Pastor Hugh's October 2008 Meditation
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JESUS’ CUP OF SORROW—
OUR CUP OF BLESSING
This month we are continuing our journey through our stained glass windows by taking a close look at one that is entitled, “Jesus’ Cup of Sorrow.” It depicts a golden chalice surrounded by a crown of thorns. It can be found, when sitting in worship, immediately to the left of the door leading to the Fellowship Hall.
Click on image to see a larger view of St. Paul’s “Christ's Cup of Passion” Window, in a separate window.
When looking at this image, I am reminded of the struggle Jesus went through on the night leading up to his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. In a prayer to his heavenly Father, as he contemplated what he knew he must soon face—namely his arrest, a sham trial, his suffering at the hands of Pontius Pilate, and his execution on a cross—Jesus pleaded, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) (Some ancient manuscripts include the detail that, “in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.” (v. 44))
For Jesus, the “cup” from which he had to drink was a cup of sorrow and suffering. As we get to know him more, and especially as we read of the last hours of his earthly life, we can’t help but be reminded of that great passage from Isaiah that describes a “suffering servant” of God:
He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account.
Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. (Isaiah 53:2-4)
Recently I came across a song I have on my iPod by Sandi Patty called the Via Dolorosa. (Perhaps I will get up the courage to sing it in worship one day.) As I was searching for its lyrics on line, I found a short video on YouTube that showed parts of the movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” as the song was sung. The song describes Jesus journey along the “Way of Suffering” in Jerusalem. It is stirring, even inspiring, and extremely hard to watch. It is a beautiful yet violently graphic reminder of how Jesus’ cup of sorrow has become our cup of blessing. His death has brought us life. As the song expresses it:
Down the Vía Dolorosa
called the way of suffering
Like a lamb came the Messiah,
Christ the King.
But He chose to walk that road
out of His love for you and me
Down the Vía Dolorosa,
all the way to Calvary.
You and I live in a world that desperately wants to sanitize the Jesus story, rendering him a wise sage, a Gandhi-like leader of a first century peace movement, or a spiritual being whose purpose was to demonstrate what it was like to live as a child of God—one of us, in other words, only more so. But while he was all of the above, none of that explains why we gather two thousand years later in his name, let alone how we are able to find hope, comfort and new life through faith in him. He wasn’t merely a talented guide who came to show the way. He was (is) God’s son, come to save us from Death and its minions. His sorrow, his sacrifice, has become our blessing and his death the door to eternal life.
Hugh R. B. Haffenreffer
Pastor
October 2008
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