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Lent · Year B

Fifth Sunday in Lent

Christ Meeting the Wife and Sons of Zebedee, Paolo Veronese
Christ Meeting the Wife and Sons of Zebedee, Paolo Veronese, c. 1565Musée de Grenoble, Grenoble
Veronese paints the mother kneeling to make her request while her two sons stand behind her, in silk, looking entirely comfortable with it.Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory: the reading is this request, and the painting does not spare them.Paolo VeroneseThe most sumptuous of the Venetian painters, hauled before the Inquisition for filling a Last Supper with dogs, dwarfs and drunkards, and who simply renamed the picture.Musée de Grenoble, GrenobleOne of the oldest and strongest municipal collections in France, in the Alps, notable for buying modern art far earlier than Paris did.Musée de Grenoble, Grenoble

Overview & Insights

“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)

This is the final set of events in Jesus’s public ministry, as the rest of Mark will cover the passion week, crucifixion, and resurrection. The “road to Jerusalem” has centered on two things: the passion predictions (the final and most detailed of the three is here) and discipleship (Jesus calling his followers to join him on the path of servanthood and suffering). So this passage sums up the emphases of 8:31–10:52 and prepares the way for the passion events to follow (the complex prediction in vv. 32–34 points forward to those events).

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Take it further: Mark 10:(32-34) 35-45

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What does Jesus teach James and John?

When the brothers ask for the places of honor, Jesus overturns the world's order: whoever would be great must be a servant, for he himself came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

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