Sitting at Jesus’s right and left hand would have been positions of esteem, but James and John didn’t realize what that really meant. How do you sit in a position of authority for a king who has come to serve? Indeed, they would hold memorable places in church history: according to tradition, James was the first and John was the last to die. John was exiled to an island, while James was killed just as the church was getting started. If either of them thought fortune and glory would come with the esteem of Jesus’s Kingdom, they were sorely disappointed.