(with Mark 10:35-40)
I. Comparing St. Matthew's and St. Mark's accounts, we see that it was the mother and sons together who made the request. It is a homely human picture of ambition hers for them and herself in them; theirs for themselves though with an eagerness, stimulated it may be by the desire to delight and elevate her. The childlike simplicity with which the request is made, in evident unconsciousness of its deep and solemn connections, is very notable and attractive. They wanted the promise beforehand. They wanted, as it might seem, to surprise Him into granting their request, as a confiding child may seek, half in earnest, half in sport, to entrap a tender and indulgent parent. They knew not what they asked, but there is a charm, there is even something of example, in the freedom of their asking.
II. There is no favouritism, no partiality, no promotion by interest in the kingdom of Christ. There is no caprice in the placing of the highest and lowest in it. The answer to the question, to whom the precedence in the kingdom shall be given, is one and the same with that to the question for whom the kingdom of heaven is prepared. The inheritance belongs to a certain character, so does the precedence; every single citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem has his place prepared for him, not only for what, but by what he is. There is a character now forming amid the turmoil and conflict of this lower world, for which eternal precedence is prepared by the necessary self-executing law of spiritual life in which the will that is, the character of the Father of spirits is reflected. The nearest to Christ in His glory will be those who are nearest Him in action and character.
III. This incident as a whole contains no condemnation of ambition. There is an ambition which belongs to the true disciple, which exercises the Christian virtues and does Christ's work in the world. It is an ambition not for place, but for character. It aspires not to have, but to be; and to be that it may work, that it may serve, that it may impart even of its very self. If it be the case that many of us are wanting in this ambition, if aspiration after the closest possible nearness to Christ, under the sense that nearness means likeness, be almost unknown to us, if we are satisfied with the hope of freedom from suffering and enjoyment of happiness, this will go far to account for the insufficient power of Christianity to leaven society, as well as for the poverty of individual Christian life.
W. Romanes, Oxford and Cambridge Journal,March 2nd, 1882.
Reference: Matthew 20:20-28. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iii., p. 11.