Jesus Decides to Drink the Cup
Maundy Thursday – April 9, 2020
“Lord’s Supper/Prayer in Gethsemane”
Click here for the YouTube video of this sermon
·
Oft quoted, talking about the evil overtaking their world and
the need for someone to return to One Ring to Mordor
o Frodo: “I wish it need not
have happened in my time.”
o “So do I,” said Gandalf,
“and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Frodo knows
the weight of the task that is set before him.
·
In the gospel for this day, we see that Jesus too knows the
weight of what lies ahead
o He knows the risk, the
vulnerability, the very real danger of what he will face
o He knows already the
betrayal that is coming, the desertion, the denial; he knows of the accusations
and condemnation and death on a cross
·
As he prays in the garden, Jesus is agitated; distressed;
deeply grieved
·
we see the very human side of Jesus that wishes that it did
not have to be so, that somehow this cup would pass from him
·
“I wish it need not have happened in my time”
We may
feel like Frodo, like Jesus in this time that is unlike any other times we have
known in our lifetimes
·
The fact that you are watching this on a video or reading it on
a screen is a witness to how much our world has changed in just a few weeks
·
Ordinarily we would be gathered in person to observe these
holiest of days
o And instead, we are
self-sequestered – working from home perhaps; or on the front lines as
essential workers in many occupations; or now out of work and wondering how we
will pay our bills
o We have loved ones suffering
from this new virus or we fear for those who are most vulnerable if they catch
it
·
We are grieving the changes and losses that are all around us
and upended by the utter lack of control that we have over it all
·
And even as we know/hope that we’ll get through it, we are
not alone in wishing it need not have happened in our time
Tolkien’s quote reminds us that we don’t get to choose the
time – but we can decide what to do
with the time we are given
·
Though he prays for it to be removed, Jesus decides to take
the cup before him
·
It’s no accident, I think, on multiple levels, that this
happens on Passover
o The festival that celebrates
and remembers the story of how God liberated and led God’s people out of
slavery into freedom
o As they finished the meal,
the hymn they would have sung was Psalm 118 – “A Song of Victory” in my Bible
o Beginning and ending verse
are the same: “O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast
love endures forever.”
o These are the words that
would have been echoing in his head as Jesus went out to meet his fate – a
psalm that sings about struggle and distress and how God is strength and might
and salvation
·
What a testimony of love and faith and trust, even though
Jesus knew what was to come – and so Jesus accepts the cup
It is okay if we come to this night with feelings of distress
and agitation, if we are grieved by the changes and loss that we have all
experienced, if we with that this time had not come to us, especially since we
cannot know for certain what lies ahead
·
But we do know that Jesus goes ahead of us into that future,
whatever it may hold
·
Tomorrow we will go with him to the cross and there we will
witness his death
·
But still springs the truth that God’s love endures forever –
and so even in these trying times that we wish may not have come to us, we
decide to follow the one who leads the way through death to new life on the
other side
And for that
we say, thanks be to God. Amen.
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