Cups

Cups—portable containers that remain open and ready to spill—or to be filled.  It is their lot to be filled and emptied time and time again.  It is easy to see why cups are such useful metaphors. It is so simple—something has to hold the liquid for us until we can get it to our lips to drink it.  Surely the first cups were simply our hands, cupped to do the job.  In actuality cups can be simple and inexpensive or elaborate and costly, but they still only do the one thing we need for them to do.

As a metaphor, cups are even more useful.  When all is well, we say, “My cup runneth over.”  When life is tough, we say we must drink from a “bitter cup.” The life each of us lives is very much like a cup.  Each day we lift it to our lips and drink its contents without even looking at what might be in there.  We have no choice, if we are to live, we must drink from the cup of life.  Circumstances not of our choosing are the daily fare.  People not of our choosing stir the cup, sometimes sweetening its contents and sometime making the bitter while at other times neutralizing any taste at all.  Life is sweet, bitter, or tasteless, but it is in the cup that we must drink.

Also, cups are portable; we can pack them away with our stuff for future use.  Some of us are so rich, we collect coffee mugs that chronicle places we have stopped to drink of life.  Mugs might also advertise things we admire, concepts, events, arts, or even political positions.  So these cups contain our beverages of choice and propagate our preferences all at the same time.  These open containers are intended for our access to the things we like—coffee, tea, hot chocolate—things that are tasty, sweet, comforting, or bracing: cups of choice and freedom.

Throughout the scriptures the cup metaphor appears regularly.  There is the cup of life and the cup of joy, the cup of delight and the cup of suffering, and the cup of sin and the cup of judgment. The cup represents the blood of Jesus when we sit at His table.

The Psalms tell us of a Shepherd who is our Lord Himself, who pours for us life as an over-flowing cup. Also, we are told in this book of prayer of another cup in God’s hands “full of foaming wine mixed with spices; he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs.”

In the gloom of night deep in a garden while His men surrendered to heavy sleep, Jesus faced another cup, one He resisted.  “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

And then He drank it dry.

His cup of death and judgment became for us the cup of life that runs over with joy, strength, and peace with God.

Scriptures

Psalm 23 NIV

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,  he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Psalm 75 NIV

We give thanks to you, O God, we give thanks, for your Name is near; men tell of your wonderful deeds.  You say, “I choose the appointed time; it is I who judge uprightly.  When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm. To the arrogant I say, ‘Boast no more,’ and to the wicked, ‘Do not lift up your horns.  Do not lift your horns against heaven;

do not speak with outstretched neck.'”  No one from the east or the west or from the desert can exalt a man.  But it is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another.  In the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices; he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs.  As for me, I will declare this forever; I will sing praise to the God of Jacob.  I will cut off the horns of all the wicked, but the horns of the righteous will be lifted up.

Matthew 26:39 NIV

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

Poem

This Cup*

Stephen Phifer

Those who followed Him were sleeping. There was so little they understood.

The night ground was covered with a dew as thorough as the responsibility which labored the Master’s soul.

He went forward a few steps and fell to the earth. Seeking His Father’s presence, He thought of the

Long years of preparation leading to the ordeal He knew to be only hours away.

Would it not be sufficient to offer His perfection as the example?

No, He must drain the cup of imperfection —Gall of unrighteousness centuries old,

mixed with the poison of centuries to come. When time was just an idea in His Father’s mind,

He had known the nectar of holiness. Now, He must drink of the bitter fruit of this garden.

“Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”

He thought of the little girl so afraid of the crowd. He had calmed her simply with attention.

She may never realize that He was the cause of the confusion.

He thought of the dead now living — the blind now in love with color, those once deaf now quickly glancing at every new sound,

The lepers walking freely in the city, and Those eager ones who receiving His words, feasted their starving souls.

The pressure, the hour, the heat, His silent, private anguish.His sweat was as blood.

Of course, there were His disciples — sleeping Impulsive Peter with all his boast. John, the one ruled by love.

James, Phillip, Andrew — On and on He considered each one present and also the one gone.

He looked over an eternal shoulder to those of faith waiting for His rescue.

He stared forward into the darkness seeing thousands — each.

“Oh my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, Thy will be done.”

Having decided, He began to stand. Weak, He paused a moment to gather strength.

Dawn was approaching. He must leave the garden. The hour had come.

His step traversed perhaps a meter of Judean soil, a small step for man.

It bridged the gap of man’s eternal rebellion against God –a giant leap for mankind.

Monticello, Arkansas, 1969

*Note: in the summer of 1969, the USA landed men on the moon.  That fall I wrote this poem.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, fill my cup today!  Save me from the random sweets and poisons the world might put there.  I choose the good things You have provided for me to drink: the waters of life from Your deep well, the cup of rejoicing in the details of Your loving-kindness, the amazing grace You pour out for me each day, and the sweet oil of the Spirit whose taste remains on my tongue until well into the night.  You drank all that was bitter so You could pour my cup full with the sweet. Thank You, Jesus.

Semper Reformanda!

Stephen Phifer