Jeff's Journal

When Cups Refuse to Pass

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
Matthew 26:39

I have always been intrigued by the Gethsemane Garden passage. When we were in Jerusalem several years ago, we went to the Gethsemane garden area. Gethsemane is a garden where olives grow and are processed. There were olive trees all on the hillside. Our guide instructed us that those who plant olive trees care for the future generations as it takes a generation for an olive tree to produce fruit. I doubt there were any olive trees from the days of Jesus left on that hillside, but there were many very old trees there.

The word Gethsemane means oil press or the place of the press. It was the place where olives grew to maturity, were selected and then processed. I imagine most were selected for producing olive oil. That is where the press came into play. At harvest, the olives would be pressed until they were crushed such that their essence, their oil, was released and gathered.

Back to the Gethsemane passage. I have found it poetic that it was at Gethsemane, the place of the press, that Jesus was pressed to make a decision. Here was full deity and full humanity pressing the issue of what to do with respect to destiny. Jesus knew what was coming; betrayal, torture, crucifixion. He knew he had some options. He could have escaped, but here is the intriguing part. He submitted. The submission did bring the items he dreaded most, but the submission also fulfilled the purposes of God.

Gethsemane is the place where God bargains for something. In all the possibilities of purpose, may this cup be taken? The cup refused to pass. What followed was unpleasant, but it brought about something remarkable. The resurrection followed Gethsemane. At the time of Gethsemane all that was visible was a limited view and yet there was something beyond that was unseen except by the eyes of God.

We bargain with God, too. Most often when hard circumstances come into our lives is when the bargaining begins. We plead for cups to pass so that we can side step unpleasant things. There are times when cups refuse to pass. There are circumstances that engulf our lives and even though we plead, the cup remains. At those times we come face to face with our God. Most of us want a self-help god, one that makes everything better. However, when cups refuse to pass, we encounter the sovereign God, not the self made self-help god. In the encounter of the sovereign God, we begin to see through and beyond the hard cups that come to our lives, knowing that God is leading somewhere in our history. It is only a sovereign God that can help us at those times. When we cannot see beyond, the sovereign God sees what is unseen, those items which are unrevealed.

I think about this experience of dialysis. Starting off, looking into the abyss of hours a week tethered to a machine, I could see no good (except saving my life) out of this experience. It was a cup I’d rather pass. The cup stuck around and still sticks around. My self-helping god did not appear and rescue me, but the sovereign God has created an experience that is sustaining and bringing about some divine purpose.

There are some new friendships. Some are with other patients, others are with the staff, who have no desire to engage in anything of the church and now they have a Baptist preacher stuck in their midst for about 15 hours a week. Stereotypes are falling aside and authenticity is prevailing. Today, one of the “tenured” patients (who has been on dialysis for the past seven years) told me she was so glad I was in the clinic. She perceives a difference in the clinic. Bummer cup, but there are many things unseen, but the sovereign God sees them.

Gethsemane cups abound and they are heavy enough to press you, perhaps even crush you. The experience of submission with the sovereign God extracts an essence released in the press and in due time reveals glimmers of purpose that redeems the time while we hold the cup that refuses to pass.

posted by Jeff Waldo @ 11:23 PM