Jesus and His disciples were going up to Jerusalem. His twelve disciples, aware of the dangers awaiting Jesus, were amazed that He was returning to Jerusalem.
Jesus took His disciples aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him when He got to Jerusalem.
He told them that He was going to be delivered over to the chief priests and that they would condemn Him to death. He told them that He would be mocked by the Gentiles, scourged and crucified.
He told them that after they spat on Him and whipped Him, He would be killed.
He told them that He would rise again after three days.
He told them that all of this would fulfill all that was written by the prophets.
They did not understand anything that He told them. It was hidden from them.
After this, the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came and worshiped Jesus. She wanted Jesus to do something for her.
Jesus asked her,
“What do you want me to do for you?”
She answered,
‘Command that my two sons sit on your right and left side, in your kingdom.’
Jesus answered,
“You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink? Or be baptized with the baptism that I am going to be baptized with?”
James and John said,
‘We are able.’
Jesus said to them,
“The cup that I drink you will drink someday. And someday you will be baptized with the baptism that I am going to be baptized with.
But to sit at my right and left hand, that is not for me to determine. My Father has made preparations for that, and it is out of my hands.”
And when the other ten disciples heard what James and John were asking, they became indignant and angry with James and John.
Jesus called them together and said to them,
“You know how the Gentiles lord it over you. You have seen how the world exercises authority. But this is not what it is going to be like with those who belong to me.
The one who wants to become great, let him become your servant. And the one who wants to be first, let him become the servant of all.
The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
