Main news for 29 February 2024

The apostles still had a poor idea of what the Kingdom that their Teacher brought into the world was, if they asked Him questions about who would occupy the places of honor beside Him in that Kingdom. For them, it was apparently a reality of our world, though an unusual one. Perhaps they thought the matter concerned an earthly state that, however, would be full of God's signs and wonders performed by their Teacher, who at last, with God's help, would take the place that belonged to Him. And the question about the cup and the washing, or "baptism," they most likely understood to mean that before the triumph all of them would face a long struggle, and each would receive no small share of suffering, which in general fit the messianic ideas accepted at the time.

Jesus, however, accepts their readiness, telling them that they will have to drink one cup with Him and be washed with one washing with Him, without going into details and without trying to explain anything to them. As can be seen, He understood that at that moment any explanations were useless: the disciples would not have understood Him anyway, just as they had not understood Him up to that point.

But Jesus tells His disciples right away that in His Kingdom everything is not as it is in earthly kingdoms, evidently so that they would have no illusions about this from the very beginning. As can be seen, He regards the inner readiness not to rule but to serve as the spiritual foundation without which there can be no question of life in the Kingdom. The details of the Kingdom's structure, however, He evidently considers less important: if the disciples do not understand them now, they will understand later, having acquired the corresponding spiritual experience. Thus the Savior Himself sets the priorities where spiritual life is concerned: first comes what is necessary in order to enter the Kingdom, and only afterward, as spiritual experience is accumulated, everything else.

How much Christ's disciples understood His words about the Cross will forever remain a mystery for us. It is quite possible that some hope still glimmered in them that the Teacher was speaking in parables and that His prediction would not be fulfilled literally. Perhaps this explains the striking contrast between Christ's words about death and resurrection and the request of the sons of Zebedee. After all, only if one expected Christ to reign in glory could one ask Him for high places beside Him. "You do not know what you are asking" - these words of Christ emphasize the depth of human misunderstanding of God's plan. All the more inappropriate and presumptuous are the words of the sons of Zebedee that they can drink Christ's cup and be baptized with His baptism.

Two most important things stand out in Christ's answer. First, He says: "You will drink the cup that I drink." For a human being it would be natural to rebuke the brothers for exalting themselves: who among people can do this? But the Lord says: you will. His following words, that whoever wants to be first among His disciples must be slave of all, put everything in its place. The chief gift of Christ to His disciples is not nearness to the throne, but precisely His cup, the possibility of following Him along His way of the Cross. Therefore He tells the sons of Zebedee that "high position" must not be their goal. He opens to them the possibility of gaining nearness to God without acquiring any outward greatness. This is an exceptionally important revelation, one that applies to any of His disciples.

After the rich young man was unable to follow the word of the Lord Jesus, to give everything away and become His disciple, the Lord, addressing the disciples, speaks about how hard it is for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Explaining to the disciples what happened, the Lord says: "How hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the Kingdom of God." A camel trying to enter through the eye of a needle is an image the disciples remembered forever. Usually the readers' attention is drawn to this strange, even somewhat surreal picture. It may be that the translation of this saying into Greek, made by the evangelist Mark from the Aramaic in which Christ spoke, and in which Peter told this story, is not entirely perfect; we do not know. It is obvious that the Lord is speaking about something absolutely impossible, and this is what Peter remembered and Mark translated.

The words about those who trust in riches, however, are found in late versions of the Gospel text. The copyists may have inserted them there by analogy with the accounts of the other evangelists; in the Middle Ages there was such a tendency toward unifying the accounts of the Synoptics. The most ancient manuscripts do not contain these words, and Mark's text in them sounds simply astonishing. The Lord says: "Children! How hard it is to enter the Kingdom of God; it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God." Thus the issue is not even wealth: according to Christ's words, it is hard in general to enter the Kingdom of God. Wealth and reliance on it are only a particular, especially vivid example.

This is exactly how the disciples understand Christ's words. That is why they do not speak about wealth, especially since they do not have any. "Who then can be saved?" they ask the Lord. Peter, perplexed, asks an even more specific question: "And we, who have followed You? Is it really hard for us too to enter the Kingdom of God?" The disciples get the impression that entering the Kingdom of God is impossible for absolutely anyone, even for them, who have left everything. It is to this question that the Lord gives us a word of great hope: "With men this is impossible, but not with God, for all things are possible with God." No human merits will help a person enter the Kingdom of God. Only God Himself accomplishes our salvation, and our human ideas are powerless here: many who are last will be first, and the first last; for people this is a mystery. But the main thing is that this is a great hope, open to all.