Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
July 18, 2022
The Invitatory
Send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me, and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
The earth is the Lord’s for he made it: Come let us adore him.
Reading: Matthew 26:36-46
Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here while I go over there and pray.’ He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and agitated. Then he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and stay awake with me.’ And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want.’ Then he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, ‘So, could you not stay awake with me one hour? Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ Again he went away for the second time and prayed, ‘My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.’ Again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, ‘Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.’
Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones
I have had my share of sleepless nights. As a child, I held off sleep on Christmas Eve because I was so excited by the prospect of what Santa Claus would bring me. Later as a high school student and certainly in college and law school there were many sleepless nights given to studying for exams (read here cramming) or writing papers. None of these held terror, necessarily. The one night that did hold terror was the night before taking the bar exam. I was terror struck. The terror approached what I believed one would feel the night before being executed. In reading this passage, I can empathize with the grief that Jesus feels, if not for the same reasons. As a human being I am more captivated by the prospect of the impending execution. Jesus bears an altogether different grief - that for the whole world.
While it is easy to read into the words, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will,” that he would prefer to avoid death, what is the issue here is entirely different. We do see here that Jesus is being directly confronted with the reality of betrayal, the reality of abandonment, the reality of denial, the reality of injustice towards him, the reality of impending crucifixion, and worst of all, the reality that he will have to endure the wrath of God. “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” Jesus is referring to something that causes him such great sorrow that he goes so far as to ask the Father to take it from him.
What is this cup Jesus to which Jesus refers? The Old Testament mentions a cup that contains the wrath of God towards sin and sinners. This is the cup to which he is referring. Jesus will suffer betrayal, abandonment, arrest, imprisonment, torture, beatings, mocking, and crucifixion. However, worse than all of that, Jesus will bear the burden of the wrath of God towards sinners on his shoulders.
Jesus has no sin for which he should invite, let alone, experience the wrath of God. Nonetheless, Jesus came to free us from our sins. He came to redeem lost souls. He came to pay the penalty of sin. He came to be the ultimate Passover Lamb. The only way he could do that was to drink this cup, the cup of God’s wrath. Jesus would bear the burden. Jesus would take the punishment. It is unimaginable to me how Jesus responds to this intense, fearful and determinative moment as both human and God, and yet this is just the miracle and gift of his faith in and obedience to God, to make this sacrifice and to open the way for our salvation.
I recall that in the Confession in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer that we prayed: “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness… provoking most justly thy wrath… Have mercy upon us…For thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake… ” Indeed, we have provoked God’s wrath, the very wrath of the cup that Jesus prayed to have pass from him, but that he took on and that is why we can invoke his name in seeking God’s forgiveness and in expectation of newness of life.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
