This simple cup stands each Sunday at the center of our altar.
The cup is a visible sign for us of the celebration of our Eucharists together here in this place. Gregory Dix, an Anglican monk and priest and liturgical scholar from
The Eucharist is “a thing of absolute simplicity—the taking, blessing, breaking and giving of bread and the taking, blessing and giving of a cup of wine, as these were first done by a young Jew before and after supper with his friends on the night before he died…” He had told his friends to do this from then on as a way of remembering him, and they have done it ever since.”
“Week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done just this “ and in this act of Eucharist, we become the holy people of God.
And the cup stands at the center of the altar.
Throughout the Bible, this cup holds deep meaning. The Biblical cup contains, as Joel Marcus says, “our portion in life, what we have been given to drink.”
This cup, and our portion in life, can hold bitter suffering.
In our gospel today, James and John weren’t thinking of suffering. Instead, they were captivated with visions of power and glory, and so they asked Jesus to award them seats of power at his right and left in glory. The other disciples wanted this power as much as James and John did—they were angry with James and John—and I’m betting it’s because they hadn’t thought of this idea first.
And so Jesus asked them a simple question. “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?”
Jesus has just told the disciples for the third time in the verses preceding the gospel reading that we have heard today that he will be handed over to those in power—the chief priests and the scribes, that they will condemn him to death, that they will hand him over to the Gentiles, and that they will mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him.
And like the suffering servant described in the passage we have heard from Isaiah today, Jesus will be oppressed and afflicted, and yet he will not open his mouth. He will be like a lamb led to slaughter.
Jesus is about to drink a cup of bitter suffering, because he will choose to not to strike back with his divine power against those who will kill him, but he will choose to die as he has lived, as a man who has never resorted to power or to violence to make his point or to get his way.
“Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?”
“Yes, Lord, we are able.”
Jesus now takes the opportunity to talk to the disciples about the true meaning of power. The rulers of the day have gained their power through violent conquest. They are tyrants.
But Jesus says that in God’s kingdom, whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.
The example that Jesus set for us was one of loving service, and his love for us led him to bitter suffering on the cross.
To love is to suffer.
The suffering of Jesus is unique because he is the Son of God. It is through this suffering servant that God has created the heavens and the earth, and yet this suffering servant is a human being just like each and every one of us.
So through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus, because Jesus has touched all of creation from the beginning of time, God is able to restore and heal this broken creation, and to heal all of us, God’s broken people.
Remember now that the cup is a symbol for our own portion in life, and we know that inevitably, our cups have, or will contain, bitter suffering.
And rather than to drink that cup, our urge is to fix what is making us suffer, or to fight back, or to run away.
But the suffering love of Jesus transforms the way in which we love and serve God. The suffering love of Jesus transforms our own suffering. And the suffering love of Jesus transforms the ways in which we love and serve one another.
As his disciples, we can enter into our suffering, whatever it may be, with a spirit of faithful and loving service to one another, knowing, as the Psalmist did, that we can call on God and God will answer us. God is with us in our troubles. God will rescue us and bring us to honor.
The suffering love of Jesus gives us the power to carry on even in the midst of our own pain, whatever that pain may be.
Each Sunday we come to the Lord’s table. But we do not hear these words, “The Blood of Christ, the cup of bitter suffering.”
Instead, the lay Eucharistic minister says, “The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation.”
“The cup of salvation.”
As we take the cup, and remember the death and resurrection of Jesus, and await his coming in glory, we can drink this wine knowing that God has suffered as we do, and that God, through that suffering, has created, out of our brokenness, the pathway to our restoration and our salvation.
And we are reminded, as we hear these words, “The Cup of Salvation,” that along with the bitter sufferings that our cups hold, our cups will also hold joy.
Through Jesus, Our loving God spreads a table for us in the midst of our sufferings, and our cup overflows with God’s goodness and mercy and salvation.
And with the Psalmist in Psalm 116, we praise God, as we take this cup, for saving our souls from death, our eyes from tears and our feet from stumbling.
“I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord,” says the Psalmist.
Jesus drank the cup of bitter suffering, and in doing so, he transformed that cup for us into the cup of joy and salvation, even in our hardest and most painful hours, even in our most painful and challenging times of service to one another.
Thousands of years ago, in a small, beleaguered Middle Eastern country, on the night before he suffered and died, Jesus took and blessed and gave the wine to his disciples.
And he stands in our midst today, simply holding this cup– taking and blessing and giving and asking–
“Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?”
“Yes, Lord, we are able.”
Amen.
References
Praying Shapes Believing: A Theological Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer, by Leonel L. Mitchell. Morehouse Publishing, 1985.
Understanding Christian Doctrine, by Ian S. Markham . Blackwell Publishing, 2008.
Mark 8-16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary by Joel Marcus. The Anchor Yale Bible,