
The ten other disciples knew what James and John’s motive was; they were indignant with them according to verse 41. It shows how self-promotion creates division. Self-promotion isn’t the road to a healthy united church.
Jesus shows the way to a healthy united church in verse 42, ‘Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great [like James and John did] among you must be servantof all”’.
And here’s the pattern: ‘“For even the Son of Man [Jesus] did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”’.
The greatest service ever performed in the history of the world was, and always will be, the service that Jesus performed by laying aside his rightful glory and giving his life as a ransom for many.
Our pattern is Christ, and so we’re not to Lord it over one another, but we’re to go low, and serve one another.
I think James and John thought the kingdom was tangible and earthly and imminent. And I don’t hear Jesus saying they got it entirely wrong. They just got the timing wrong. I think Jesus implies in verse 40 that there are places at his right and left in the kingdom that is coming down the line when he returns.
God knows who those places have been prepared for but that’s not what counts. What counts is being united with Christ forever and enjoying him fully, with resurrected bodies, in his kingdom, when he returns.
But then there’s the same question that Jesus presents to the blind man in Jericho. And that’s where we must go now.
This is the end of this unit in Mark’s gospel. It opened with the healing of a blind man in chapter 8, verse 22, and now it will end with another here at the close of chapter 10.
What we have repeatedly seen in this unit is the blindness of the disciples. They see well enough with their physical eyes, but they miss that Jesus has come to bring mercy and restoration through his death, not through the power of the sword.
Cue, then, the arrival of a blind man, in Jericho, to show them how much they miss the significance of Jesus.
And lest we miss something too: Just as Joshua in the Old Testament, entered into the promised land with the Israelites via Jericho and conquered that city with a miraculous intervention from God.
So here, Jesus, on his way to drink the cup and die the death that will liberate his people and bring them into promised resurrection life, now enters Jericho and makes a miracle of sight happen in a profoundly blind man.
That’s important! Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of everything that the Old Testament foreshadowed. And now the apex moment in history is about to unravel and so, shadows are coming to fulfilment.
What do we know about Bartimaeus? We know he was blind.
We know he was begging - presumably because he had no other way of providing for himself.
He was sitting as Jesus walked by.
We sense that he was very bold with Jesus, because Mark says he began to ‘shout’ Jesus’ name.
We also sense that his appreciation of Jesus is very deep. Deeper than the disciples have recently demonstrated.
First, he calls Jesus by his messianic name, ‘Son for David’. Nobody else did that so publicly as this man Bartimaeus.
But also, he shows his deep appreciation of who Jesus is by calling on him to show him mercy. ‘Have mercy on me!’
That’s the cry of King David in Psalm 51:1 to God after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba, ‘Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin’.
Bartimaeus gets Jesus. He gets who he is. He gets how incredible it is that he is on the scene.
His zeal for Jesus doesn’t go down well though, does it? Mark says in verse 48 that ‘many rebuked him’ and that many ‘told him to be quiet’. So, what will he do in the face of opposition? Will he be quiet? Will he be cancelled?
No.
Mark says, ‘he shouted all the more. “Son of David have mercy on me”’. And at that Jesus stopped. Bartimaeus had wrestled the attention of Jesus by recognising the deep significance of his person; by scorning the shame of his detractors; and by shouting with persistent fervor for the mercy of God’s messiah, Jesus.
And Jesus says, ‘call him’.
When Jesus calls a person to himself, life itself is beckoning! It is my own experience that when I understood the worth of Jesus and called out to him with all my heart, he heard me and called me to himself.
At that moment I received the miracle of salvation at the mercy of my saviour Jesus. That can be your experience today if it hasn’t been already. Jesus called this despised and forsaken man - he can call you too!
Bartimaeus’ reaction to Jesus’ call is more profound than I have given credit before. The first thing he does is throw his cloak aside.
His cloak was his life. His cloak was his shelter from the elements. His cloak was his insulation from the cold. His cloak was his collection box for alms.
And his cloak was meaningless to him, now that Jesus was calling.
And with a spring in his step - no delay, no second thought - he jumps to his feet and comes to Jesus.
And Jesus asks him the same question he asked James and John, ‘what do you want me to do for you?’
‘Rabbi, I want to see’ he said. ‘I want your mercy Jesus. And I want your restoration Jesus’.
It stands in contrast to the request of James and John who wanted the best seats and the prestige.
This is where it really counts: what we want Jesus for makes all the difference when it comes to saving faith.
If Jesus is a means to an end only then we are not very different to James and John in their request. But if Jesus is the goal of what we desire, then we are like Bartimaeus.
Jesus said to Bartimaeus ‘your faith has healed you’. And he immediately received his sight, and Mark says, ‘he followed Jesus along the road’. In other words, he followed Jesus on the road to Jerusalem - on the road to the cross.
A person who has really received Jesus for Jesus can suffer for Jesus - Jesus is their all. But a person who has received Jesus, as a means to another end only, will eventually count the cost of following him and will fall away. It makes a world of difference ‘what you want Jesus to do for you’.
If you want him to make the light of God shine in your heart so that you can see the glory of God displayed in Jesus, then you have truly had your blindness lifted and you can see!
I’ve been listening to the book of Revelation this week. I love that book and one day I would love to preach it - as tricky as that would be. I trust the promise at the beginning of that book, that there is a blessing to the one who reads it. And it has proved to be so in my own life - over and over.
Here’s part of chapter 3: ‘To the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation’. That’s Jesus.
‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth.
You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing” [that’s prestige talking].
But you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked [a spiritual Bartimaeus if you will].
I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see [the spiritual equivalent of what Jesus gave Bartimaeus].
Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent’.
And here is the better fulfilment of James and John’s request, ‘To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as [here’s the pattern of Jesus again] - just as I sat down with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches’.
So, what is it that you would have Jesus do for you? Oh, that every answer in the room would be the same: ‘Jesus, show me yourself. And all the more! Until I finally come into your glory’
James and John got it in the end. John who wrote down the words of Jesus in Revelation was exiled on an Island of Patmos for his faith in Jesus where he received his vision from heaven. And James, Acts 12:2 tells us, was executed with the sword by Herod.
They both loved Jesus for Jesus. And they followed Jesus drinking from his cup and joining him in his baptism.
We will all join Jesus in his baptism - unless he returns first. And in our own way we will have to drink some of the cup he drank.
I think James and John and Bartimaeus teach us that taking the easy way out now will make things more difficult down the road. But grasp the nettle now, resist the temptation to prestige, and it will make the harder things that are coming down the road easier to handle when they arrive. Our faith will be so much more built up and ready to stand firm in the face of those challenges if we resist now.
And don’t forget, Jesus has tied us to himself with the cords of love and he will make sure we inherit more than we can possibly imagine with him forever, when he comes in his glory!