This is the cup that
Jesus takes up: the cup of suffering.
‘I will lift up the
cup of salvation’, says the psalmist.
‘Father if you are
willing, remove this cup from me’, says our Lord.
‘and call upon the
name of the LORD’, says the psalmist.
‘Yet, not my will by
yours be done’, says Jesus.
Luke tells us that in
his anguish ‘he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of
blood falling down on the ground.’
The disciples slept –
in grief and exhaustion; unaware of the enormity of events.
A crowd gathers;
there’s a kiss. This is what betrayal looks like; my own familiar friend. And
Jesus says: ‘this is your hour, and the power of darkness’.
Perhaps it is the
pairing of psalms 42 and 43 that make sense now. ‘Where is your God?’
‘My
soul is cast down’.
‘My tears have been
my food day and night’.
‘Deep calls to deep’.
‘Why are you cast down,
O my soul, / and shy are you disquieted within me?’
‘My soul thirsts for
God, for the living God’.
The throng going in
procession to the house of God; the shouts and songs of thanksgiving and the
multitude making festival: all this feels a long way off. Yet and yet, ‘Hope in
God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.’
Vindicate me; defend
my cause. In the face of grief and the oppression of enemies: ‘O send out your
light and your truth, let them lead me.’
© Julie Gittoes 2016
