Daily Devotional for Wednesday 19th June
Even the Son of Man did not come to be served…
James and John were brothers, whose nickname, which we saw in Mark chapter 3, was “Sons of thunder”. They don’t sound like shrinking violets, and they were probably very young (because John wrote his Gospel and Revelation very late in the first century, in the estimation of most scholars). It must have seemed like a good idea to sound out Jesus about what the pecking order really was among the Twelve.
It’s reassuring to see that these ardent young men made the same mistakes we would have made – and it seems likely that nobody would have predicted, at this stage, that the word ‘Saint’ would forever be associated with them all over the Christian world in later centuries. I mentioned yesterday that Thomas and Peter later blotted their copybooks in a major way – now it’s the turn of James and John.
“One thing you lack”. Courage? Honesty? Belief? It’s more profound, and more inspiring, to think about what it actually was that these young men lacked. If you read the Sermon on the Mount, you will find underpinning the inspirational speeches that there are four key values: Kindness, Self-control, Integrity and – wait for it, the ‘Cinderella’ virtue everyone forgets: Humility. So far be it for humble little old me to tell you what the Sermon is about – read it for yourself and come up with better ideas!
But I think I can safely say James and John lacked Humility here. It is a rare virtue today – and I suspect it always has been. Paul says this in Ephesians (2 v.8)
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God”
What has this got to do with humility? Well, the biggest act of humility is to accept that we cannot save ourselves – and this is harder than it might seem. I know that in my heart of hearts I would love to be able to earn my place in heaven – to fully deserve God’s love for me. As the hymn from yesterday goes on to say:
Dear name ! The rock on which I build
My shield and hiding-place;
My never-failing treasury, filled
With boundless stores of grace.
