The terrible loneliness of the Lord Jesus - Mt 20:17-28
The terrible loneliness of the Lord Jesus" - this is how I would call today's Gospel. The Lord Jesus takes his last journey to Jerusalem. He knows that he is going to be tormented, that he will be mocked, battered and crucified there. He takes with him the twelve he has chosen as his closest friends. He tells them clearly what is coming soon. And at this very moment his closest friends are separated from him by a wall of incomprehension.
First, the mother of James and John approached him and asked him to assign her sons the positions of first ministers in his kingdom. The Lord Jesus is going to Passion, and His immediate surroundings are excited that they will soon be in power. They are already in a mood of competition for the best stools in His kingdom. How lonely and misunderstood the Lord Jesus must have felt at that moment! Ten days before his passion, twelve days before his resurrection, the disciples could not yet understand that his kingdom was not of this world.
Yes, the Lord Jesus was going to Jerusalem for victory, but His disciples only expected victory in this worldly horizon. Yes, Jesus foresaw important places for his disciples in his kingdom, but these were not positions of governors or princes, it was to be a hard service, often amid persecution and misunderstanding.
None of the Twelve then understood their Master. Today's Gospel clearly shows that James and John were happy that mom was arranging positions for them, and the other ten were indignant at them only because they also had a great appetite for good positions. No wonder when the time of their Master's passion came, the disciples fled and scattered.
Soon, however, their faith was to be opened to eternal horizons. Everything in their faith that flowed from purely human imaginations and ambitions turned on Good Friday into a rubble. A radical spiritual breakthrough took place in them - all of them except one traitor - because of their meetings with the Risen One. And on the day of Pentecost, they were so strengthened that they began to preach the Gospel most literally in imitation of the Son of man, “who did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many".
Until Tomorrow
fr. george