Opening Prayer: My Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.
Scripture: Matthew 26:36-46
Journal: Where in your life are
you choosing his will? Where in your
life are you choosing your own? How does
it make you feel to pray the prayer Jesus prays here? Are you willing? Is there a “cup” before you in life right now
from which God is calling you to drink?
Reflection:
A few hours before Jesus is hanging on the cross in
agony, he is in agony praying in Gethsemane.
The two agonies are the same Agony.
The agony is given a name: “this cup.”
A cup holds a liquid that is drunk.
The peculiar property of the cup is that we hold it with our hands, put
it to our lips, tip it into our mouths, and swallow the contents. It requires a coordinated, willing spirit,
accepting and receiving. It requires
taking the contents into our entire digestive system, distributing them
throughout the muscles and bones, red blood cells and nerve ganglia. The cup is a container from which we take
something that is not us into our lives so that it becomes us, enters into our
living.
The cup that Jesus holds in his hands in Gethsemane
that night is God’s will—God’s will to save the world in a final act of
sacrificial love. The cup that Jesus
drinks is a sacrificial death in which Jesus freely takes sin and evil into
himself, absorbs it in his soul, and makes salvation out of it—drinks it down
as if from a cup. Jesus’ name is,
translated into English, “Yahweh saves.”
As Jesus drinks the cup, he becomes his name.
This is, of course, sheer and unfathomable
mystery. It is mystery unexplained, but
it is not an obscure mystery. It has
many witnesses: poets and farmers, singers and parents who give witness that
the willingness to die is an act of acceptance and an embrace of life. (Tell
it Slant by Eugene Peterson)
Prayers
Closing Prayer: My Father, if this cup cannot pass unless I
drink it, your will be done.
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