The Unwanted Cup
Sermon
An Idle Tale Becomes Good News
Messages On Lent And Easter Themes
On the western slopes of the Mount of Olives, just outside Jerusalem, may be seen the lovely Basilica of Gethsemane. It is built mainly of pink limestone and has a beautiful Byzantine style fa ade and twelve domes. Each dome is the gift of a particular country, and so the church is also called the Church of All Nations. The floor inside is paved with mosaics, and when one looks up at the twelve cupolas, one sees mosaics there, too. But one's attention is inevitably drawn toward the altar and a large rock before the altar that is enclosed by railing. This is the "Rock of Agony," so named because of the agony Jesus experienced there on the night before his crucifixion.
It was a few sleepy disciples who witnessed this agony. The whole group had retired to this place after their meal together. No doubt they had come here to sleep, but on this night something besides sleep was on Jesus' mind. All of the disciples could sense that he was troubled, but three of them, Peter and James and John, had special reason to know that he was troubled. Taking them on beyond the rest of the group, Jesus confided to them: "I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me." They stayed there, but they did not watch for long. They were soon deep in sleep, but not before they had heard Jesus cry out, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want."
We don't know how long Jesus continued in prayer; we do know that he kept returning to his sleeping disciples and waking them. It was a lonely time for him, and he wanted the supporting fellowship of these, his closest friends. He did not have it though, and he had to bear his agony alone.
It was a certain "cup" that caused his agony. This "cup," of course, was not a piece of table setting. It was an especially difficult and painful experience, one Jesus desperately wanted to avoid. So it was an unwanted, unwelcome cup.
Resulting In A Cry
Jesus told his disciples to wait while he went a little farther into the garden to pray. Was this when he prayed for Peter? Not so far as we are told. The Gospel of John records what is sometimes called Jesus' "great high priestly prayer," with its setting apparently in the upper room where he had his last meal with his disciples. These disciples were uppermost in his thoughts in this prayer. He lifted them up before God, asking his Heavenly Father to guard them, to "protect them from the evil one," to "sanctify them in the truth," and to make his joy complete in them (John 17).
But his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, at least so far as we know, was little more than a cry: "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me." I wonder if he was having the kind of experience Paul writes about when he says that when praying is too hard for us, the "Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words" (Romans 8:26). The whole world was bearing down upon Jesus that night, but about all he could say was, "O God, O God."
Cardinal Joseph Louis Bernardin was writing about his struggle with pancreatic cancer. He told of being in the hospital and wanting to pray but finding his physical discomfort so overwhelming that he couldn't pray. He said to friends who visited him, "Pray while you're well, because if you wait until you're sick you might not be able to do it." When they looked at him in astonishment, he said, "I'm in so much discomfort that I can't focus on prayer. My faith is still present. There is nothing wrong with my faith, but in terms of prayer, I'm just too preoccupied with the pain." During his remaining months of life, he told priests and parishioners to develop a strong prayer life in their best moments so they could be sustained in their weakest moments.1
Was that what was happening with Jesus there in the Garden of Gethsemane? Luke tells us "an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength." But Luke also says that "in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground" (Luke 22:43-44). Tell me that prayer is always a peaceful experience! What a struggle it was for Jesus that night! That unwanted cup led to a cry of anguish.
Encouraging Petitionary Prayer
Yet Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, cry though it was, is an encouragement to petitionary prayer. It is a contradiction of the view that the prayer of communion is the only appropriate prayer. That was not the only prayer Jesus prayed. Here in the shadow of the cross we see him petitioning God, asking God for something: "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me."
When Miss Layona Glenn went to Brazil as a missionary in 1894, she did not know the Portuguese language at all, but she determined to learn it as soon as she could. One day not long after she arrived there, a little English-speaking girl asked her if she could say the Lord's Prayer in Portuguese. She had to reply, "No, not yet." Giggling mischievously, the little girl teased, "Miss Glenn don't know the Lord's Prayer in Portuguese." Another little girl immediately came up and put her arm around Miss Glenn's shoulder and said, "Don't you worry, Miss Glenn, I think the Lord understands English!"2
Jesus knew that God understands not only whatever language one may speak, but the cries, the very desires of one's heart as well. So one can afford to be honest with God; indeed, one cannot afford to be anything else. In all of our dealings with God, including our prayers, God expects us to be open and above-board. That means that it would be hypocritical to ban petitions from our prayers.
The prayers we offer to God ought to mean something to us. There is no question that Jesus' prayer that night was deeply felt by him; he wanted that cup to pass. But though his petition was not granted, the unwanted cup and Jesus' prayer about it should be an encouragement to us to be honest with God and to bring the true desires of our hearts before God in sincere prayer.
Unmasking Sin
The unwanted cup should also challenge the easy view of sin it is so easy to develop.
Who knows the full contents of this cup? It must have contained the loneliness of rejection, the consequence of loving in the face of hatred, the agony of a Divine plan resulting in the disaster of the cross with its torture and shame, and the dark night of submission to death, humankind's last enemy. But regardless of how one may describe that from which Christ wanted to be delivered, sin shows up in the picture. Sin was responsible for the unwanted cup, and that cup unmasks sin and shows it in its true horribleness.
