Summary
Salome, Mother of James and John
Among the supporting cast of the Gospels, Salome is named only briefly, yet she occupies a remarkable place in the story of Jesus. The wife of Zebedee and the mother of the apostles James and John, she is not to be confused with the Salome who asked for the head of John the Baptist. This Salome was a follower of Christ, named explicitly in the Gospel of Mark, and her life is a window into how easily even sincere love can mistake worldly greatness for the glory of God.
That her sons left their father in the fishing boat to follow Jesus Matthew 4:21-22 without protest tells us something important about Salome and Zebedee: they had raised James and John in the faith. When the call of Christ came, the household recognized it. Salome herself became one of the women who followed Jesus from Galilee and provided for him out of their means.
Her most famous moment, however, is one of misplaced ambition. In Matthew 20:20-21, she kneels before Jesus and asks that her two sons be seated at his right and left in his kingdom. Like most of Jesus' followers at the time, she could not yet separate the kingdom of God from a temporal restoration of Israel. She wanted what any loving mother would want: the highest honor for her children. But she did not know what she was asking. Jesus answers, "Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?" The cup he speaks of is not a throne but a cross. The right and left hand of the King would be occupied that day not by James and John, but by two crucified criminals.
Salome would see this with her own eyes. Matthew 27:55-56 places her among the women looking on from a distance at the crucifixion. The greatness she had imagined for her sons was unmasked at Calvary: a beaten, bleeding, mocked Messiah, bearing the wrath of God for the sin of the world. The "glory" she had requested was revealed to be suffering, and Jesus had already told her boys plainly that they too would drink that cup.
Yet her story does not end at the cross. In Mark 16:1-6, Salome is named again, this time among the women who come to the tomb at sunrise with spices to anoint the body. There she hears the announcement that changes everything: "He has been raised. He is not here." Salome, who once sought thrones for her sons, becomes one of the very first witnesses of the resurrection—the true greatness, the true glory, the conquest of sin and death.
Salome's life teaches a lesson the Church needs to hear in every generation. We naturally seek greatness for ourselves and for those we love, and we often dress that ambition in the language of love or even of faith. But the glory of this world is fleeting; it remains in this world. The glory revealed at the empty tomb is the only greatness that endures, and it is given freely to all who are washed in the blood of Christ. The believer's highest honor is not a seat of earthly power but to be called a child of God, clothed in the righteousness of the risen Lord.
Video citations
- "Salome" — The other morning when I woke up, I looked at my pedometer watch and it had a nice little message of motivation for me. It said, grab the glory, grab the glory. I'm going to go ahead and grab that…