“Can you drink the cup that I must drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I must be baptized?” Jesus asks his disciples in Mark 10:38. When they impulsively insist that they can, he tells them, “The cup that I must drink you shall drink, and with the baptism with which I must be baptized you shall be baptized.”
The cup which the night before he died, Jesus begs his father from the depths of his grief to be taken away from him. But he still chooses it.
Who is this man who feels the overwhelming weight of this task, and yet, for the sake of those he loves, presses into it?
Who is this God who chose to live this as a man?
Henri Nouwen writes, “Jesus still had a spiritual bond with the one he called Abba. He possessed a trust beyond betrayal, a surrender beyond despair, a love beyond all fears. This intimacy beyond all human intimacies made it possible for Jesus to allow the request to let the cup pass him by become a prayer directed to the one who had called him ‘My Beloved.’ Notwithstanding his anguish, that bond of love had not been broken. It couldn’t be felt in the body, nor thought through in the mind. But it was there, beyond all feelings and thoughts, and it maintained the communion underneath all disruptions. It was that spiritual sinew, that intimate communion with his Father, that made him hold on to the cup and pray: ‘My Father, let it be as you, not I, would have it.’ Jesus didn’t throw the cup away in despair. No, he kept it in his hands, willing to drink it to the dregs. This was not a show of willpower, staunch determination, or great heroism. This was a deep spiritual yes to Abba, the lover of his wounded heart.”
Jesus, how, how, how do you drink this, in the midst of the overwhelm, how do you drink the life you are given to the bottom? Please show me and walk with me deeply every moment of it. Holy Spirit, please give me the grace to drink deeply of this moment, this challenging opportunity to love, this life I am given.
Perhaps these are the moments we most get to know him, the qualities of his heart, how he is close, and the ways we can actually become like him. “Can you drink the cup?” The cup includes all the joys and all the sorrows, all the beauty, all the opportunities in our life. What if we saw all of it as part of our cup? Jesus drank his cup, tasting every mouthful, and not only was that the sort of living that makes for a person fully and profoundly alive, but in drinking his cup it became the cup of salvation for each of us and was the place of intimacy with his father. Those things can be true for each of us when we drink deeply of the lives we are given, the opportunities to love, the beauty, the connection with Jesus and the people around us.
Jesus, how to you do it? Can you please do it with me?
