Rev Gav

How do we drink the cup God gives us?

John 18. 11-18

When I read the account of Jesus’ final days in the gospels, I feel a tightening in my chest. We know where the story is going. We know the cup to which Jesus refers is a cup of unimaginable pain and suffering. I wonder if, in his mind, Jesus continually prayed the mantra, “Yet not my will but yours.”? And then there are Jesus’ disciples, scattered and confused, their world being thrown into turmoil and in fear of their own lives. Which of us, if our lives were on the line, would choose to be executed with Jesus?

Jesus listened to his Father. The Holy Spirit spoke to him, and through him, and communicated God’s will. Yes, in the mystery of the Trinity, Jesus was fully God, but also fully God when connected to the Maker and to the Spirit. He was also fully human, and in his humanity, do you think he had doubts? I do. You see, Jesus was not super-human with an invincible body, mind, and spirit. He was like you and me, frail, weak, and able to be hurt, both in his body and his mind. He had feelings and an intellect which could be crushed with anxiety and subject to pain. “Yet not my will but yours,” he prayed. Jesus remained obedient, even to death on a cross.

Jesus was repeatedly asked if he was the Messiah, God’s anointed one, but he repeatedly dodged or avoided the question, or threw it back at his questioners, “Who do you say I am?” You see, the proof of the pudding would be in the tasting. Jesus would only be the Messiah if he remained obedient and did what the Messiah had come to do. If he had caved at any point in his mission, given up, taken a different direction, or refused, no, he would not have been the Messiah. But Jesus was vindicated not just by his obedience — even obedience to death — but by his resurrection.

The gospel writers knew the answer. They were writing with the benefit of hindsight, and their narratives slowly lure their readers and listeners into the story and invite them to draw their own conclusions. The question asked of the reader is the same question Jesus himself asked, “Who do you say I am?”

However, the gospel story does not end with the resurrection of Jesus, not by a long shot. The gospel is not, ‘believe in Jesus so you can go to heaven when you die.’ My goodness, no. The gospel is that, through the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, you can be made clean and holy so the Holy Spirit of God can live in you.

Through Christ, the very same Spirit that filled and lived in Jesus can fill and live in us. The incarnate Jesus Christ could not be everywhere at once, but the Spirit of Jesus, working in and through us, can be. We have the potential to be Jesus to the world, however, like Jesus, we do have to be obedient to the Spirit. We too must drink the cup that the Maker has given us.

The call of the Christian is to be filled with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, and through Christ, all we need to do is ask. Being in very nature love, the Spirit in us is always outwards looking and looking to the interests of others. The Spirit is not subject to our wills but will never override our wills. Our job, like Jesus, is to continually listen to the Spirit and to be obedient to the will of God, to stay in tune or in sync with God as God works out God’s plan for the world. We have a part to play.

To drink from the cup that God gives us may not be to go to our execution by way of a cross, but it is a cup of salvation, and the way of salvation, as we know is by sacrifice. To drink of God’s cup; to be obedient to Gods will; to align yourself with the mission and purpose of Jesus Christ, is to be willing to go where God would have you to go, and be willing to do what God would have you do. It is to pray, “Lord, I give myself to you. Let your will be done in my life. Have your way with me, for I am yours.”

Amen.