It was not Christ's own sin though. Some other person might have feared the unveiling of heart that was soon to take place as one's earthly days came to an end and one stood before God for judgment. But Christ had no skeletons in his closet; he had no fear of his life lying open like a book before the eyes of the Eternal Judge.
So it was the sin of others that caused that unwanted cup. One after another the roll could be called and the sin named that contributed to Jesus' fate. In the tragedy that befell him, we see too clearly for mistaking the direction in which sin leads and the consequences that follow it.
And yet there is more than just the normal consequence of sin involved here. Jesus was not simply reaping the usual fruits of others' sins. In some way that we cannot fully comprehend, he was also taking upon himself the burden and guilt of all persons' sins. A little later, as he hung on the cross, he was to experience the final and ultimate consequence of sin and cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). Perhaps there in the Garden, he was already beginning to experience that sense of desolation and separation, and it was almost more than he could bear.
To grasp the enormity of what was happening to Jesus then is to see the unmasking of sin. The cross snatches the mask off the face of sin and reveals it in its true ugliness and horridness.
Calling For Trust And Obedience
There have been and most likely will be again "unwanted cups" in the lives of most of us. They will never be of such vastness and eternal significance as the one that confronted Jesus. But he has shown us the spirit in which we are to face and to deal with them.
What did Jesus say to his Heavenly Father? "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want." And again, "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done." Even in his agony, willing obedience was the dominating attitude of his soul.
There is no question that his desire for avoidance of this cup was strong, yet he never attempted to manipulate God or to bargain with God. He set no conditions for his obedience. He wanted the cup to pass, but there was something else he wanted even more: He wanted God's will to be done.
Jesus could have gone over the hill and escaped, but he chose to obey instead. This was not just helpless submission to God's will. It was not the resignation of defeat. He did not submit in bleak regret or in bitter anger. His was a willing obedience. He chose to have God's will done in his life.
And he did it in trust. That was why he was peaceful after his time of struggling with God. His confidence in God was not obliterated. He had a lifetime of trust behind him, and even in his agony he still thought of God as "Father." He was confident that God's will was the best will, and he had no fear of trusting himself to God. That kind of trust produces peace.
"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want." This unwanted cup that Jesus ultimately chose to drink elicited a cry of agony from his soul. Yet for us it is an encouragement to be open and honest with God and to bring the real desires of our hearts to God. That cup unmasks sin so that we should never again take our own sins or anyone else's lightly. And it calls us to the spirit of willing obedience and humble trust in God modeled so supremely by Jesus in that dark night of agony.
__________
1. Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, The Gift of Peace (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1997), pp. 67-68.
2. Layona Glenn with Charlotte Hale Smith, I Remember, I Remember (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1969), pp. 87-88.
It was a few sleepy disciples who witnessed this agony. The whole group had retired to this place after their meal together. No doubt they had come here to sleep, but on this night something besides sleep was on Jesus' mind. All of the disciples could sense that he was troubled, but three of them, Peter and James and John, had special reason to know that he was troubled. Taking them on beyond the rest of the group, Jesus confided to them: "I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me." They stayed there, but they did not watch for long. They were soon deep in sleep, but not before they had heard Jesus cry out, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want."
We don't know how long Jesus continued in prayer; we do know that he kept returning to his sleeping disciples and waking them. It was a lonely time for him, and he wanted the supporting fellowship of these, his closest friends. He did not have it though, and he had to bear his agony alone.
It was a certain "cup" that caused his agony. This "cup," of course, was not a piece of table setting. It was an especially difficult and painful experience, one Jesus desperately wanted to avoid. So it was an unwanted, unwelcome cup.
Resulting In A Cry
Jesus told his disciples to wait while he went a little farther into the garden to pray. Was this when he prayed for Peter? Not so far as we are told. The Gospel of John records what is sometimes called Jesus' "great high priestly prayer," with its setting apparently in the upper room where he had his last meal with his disciples. These disciples were uppermost in his thoughts in this prayer. He lifted them up before God, asking his Heavenly Father to guard them, to "protect them from the evil one," to "sanctify them in the truth," and to make his joy complete in them (John 17).
But his prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, at least so far as we know, was little more than a cry: "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me." I wonder if he was having the kind of experience Paul writes about when he says that when praying is too hard for us, the "Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words" (Romans 8:26). The whole world was bearing down upon Jesus that night, but about all he could say was, "O God, O God."
Cardinal Joseph Louis Bernardin was writing about his struggle with pancreatic cancer. He told of being in the hospital and wanting to pray but finding his physical discomfort so overwhelming that he couldn't pray. He said to friends who visited him, "Pray while you're well, because if you wait until you're sick you might not be able to do it." When they looked at him in astonishment, he said, "I'm in so much discomfort that I can't focus on prayer. My faith is still present. There is nothing wrong with my faith, but in terms of prayer, I'm just too preoccupied with the pain." During his remaining months of life, he told priests and parishioners to develop a strong prayer life in their best moments so they could be sustained in their weakest moments.1
Was that what was happening with Jesus there in the Garden of Gethsemane? Luke tells us "an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength." But Luke also says that "in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground" (Luke 22:43-44). Tell me that prayer is always a peaceful experience! What a struggle it was for Jesus that night! That unwanted cup led to a cry of anguish.
