<p>10:38 <i>But Jesus said to them: You do not know what you ask- </i>The statement that men 'know not' is usually and extensively on the Lord's lips in a negative sense. We can therefore read Him here as deeply disappointed in her. Note how the Lord uses the plural 'you'; He clearly saw that the question was being asked by the sons through their mother, and the parallel records show Him asking them directly what&nbsp;<i>they</i>&nbsp;really wanted. &quot;We know not what we should pray for as we ought&quot; (Rom. 8:26) seems to be some kind of allusion back to the mother of Zebedee's children asking Christ to get her two sons the best places in the Kingdom (Mt. 20:22). He basically replied 'You know not what you pray for', in the sense of 'you don't appreciate'. It may be that Paul in Rom. 8 is saying that in our desire for the Kingdom, in our groaning for it, we don't appreciate what we ask for as we ought, yet Christ nonetheless makes powerful intercession for us to this end.</p><p><i>Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?- </i>The Lord's death was therefore His cup, and also His 'baptism'. He asks us to be baptized with His baptism and to regularly drink His cup in the memorial meeting. These things are easily performed, and yet they are an agreement to die His death. We too can far too easily say &quot;I am able...&quot;, when like the disciples, we fail to perceive the horror of the cross and what is being asked of us. We therefore participate in these symbols, these metaphors, with bowed head, deeply aware of our likely failure to carry the cross to the end, but grateful for our participation in&nbsp;<i>His</i>&nbsp;cup and baptism, the One who did in fact die the death of the cross.</p><p><i>Or to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?</i>- Note the present tense compared to the future tense of &quot;the cup that I shall drink of&quot;. And yet in Lk. 12:50 He speaks of the baptism that He must still be baptized with in crucifixion. His death on the cross was in essence lived and died by Him throughout His life. This is why the prophecy of His death in Isaiah 53 is also quoted about experiences during His life. And there is an ongoing element to baptism, just as Israel were baptized &quot;in the cloud and in the sea&quot; as they passed through the Red Sea (1 Cor. 10:1), and yet lived beneath the cloud throughout their wilderness journey- as if their baptism was ongoing. We likewise die and resurrect with Christ in an ongoing sense as we die to the flesh and progressively experience His new life breaking through into our mortal experience (2 Cor. 4:11). Note too how Paul speaks of baptism in the present tense in Rom. 6:4- we&nbsp;<i>are</i>&nbsp;buried with Him by baptism, although Paul has just said in Rom. 6:3 that we&nbsp;<i>were</i>&nbsp;baptized as a one-time past even. If Paul were simply referencing the point of their baptism in Rom. 6:4, he would have said 'We&nbsp;<i>were</i>&nbsp;buried with Him'. The sense of Col. 2:12 and 1 Cor. 12:13 may be similar- &quot;By one Spirit we are all present tense baptized into one body&quot;. The whole language of baptism by the Spirit surely suggests a process rather than a one time event of immersion in water.</p><p>In Gethsemane He spoke of drinking the cup of His final death and suffering. But earlier He had spoken in the present tense: &ldquo;the cup that I drink of... the baptism that I am baptized with&quot; (Mk. 10:38). The drinking of the cup of death was ongoing. Likewise there are several verses in Psalms 22 and 69 which are evidently relevant to both the Lord's life and also His final hours on the cross. &quot;The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up&quot; is in the context of the cross, but is applied to an earlier period of the Lord's life (Ps. 69:9 cp. Jn. 2:17). &quot;I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children&quot; is another example (Ps. 69:8); it is a prophecy about the final sufferings of the Lord in crucifixion, and yet it is elsewhere quoted about the experiences of His ministry.<br />James and John pestered the Lord to give them glory in His Kingdom. He didn't refuse their request; He simply turned the question round to them: 'Can you really carry my cross? Don't be so obsessed with getting salvation out of me. Concentrate instead on carrying my cross, being baptized with my baptism, and then the corollary of that- sharing my resurrection- will follow in its own time'.</p>