“The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which
I am baptized, you will be baptized.”
St. Mark 10:39
Jesus often spoke in phrases heavy with meaning. He used images freighted with symbolic power,
ambiguous turns of phrase that force the listener to slow down and
consider. Meditation--a word that comes
from the Latin for what a cow does with her cud-- is not merely a pious
practice. We must often chew long on
these phrases to draw out their full meaning.
That can be difficult for us in a world where people try to conduct
national policy debates in 280 characters or less. By and large, we long for the single-page
memo, the objective facts distilled out from the spin, the bullet points
drained of their adjectives. Many of us seem to be drowning in a sea of words
as it is. We don’t think we have time for beautiful rhetoric or the probing
syllables of poetry.
But we can miss a great deal if we rushly too quickly to the point,
especially when the words spoken to us are about those things at the core of
our existence.
God’s Word, we discussed
last week, is a two edged sword, exposing our consciences, fertilizing our
imaginations, inflaming our passions.
Jesus speaks to us in a manner worthy of our dignity, expecting us to
listen with all our faculties, so we hear a message that might at long last
break through and bring the change we truly need.
Today’s reading is one of the most striking examples in the Gospels of
Jesus using complex, powerful and arresting phrases. He speaks of the cup that He must drink and
the baptism with which He will be baptized.
These things are integral to His kingdom, symbols that conjure up the
world into which He is calling His disciples.
And when Jesus speaks of them to James and John, they are sure they
know just what He means. His journey to
Jerusalem is approaching its destination.
The crowds are moved by His words and demonstrations of power. James and John love Him and they want to be
right alongside Him in the victory that surely soon to come. “In your glory, Jesus, can we sit beside
you? In the great battle soon to come,
can we be shoulder to shoulder? In the
parade through the streets when thousands shout your name, can we march on
either side? At the triumph banquet,
when we feast on Herod’s lambs and wine from Pilate’s cellar, can we share the
table with you?”
“Are you able to drink my cup?”
Jesus asks. To be sure, they
think; that golden cup, encrusted with gems.
At grand occasions kings took such a cup and shared it out with their
most trusted followers. “What about my
baptism?” He asks them. Our translation
is less helpful here. The Greek word can
just mean “my submerging.” It was an
everyday word then, not a religious one.
As a commentator noted, James and John may have thought Jesus was
talking about a bath.[1]
Just then, King Herod was showing his wealth and high cultural accomplishments
by constructing Roman-style baths throughout Palestine. The ancient bath was a social center, a place
for relaxing and intimate conversation. “ Will you taste my cup and soak in my
bath?”--that’s what James and John hear.
The question suggests refreshment and renewal, the welcome delights at
the end of the hot, dusty road. But it
also hints at intimacy and common purpose.
Will you share in all that belongs to me?
We are able, they say. We long
for that cup and that baptism, a share in your glory.
But no, Jesus tells them, you don’t understand what I’m saying. Jesus means a different kind of cup, what
Isaiah calls “the cup of fury, the bowl that makes men stagger.[2]” To Jesus the word points to the suffering
that surely lies ahead. The cup that
James and John are so eager to drain is the same one Jesus will beg the Father
to remove from Him in Gethsemane in a few weeks’ time.[3] And His baptism, His submerging--for Jesus
this means the flood of hostility and injustice that will soon swallow up His
life. He can see that the waters are
rising around Him. He has, in fact, just
told His disciples of the cross that lies ahead. The cup and baptism of suffering, these are
my destiny, He means. If you would have
a part in what is most central to my life, you must suffer with me. Will you share in all that belongs to me?
He answers for them. You will
drink my cup, Jesus tells them, and you will be baptized with my baptism. Suffering lay ahead for both of them: James
would be the first of the apostles to die as a martyr, by Herod’s sword in
Jerusalem. John would bear the burden of
establishing the church in many places before ending His life in exile. Here on earth, they would never drink from
gilded chalices or soak their weary bodies in refreshing marble baths.
But Jesus doesn’t deny that someday they will share in His royal
banquet, and be refreshed in the river of life that flows like crystal from the
throne of God. He rebukes their ambition. He hints at a weakness that will make cowards
of them on His day of trial. Surely the suffering must come first. But this is no iron appeal to duty either. A glorious reward still lies ahead of
them. “If we have died with him,” Saint
Paul writes, “we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign
with him.[4]”
But Jesus also points to another cup and another baptism. If you are like me, they are the first things
that come to mind when I hear the passage.
One night soon, Jesus would hand them a cup, “This is my blood of the
new covenant, shed for you and for many for the remission of sins.[5]” After He had drained the bowl of wrath at
Calvary, and passed through death’s waters to life again, then He would give
them a baptism. “Go and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit.”
The sacraments are borne of Christ’s steadfastness unto death. Their power springs from the gift of His life
for us. We drink of His own blood and
are baptized into His death. Yet His
passion is, as George Herbert wrote, “That liquor sweet and most divine, which
my God feels as blood, and I as wine.[6]” For us, the sacraments bring strength and
consolation in the midst of our struggles.
Through them we share in His resurrection and the transforming work of
His Spirit. Jesus’ cup and baptism are a
foretaste of the glories still to come.
And as in the suffering and the glory, through the sacraments Jesus bids
us share all that belongs to Him.
Jesus asks us, “Do you want to
grow closer to me, to walk in my steps?”
It’s a penetrating word. And
first, we know, it is an invitation to deny ourselves, to give generously of
what we have to advance His work. We
respond to that call when we care for our sick children and our fading elders,
when we feed the hungry and console the brokenhearted, when we persevere in
prayer and sing on through pain. Jesus
does not promise any more worldly acclaim or comprehension than what waited for
Him at Calvary, at least not in this life.
But He does say that this path brings us closer to His heart.
We ask you today to make a commitment to the work of this parish in
the coming year. These gifts are a way
of taking up that cup and sharing in that baptism, especially if they come of
real sacrifice, especially if they are the first fruits of your labors and not
what’s left over. They are also a way of
drawing closer to the rest of us, casting in your lot with this band of
imperfect people who depend together on the strength extended through His Sacraments
and who look in hope together to the glory still to be revealed.
“Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with
the baptism with which I am baptized?”
By your grace, may we answer: “We are able.”
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