The cup of sacrifice

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The cup of sacrifice

[For additional background on the theme of the greatest being the servants of all, from this gospel reading and elsewhere, see Status, love and equality and Peter took him aside. To search this site further go to DB Home.]

They replied, "We are able." Then Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; {40} but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." (Mark 10:39-40)

When they asked for privileged places in the kingdom, Jesus challenged his disciples with the question of whether they would be able to submit to suffering as he would: Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? It was the cup of sacrifice (Matthew 26:39) and baptism into his death (Romans 6:3) that he was talking about. They were on their way to Jerusalem and he had been preparing them for how he would have to face humiliation and death when he was there. Despite what he had told them already about the first being last and taking up their own cross and following him (Mark 8:31-35), they were still seeking privileges in the government of the kingdom they expected him to establish as the Messiah.

(Mark 10:37-38) And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." {38} But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?"

So Jesus said in effect, if you want to share the privileges can you share the suffering? Can you take the bad with the good? They thought that they could, but Jesus believed that they did not know what they were saying.

Jesus himself, indeed, had yet to face the question of whether he, personally, could drink the cup of suffering. He was ready and knew what he must do, even to the bitter dregs, but he still had to go through with it. It was not a foregone conclusion. His struggle to live and die in obedience to his Father's will was a real struggle. We find him in the garden not long after this, on the night when he was betrayed, facing the final question:

(Matthew 26:39) 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."

Now he was utterly alone,

(Matthew 26:40) 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?"

He knew that was how it would be. He had just said as much to them:

(Matthew 26:27) And Jesus said to them, "You will all become deserters; for it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.'"

Yet only an hour or so earlier he had passed around the cup of fellowship signifying for those who shared it that they would be sharing in his death:

(Matthew 26:27-29) Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you; {28} for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. {29} I tell you, I will never again drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom."

Years later they would recall many times the meaning of this sharing in the cup of sacrifice, as Paul expressed it:

(1 Corinthians 10:16) The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?

They knew that it was a communion in which they shared in the life of their risen Lord, and that it was also a remembrance of his death in which they were called to share. Not that they could accomplish anything like what he did for them when he drank the cup of sacrifice: they could only take up their cross and follow him, in the hope of sharing in the victory over sin and death which his sacrifice had won for them all. And indeed many of them did suffer a martyr's death, not least Peter who found faithfulness at the end so difficult, but whom Jesus forgave and re-commissioned when he walked again with him on shore of the lake after he rose from the dead:

(John 21:17-19) He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. {18} Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." {19} (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, "Follow me."

All this was yet to come when he said to them that they would indeed drink the cup that he would drink. There were not many days left before it would all come to a climax, but they would probably not even have cause to remember what he had said until much later when the cost of discipleship would become clear to them. They had first to grasp the meaning of his death, and the promise of new life. They had to go through the experience of being identified with him in his death and then to share that with others so that believers would learn to die with him to the old lives they would leave behind when they went down into the waters of baptism and rose to a new life. Later Paul would interpret that experience for all believers:

(Romans 6:3-5) Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? {4} Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. {5} For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

From that experience they would eventually know what Jesus meant when he said, the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized. And through the ages to come the church, his body, would celebrate the sacraments in which the promises which belong to sharing the cup of blessing and the water of baptism would be fulfilled for all those who joined themselves to him in the fellowship of the apostles.

So I hope you can appreciate the symbolic depth, the deep assurance, the great challenge and the sure hope of fulfilment that was contained in those words of Jesus about sharing in his death, under the signs of the cup and water. It did come in the context of political talk about power in government, about the need to be a servant if you would be a leader, and all that was important and necessary; but there was a great deal more to it than a lesson in ethics and politics. It is indeed important to remember the associated admonition:

(Mark 10:42-44) So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. {43} But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, {44} and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all."

But do see how he continued, bringing it back to his death:

(Mark 10:44-45) and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. {45} For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."

The social and political message comes out of his sacrificial death in which he gave his life as a ransom for many, which we remember, re-enact and appropriate in faith as we share in the sacraments, and as we break the bread of life into the world in sacrificial service. Action in the service of humanity declares in deeds of mercy the same word as the proclamation of the good news about his death, but the gospel is about his death and resurrection, not how we must act in the world. Paul summed it up this way:

(1 Corinthians 15:1-5) Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, {2} through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you--unless you have come to believe in vain. {3} For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, {4} and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, {5} and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

That is the heart of the matter, and it is what Jesus himself was teaching the disciples to be ready to accept when their journey to Jerusalem had come to its terrible and glorious end. That is what we are called upon to share. The gospel, the good news of his death and resurrection, is what will put everything in perspective. In the light of the cross and his victory all social and political action will be both judged and brought to fulfilment. Apart from the cross, even if the appropriate emphases are made on humility and sacrifice, even the very best of human service can fall into self-justifying pride, and in some groups into an authoritarian ideology justifying such things class warfare and denigration of people who disagree with a currently popular form of enlightenment. Nothing is more important today, when theories of social action tend to take the place of the gospel, than to remember the cross in which we share. It is a sharing in the death of Christ in which all theories, motives, and movements are brought under judgment and transformed. Not that we are not called to effective political action, we may well be, but remember what Jesus said to his disciples when they began to prepare for how they would govern the kingdom: Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They would indeed share the cup of sacrifice, and be baptised into his death, thereby bringing to us also that sharing in his death which gives us the life of Christ for all eternity. Praise be to him who took the cup of sacrifice and gave his life as a ransom for many; and praise to God who has given us the means through his death of sharing in that life which was poured out for us all.

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