Every human craves for coveting and holding power, primacy, supremacy, prestige, and number-one status in life. There is nothing wrong for us to desire to become first in this competitive
The Living Faith
Every human craves for coveting and holding power, primacy, supremacy, prestige, and number-one status in life. There is nothing wrong for us to desire to become first in this competitive world. Moreover Bible acknowledges that our Creator, by creating us in his likeness and image, shared with us his supremacy, honor, glory and power to control the creation. Unfortunately human history is filled with wars, infights, murders, killings and destruction of human lives mostly because of such unrestrained human ambitions.
Gospels state how the first Disciples of Jesus held the same human power-seeking attitude. When Jesus noticed it, actually he did not condemn the desire to be first. Competition and development are part of human life’s survival game. God in Jesus never denied this. The human ambition for growth, climbing up and progressing can very well come from God himself. Jesus did indeed have the desire to be the first, for God wanted it to be so. We should be very clear about a factual truth about Jesus. From the onset of his life, Jesus aimed at to be Number One in God’s Kingdom. He too longed to possess the glory and power as a chivalrous Person. This is why we hear him praying aloud to his Father: “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him…Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.” (Jn. 17: 1-5) And God confirmed Jesus’ uniqueness when he said from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matt. 3: 17) God made us understand that it was His will that Jesus would become the firstborn of a multitude of brothers and the supreme Head of the Church.
As I have mentioned earlier to become favorite of God and taste his glory in our life is every human’s birthright. Therefore what Jesus had condemned was our wrong ways of speaking and acting to win and covet the primary and glorious positions in life. Jesus did speak in details on some heavenly tips to realize validly and legitimately our ambitions of being the first. We read in Mark the summary of them in a succinct way. He narrates first, Jesus foretelling his disciples second time about his passion and death in order to make his disciples knew how he was preoccupied with fulfilling his Father’s will despite its perilous hardships. “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death he will rise.” (Mk. 9: 31) This is simply indicating how he built his life and its schedule on the intense consciousness of designing and fulfilling every one of his dreams in accordance to his Father’s will. As Paul would verbalize, (Phil. 2: 8-9) Jesus from his very conception held firmly his unrelented attitude of “surrendering himself to the will of God took the form of a slave; he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross”. It was by this fixation Jesus was fully convinced he could realize his ambition of becoming number one. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name.
While Jesus was preoccupied with this remarkable program of life, we see the Apostles being worried with one worldly issue, namely if their Master died, who would then become the leader of their group? They were going on arguing which of them was the greatest in the eyes of Jesus. When he asked them what they had been talking about, they were highly embarrassed. Knowing their inner turbulence, but undisturbed by their pathetic attitude, began giving them a tip to be elected or to be promoted in his team. He offered a beautiful strategy with which they can win their ‘dreamy supremacy’. “If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.” (Mk. 9: 35) He wants them to be humble, simple, and serviceable with no other ‘self-gratifying’ strings attached. He invited them to assert themselves as leaders who serve instead of seeking to be served.
In order to help them cultivate this attitude, Jesus placed a child in their midst, he indicated that they should be fully and totally depending on God as a child to the Father; and they too should receive his own childlikeness; “Learn from me, I am meek and humble of heart.” This is the only way for establishing our greatness, glory and supremacy in this world, fully coveting peace, rest, hope, and happiness in the war-stricken and rifted society is.