There’s Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Perhaps, he felt it also when he was on his way to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Either way, all of the cliché’s and all the teaching that he had given were being tested to the core. All the passages from the Old Testament that prophesied of His life might have even started to feel hollow at some level.
The actual experience of taking up one’s cross and choosing to place one’s trust fully in the Lord…It’s something that is so personal and represents such an intense personal crisis that talking about it almost seems an affront to its holiness.
Choosing to walk the path that is straight and narrow; (that lets go of all of the other possible security blankets; that let’s go of all of the worldly entanglements) is at once lonely, adrenalin pumping, exciting, personal, intimidating, challenging. Yet, it often happens in full display of the whole world (at least one’s personal world) while it can only be finally motivated by love for God.
Most of us get cold feet at the cross. In the moment of final commitment one usually is simply not yet ready. For how does one ever get ready to die? At the final analysis, the final step of faith into the void, letting go of all things except for God, it simply goes contrary to everything that our flesh desires. Our whole being, in that moment, screams against the letting go. Our flesh rages against the call of God, fights to stay alive and not be finally put aside.
No wonder Jesus asked His Father to “let this cup pass” as he sweat blood in Gethsemane where he was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. He was experiencing most intensely and personally what it feels like to let everything go and trust God alone. He was headed to the cross. He was releasing all control over to His Father that night.
Interestingly, the cross that you and I bear is not quite the same that Christ bore. He bore a cross that was fully and completely the cause of other people, not him. You and I bear crosses that are often of our own making. Further, when we bear crosses not of our making, it is still most often right in the midst of our own sinful past; they are often against the backdrop of having previously rejected that cross for our own self-preservation.
Another Drink Anyone?
Let’s go back to Jesus’ nice evening Passover meal. They had come to their second drink of the night and time perhaps for a bit of an appetizer before dinner. This second Passover cup is called the Cup of Plagues. It represents the wages of sin and the price that was paid to get the Israelites out of Egypt.
Understandably, about that same time, we are told that Jesus began to be “troubled in Spirit.” (John 13:21) He painfully told the disciples he would be betrayed to death. Of course, all the disciples became sorrowful (Mark 14:19) at this news and wondered who would betray him.
What’s so interesting is that Jesus seems to have become troubled and brought up the betrayal about the time they were drinking that second cup of the Passover: the cup of plagues or cup of suffering.
Remember, in just a few hours, Jesus would be fervently praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the side of the Mt. of Olives asking God to “let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but yours be done!” Again, at that point, we are told that Jesus would be overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death and sweating drops of blood.
The Cup of Plagues was not just a Passover metaphor but precisely what Jesus was given by God to drink. Isa 53:4-6, “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. 6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
A few weeks earlier, when Jesus had asked his disciples if they could drink the cup that he was going to drink, they had responded yes. Jesus then responded and said, yes, they would. (Mark 10:38) Yes, they too would drink the cup of suffering for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
What about you and me? Can we drink the cup from which Jesus drank?
Isn’t it true that often you and I take a pass on that second drink before dinner…
Jesus, however, did not pass on that cup. Even though he wanted to, he accepted it from His Father and drank it all the way down.
We too have been called to take up our cross daily and follow Jesus. Paul said, I die daily (1 Cor. 15:31). He went on to say that he, “always (carried) around death in his body so that life may be revealed in others.” (2 Cor. 4:10) Then he said, we are “always being given over to death for your sake.” (2 Cor. 4:11)
When it comes time to drink the Cup of Plagues, we too will likely feel what Jesus felt. Our lives will be slipping away. Our control of situations will weaken and dissolve. Our flesh will cry out in anguish, “Let this cup pass from me!”
Our response in that Garden alone with God will determine the level of our Christ-likeness. In that moment we will discover how serious we were about following Jesus, who eventually came to the place of surrender. Hebrews says that, “For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame.”
It ain’t easy. It won’t be fun. But it’s time to let go of our control. It’s time to die to ourselves. The joy will come later, after the dying. But don’t you be deceived; it’ll be worth every bit! And the joy will be eternal!
Besides, we never really had any control in the first place. We thought we did. But we did not. God did. Just like He always has.
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