A Bitter Cup: Sipping Sorrow

Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.”  He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. (Luke 22:39-44)

I wrote yesterday that I am not big on the whole "give something up for Lent" thing.  I have two reasons for this.  First, giving something up seems a little bit like trying to make it up to Jesus... as if we could ever compensate for the agonies he suffered on the cross.  We simply cannot compete with his sacrifice.  We don't have to, either, so it seems a bit silly even to attempt it.  It seems much wiser, not to mention simpler and more biblical, to revel in the efficacy of his work than to rack our brains and test our bodies trying to come up with some trivial "sacrifice" to offer him.

The second reason I'm not a fan of Lenten sacrifice is that too often it smacks of a resurrected New Year's Resolution (pun noted, but not intended).  While some people give up or add things with the sincere intent of growing in faith, others just give up, well, stuff they ought to give up anyway, stuff they've tried and failed to give up in the past - candy, dessert, junk food, chocolate, soda...  In the end, assuming they stick to it, they might have the satisfaction of  having lost a couple of pounds they've been meaning to lose anyway.  It's really not about growing closer to Jesus as much as it is doing something they've wanted to do, but haven't had the motivation to do.

Even so...  The last couple of years, I've kind of, sort of felt like maybe I ought to give up something for Lent.  Nothing dramatic, mind you.  The older I get, the quieter my dramatic flair...  and the more careful I am not to promise anything I might not be able to deliver.  Last year, I was pleasantly surprised to make it forty days with no weekday coffee and no dessert.  (See what a wimp I am?  I gave myself an out by allowing coffee on the weekend...  How sacrificial is that?) I was pleased with the fact that I had made it through, as well as with the five or so pounds I'd lost.  I'm not sure, though, that I had really grown in faith.  I mean, there were moments... but if I am completely honest, it was more a challenge accepted than an exercise in faith.

This year, I kept it simple.  Remembering last year - and remembering it with a hint of hollowness - I didn't want Lent to be about healthy living choices that would make me look and feel better or about meeting a challenge to make a radical change.  Still, I couldn't quite shake the nudge to do something to direct my thoughts daily to Christ's journey to the cross, and it ended up quite a small something...  little more than a teaspoon of sugar left out of my coffee.

But what a difference a teaspoon of sugar makes!  With each sip, my coffee gently stings my tongue, alerting me to the absence of the tiny amount of sugar that would so sublimely balance its bitterness.  It isn't bad, but it's not the same.  I still enjoy my coffee, but I'm reminded sip by bitter sip that I have given up a tiny bit of sugar in my coffee.  I'm reminded that for a season, I will drink a bitter cup.

And I'm reminded, thanks to a passage from I Peter that I stumbled upon a few days into my bitter coffee experience, that Christ, too, drank a bitter cup.

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed." (I Peter 2:24) 

As I read these words, I thought of Christ's bitter journey to the cross.  How he turned his steps toward Jerusalem, how he told his disciples again and again that he would be betrayed, mocked, spit upon, beaten, and crucified, how he promised he would rise again in glory...  and how in the Garden of Gethsemane, he fell on his face and prayed that this cup be taken from him.

My coffee is sweet by comparison, nothing to match the bitterness of my Savior's cup, and as I grow accustomed to the lack of sugar, sometimes I gulp it down without much thought at all.  But when I drink with purpose, allowing myself to reflect upon its unsweetened flavor, sip by sip it reminds me of Christ's willful consumption of that truly bitter cup.  Each fully savored sip feels like a tiny step with Jesus on his journey to the cross, a journey he took with tears of agony and sweat of blood, a journey he took to redeem and sweeten life for me and you...

This, I think, is the secret of Lent, quietly keeping watch as our Savior makes his way toward our salvation, sipping his sorrow - and in the end, when the sugar bowl comes back out on Easter morning, gulping down the all-consuming sweetness of his triumph.