Wednesday, April 16—Day 43

And He came out and proceeded as was His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him. When He arrived at the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow, and said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

While He was still speaking, behold, a crowd came, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was preceding them; and he approached Jesus to kiss Him. But Jesus said to him, “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” When those who were around Him saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, shall we strike with the sword?” And one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. But Jesus answered and said, “Stop! No more of this.” And He touched his ear and healed him. Then Jesus said to the chief priests and officers of the temple and elders who had come against Him, “Have you come out with swords and clubs as you would against a robber? While I was with you daily in the temple, you did not lay hands on Me; but this hour and the power of darkness are yours.”
Luke 22:39-53

Drinking to the Dregs
One’s cup often refers to the vessel that contains one’s lot, one’s portion, but what is that? Your experience, what happens to you, more or les your life: what you suffer, what you love, what you feel and think. It seems like the cup is the vessel, the place that holds it all. Everything.

I can across a place in Ezekiel where Ezekiel says to Jerusalem, the city of God: “You have gone the way of your sister [Samaria, who makes love to the idols].” So he says, Look, “I will give her cup into your hand . . . You shall drink your sister’s cup which is deep and large; you shall be laughed at and held in derision, for it contains much; you will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow. A cup of horror and desolation, is the cup of your sister Samaria; you shall drink it and drain it out.” (23:31-34)

It got me thinking about my sister’s cup, not my literal sister, though it could be, or my brother, just all the people I know and all the nations there are, and I thought how deep and large the cups are, how much they contain. Unbelievably dense and complex and sordid and beautiful and painful histories. All the trauma and hilarity, fortune and misfortune; all the diamonds and water and salmon, and all the barrenness. All the destruction. There’s all the love that people felt or didn’t, and how all that interacts with their personal psychology, and their experience in the womb, and flood and famines and civil war and earthquakes. And I thought of how just about any of those cups, if I drank them, would fill me with drunkenness and sorrow and too much of everything, and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t drink them to the dregs. My own cup is practically enough to make me fall down. Can you imagine drinking any more on top of that? It just about makes me nauseated to think about it. I can hear about other cups, but drink any other cup? I’m afraid I would vomit. I would vomit and fall down and rise no more.

It is said that St. Catherine of Siena, “when she felt revulsion from the wounds she was tending, . . . bitterly reproached herself. Sound hygiene was incompatible with charity, so she deliberately drank off a bowl of pus.” I can’t imagine.

Jesus comes drinking, with an ease I can hardly even conceive, the cups of harlots and tax collectors, sinners, the lost, the greedy and needy and addicts and lepers, the unenlightened—dark, dense, deep, large cups that contain much. What a stomach he must have, what a tolerant constitution. I think the events of the Passion suggest that Jesus drinks his sisters’ cups. And brothers’ and aunts’ and uncles’ and cousins’ and parents’ and all the neighbors’ and nations’ everywhere, Samaria’s and Israel’s and Rome’s. Drinks them all down to the dregs.

What alchemy transpires in his veins to create the elixir, the blood of life that has the power to cure all the ills of humanity?

There’s a moment in the garden when Jesus doesn’t want to drink the cup. But he does. The mercy drinks it all up, and it is dramatic. He drinks the hour of the power of darkness, and it kills him. Of course it does. That was in the mix. To say that the Passion is about Jesus suffering the wrath of God seems backward. What he suffers, it seems, is the life of the world.

God really gives Godself to the world in Jesus Christ, takes everything in and drinks it all down. And comes offering his cup for us to drink. I couldn’t possibly drink my sister’s cup. I’m not sure if I’m even willing or able to drink whatever it is that Jesus is pouring. What rich and wild blood it must be. What sort of nourishment does it transport, what sort of disease-fighting substances, what life?

Sometimes the church gets a little squeamish about Christ’s blood. Maybe because the atonement has often been read in ways that seem barbaric or unhelpful. So we decide to focus more on Christ’s life. But often it seems like trying to focus on Christ’s life gets us doing the opposite. It gets us concentrating on ethics or a way of life, morality, teachings, something more bloodless, rational, and systematic than life. We don’t have life without blood. Jesus says, “My blood shed for you,” and whatever he meant by that does seem vital. However much the story has been distorted, I don’t think it’s crazy to keep looking to the blood of Jesus. I think maybe Jesus is giving it to us. And I hope that if we can’t manage to raise it to our lips, Jesus might pour it down our throats.
Debbie Blue, Founding Minister, House of Mercy, St. Paul, MN

Blue, Debbie. From Stone to Living Word: Letting the Bible Live Again (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2008.) p 167-69

Prayer
Father, we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption. We recall Christ's death, his descent among the dead, his resurrection, and his ascension to your right hand; and, looking forward to his coming in glory, we offer you his body and blood, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world. Amen.