To drink of the cup

In the deserts of Palestine a few thousand years ago, Jesus completed His final ministry in the area known as Perea and started to make His way towards Jerusalem for that last week of His life.

As He journeyed with a group of His disciples, Matthew records an interesting interchange.  One of the women approached Jesus.  She was the mother of James and John, the sons of Zebedee.  She asked the Master what seems to us to be a rather presumptuous and impudent question:

Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on the right hand, and the other on the left, in thy kingdom.

We infer from her words that she probably had the common misconception about the Savior's kingdom being an earthly one, that His power would be political, and His rise to power imminent.  It probably also shows a little bit of what I think is in every mother, a hope and desire that her sons will "turn out," will be successful and special.

Jesus could have responded with a lecture, or a rebuke, or have even ignored her naïveté.  But His words are sensitive and thoughtful:

Ye know not what ye ask.

"An angel, strengthening..."

The synoptic Gospels describe the event that is, for Latter-day Saints, the focal point of the Easter Week. Following the Last Supper with his disciples, as darkness falls, the Savior makes his way to a garden called Gethsemane—nearby but outside the walls of Jerusalem.  There, the Savior asks his disciples to watch and wait, and he goes on alone to pray.  Luke mentions that at one point, an angel comes to console and encourage the suffering Lord.

In 2011, the BYU Museum of Art arranged for an exhibit of many of the paintings of Carl Bloch, the gifted 19th century Danish artist.  They were beautiful to see.  One in particular seemed to really "speak" to me, and I spent a long time (during several visits) studying it and feeling the power of its message.  It's titled "Gethsemane."