Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I and baptized with? (v 38)
Jesus predicts has betrayal and death and the disciples squabble over who will have the choice seats in heaven. Strange really - or is it. Countless Christians over this last century have suffered and even died for their faith, and we Christians in the comfortable West indulge in debates over inconsequential things. The Way of Jesus is the way of the cross. This Way is the same no matter what place or culture we are born into. For some the death Jesus calls us to is 'just' death to our own rebellious, selfish way of living. For too many it is that death AND physical death as well.
So Jesus' question confronts me as much as it did James and John. Can I accept the suffering my faith may ask of me? Am I prepared to be baptized into death in order to be raised to new life? Too easily I seek for comfort rather than the cross. But it is, paradoxically, through the same cross that I and we discover the life we long and were created for.
God, may my way be your Way - the way of the cross. May I accept whatever cup you ask me to drink, knowing that you have gone before me and will strengthen me for any challenge.
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