Encouraging Petitionary Prayer
Yet Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, cry though it was, is an encouragement to petitionary prayer. It is a contradiction of the view that the prayer of communion is the only appropriate prayer. That was not the only prayer Jesus prayed. Here in the shadow of the cross we see him petitioning God, asking God for something: "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me."
When Miss Layona Glenn went to Brazil as a missionary in 1894, she did not know the Portuguese language at all, but she determined to learn it as soon as she could. One day not long after she arrived there, a little English-speaking girl asked her if she could say the Lord's Prayer in Portuguese. She had to reply, "No, not yet." Giggling mischievously, the little girl teased, "Miss Glenn don't know the Lord's Prayer in Portuguese." Another little girl immediately came up and put her arm around Miss Glenn's shoulder and said, "Don't you worry, Miss Glenn, I think the Lord understands English!"2
Jesus knew that God understands not only whatever language one may speak, but the cries, the very desires of one's heart as well. So one can afford to be honest with God; indeed, one cannot afford to be anything else. In all of our dealings with God, including our prayers, God expects us to be open and above-board. That means that it would be hypocritical to ban petitions from our prayers.
The prayers we offer to God ought to mean something to us. There is no question that Jesus' prayer that night was deeply felt by him; he wanted that cup to pass. But though his petition was not granted, the unwanted cup and Jesus' prayer about it should be an encouragement to us to be honest with God and to bring the true desires of our hearts before God in sincere prayer.
Unmasking Sin
The unwanted cup should also challenge the easy view of sin it is so easy to develop.
Who knows the full contents of this cup? It must have contained the loneliness of rejection, the consequence of loving in the face of hatred, the agony of a Divine plan resulting in the disaster of the cross with its torture and shame, and the dark night of submission to death, humankind's last enemy. But regardless of how one may describe that from which Christ wanted to be delivered, sin shows up in the picture. Sin was responsible for the unwanted cup, and that cup unmasks sin and shows it in its true horribleness.
It was not Christ's own sin though. Some other person might have feared the unveiling of heart that was soon to take place as one's earthly days came to an end and one stood before God for judgment. But Christ had no skeletons in his closet; he had no fear of his life lying open like a book before the eyes of the Eternal Judge.
So it was the sin of others that caused that unwanted cup. One after another the roll could be called and the sin named that contributed to Jesus' fate. In the tragedy that befell him, we see too clearly for mistaking the direction in which sin leads and the consequences that follow it.
And yet there is more than just the normal consequence of sin involved here. Jesus was not simply reaping the usual fruits of others' sins. In some way that we cannot fully comprehend, he was also taking upon himself the burden and guilt of all persons' sins. A little later, as he hung on the cross, he was to experience the final and ultimate consequence of sin and cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). Perhaps there in the Garden, he was already beginning to experience that sense of desolation and separation, and it was almost more than he could bear.
To grasp the enormity of what was happening to Jesus then is to see the unmasking of sin. The cross snatches the mask off the face of sin and reveals it in its true ugliness and horridness.
Calling For Trust And Obedience
There have been and most likely will be again "unwanted cups" in the lives of most of us. They will never be of such vastness and eternal significance as the one that confronted Jesus. But he has shown us the spirit in which we are to face and to deal with them.
What did Jesus say to his Heavenly Father? "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want." And again, "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done." Even in his agony, willing obedience was the dominating attitude of his soul.
There is no question that his desire for avoidance of this cup was strong, yet he never attempted to manipulate God or to bargain with God. He set no conditions for his obedience. He wanted the cup to pass, but there was something else he wanted even more: He wanted God's will to be done.
Jesus could have gone over the hill and escaped, but he chose to obey instead. This was not just helpless submission to God's will. It was not the resignation of defeat. He did not submit in bleak regret or in bitter anger. His was a willing obedience. He chose to have God's will done in his life.
And he did it in trust. That was why he was peaceful after his time of struggling with God. His confidence in God was not obliterated. He had a lifetime of trust behind him, and even in his agony he still thought of God as "Father." He was confident that God's will was the best will, and he had no fear of trusting himself to God. That kind of trust produces peace.
"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want." This unwanted cup that Jesus ultimately chose to drink elicited a cry of agony from his soul. Yet for us it is an encouragement to be open and honest with God and to bring the real desires of our hearts to God. That cup unmasks sin so that we should never again take our own sins or anyone else's lightly. And it calls us to the spirit of willing obedience and humble trust in God modeled so supremely by Jesus in that dark night of agony.
__________
1. Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, The Gift of Peace (Chicago: Loyola Press, 1997), pp. 67-68.
2. Layona Glenn with Charlotte Hale Smith, I Remember, I Remember (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1969), pp. 87-88.
