Switched Around

21Apr09

I’ve been thinking about Zebedee’s wife, a lady in the Bible who had two sons James and John that were two of Jesus’ disciples. The family had what was probably a pretty prosperous fishing business. I have her pegged as the mover and shaker of the household. She may have kept the books as well as handled sales and distribution. She knew how to take care of business. In Matthew 20.21, she’s once again doing her thing by asking Jesus if her boys could sit on each side of him in his kingdom.

If you get beyond the guts of the question itself, you’ve really got to hand it to her. She’s seen the crowds, the success, the power and I think the royalty of Jesus. A pretty good perspective of this side of him. And Jesus had been spending extra time with her two sons really grooming them for something big.

A little later, she’s part of a group of ladies watching Jesus die a slow death on the cross. What a change. Jesus the royalty is now Jesus the sacrifice. I think she is as sober as one could get – almost listless as she watched it unfold. Was it the fact that her sons might have to go down the same road? Maybe. But I think it was the sheer awesomeness of Jesus – the one she had watched, and talked to, and shared her opinions with, and cooked for, and loved – suffering terribly and giving his life for her, for us. And in the end, a much more important issue than where her sons get to sit in the Kingdom.