Love’s weight

 

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came to Jesus with her sons, and kneeling before him, she asked a favor of him. And he said to her, ‘What do you want?’ She said to him, ‘Declare that these two sons of mine will sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.’ But Jesus answered, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?’  (Matthew 20:20-22)

The gospels offer little detail about Jesus’ emotions. It seldom records the look on his face when he spoke, encountered resistance or struggled to penetrate the incomprehension of his dense disciples, which had to be frustrating.

We see glimpses of his joy and exasperation now and then. We hear of his compassion for the wounded and wandering whose hearts had no true home. And a few times we hear his anger at the hypocrisy and arrogance of those who preferred self-adulation to compassion.

Following those clues, we might risk guessing what this little scene moved in his heart.

I don’t hear anger in his voice, only sadness. Are you able to drink the cup of suffering soon to come?  

He might well have been sad about their continued failure to understand the kingdom of God is not an invitation to personal glorify. But I don’t think so.

I think his sadness is that of knowing how much bearing love’s weight will cost him ... and how much it will cost them as they follow love’s way. For the time will come when they, too, will be broken beneath the weight of love, giving themselves to reveal the love of the Love who is in them.

And right there we see the paradox of Christian faith. The fulfillment of our all-too-human lives is found not in the significance of our resumes but in giving ourselves away to salve the wounds of a very broken world, bearing love’s weight as it comes to us in our time and place.

David L. Miller