The Cup
[What follows is an imprecise extrapolation of anciently recorded words of God. What is canonical, remains so. What is true stands infinitely. These words on a screen only serve to exude an emotion with utility likely to none other than the author.]
Father… Please… I can’t go through this.
It is too much to bear… I’m staggering at this suffering in my body and spirit. I’m trembling under the depths of this pain, blood coursing from every precious pore of this body we created together.
Father, I don’t want to shrink into the shadow of sorrow’s oblivion. Please, take this cup from my shuddering hands.
The gift of these eternal seconds is impossible to embellish. Here at the singularity of all existence, from eternity to all eternity, one of the most astonishing things He teaches you and me is the profundity of our capacity to render love to another. There is little else that draws my soul out towards another, with all the exuberance of a nets and ship-abandoning disciple, as these pained mutterings of my Lord and God. The willing self-sacrifice of a parent or lover may approach this height, but ultimately falls short. This is devotion. This is the consequence of the archetype of all humility, forever after.
Now, we return our gaze upon this suffering Savior. At this, the most important of all moments, we find his plea for release. We don’t find a triumph evincing all of evil. We find an agony that cannot be described. We find a Son, knowing full well his former determined purpose, reevaluating his own willingness to see through this desperate burden. Assuredly, his commitment and desire to accomplish His Father’s will remains resolute; nonetheless, this is harrowing pit, deeper, darker and more hopeless than the accumulation of all of humankind’s pain. God, the Father, at this time, will not even venture there at his side.
Far from a neurotic bickering at the height of torment, the words of the Son of God lend an irrefutable appraisal of the magnitude of His sacrifice in choking down the swill of misery and render Glory to the Father. They also pierce our hearts with the reminder that our own affliction, mere atoms swirling within his comparable sea of suffering, may also cause us a similar chilling aversion. What is torture in this existence need not be loved. The swallows ARE bitter, and we may one day find ourselves gasping for the oxygen of respite, wishing and praying for not a single draught more.
Among so many other reasons, I love Him for this. Of all that he shows in the myriad eccentricities of life, this example in seeming paradox is worth it all. I can love. In reality, I can love far more than this delicate mind of mine can hope to understand. I can earnestly, eagerly and truthfully walk through my own valley of the shadow of death and still beg for relief. I can be dragged, tearfully clawing for escape, with a brimming love for my Father amidst the sobs.
