Daily devotion – The cup…
Mark 14: 33 And He took Peter, James, and John with Him, and He began to be troubled and deeply distressed. 34 Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch.”
Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane is an amazing picture of God’s sacrificial love for each of us. What was the great distress that swept over Jesus that eve of His arrest?
The language of the verse is vivid and powerful – “….Horror and anguish overwhelmed Him, and He said to them, ‘My heart is ready to break with grief.’ V33-34.
Doctor Luke alone adds, with his medical interest, that “His sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” – Luke 22:44. Jesus referred to His coming ordeal as a “cup” from which He shrank in dread.
Was it simply death? No, all the evidence is against this.
Jesus physical and moral courage had not for a moment wavered. The cup that Jesus ardently longed to avoid was neither the physical pain of crucifixion nor the mental anguish of desertion by His friends but the spiritual horror of bearing the sins of the world.
In the Old Testament the cup was a regular symbol of God’s wrath. For example, Isaiah described Jerusalem after its destruction as having “drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of His wrath.” – Isaiah 51:17
From the agony in the garden Jesus emerged with a resolute determination to go to the cross.
Remember grace is free, but it came at a great cost to our blessed Lord and Saviour.