This was inspired from a radio commercial…
One man took a blank sheet of paper and wrote out a plan for his whole life. He signed it and offered it up for Jesus to bless.
Another man took a blank sheet of paper and signed it. He offered it up to Jesus for Him to write a plan for his life.
Who has written on your blank sheet of paper?
In Henri Nouwen’s book, Can You Drink the Cup?, the cup of life is a cup of sorrows and a cup of joys. It is a cup of blessings. The cup is your life. You are asked to drink it. Drink it to the bottom.
Drinking the cup is not a heroic act with a nice reward! It is not part of a tit-for-tat agreement. Drinking the cup is an act of selfless love, an act of immense trust, an act of surrender to a God who will give what we need when we need it.
Jesus’ inviting us to drink the cup without offering the reward we expect is the great challenge of the spiritual life. It breaks through all human calculations and expectations. It defies all our wishes to be sure in advance. It turns our hope for a predictable future upside down and pulls down our self-invented safety devices. It asks for the most radical trust in God, the same trust that made Jesus drink the cup to the bottom.
Drinking the cup that Jesus drank is living a life in and with the spirit of Jesus, which is the spirit of unconditional love. The intimacy between Jesus and Abba, his Father, is an intimacy of complete trust, in which there are no power games, no mutually agreed upon promises, no advance guarantees. It is only love—pure, unrestrained, and unlimited love. Completely open, completely free. That intimacy gave Jesus the strength to drink his cup. That intimacy has a Name, a Divine Name. It is called Holy Spirit. Living a spiritual life is living a life in which the Holy Spirit will guide us and give us the strength and courage to keep saying yes to the great question.
An excerpt from Henri Nouwen’s book, Can You Drink the Cup?:
“Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” When Jesus brought this question to John and James, and when they impulsively answered with a big “We can,” he made this terrifying, yet hope-filled prediction: “Very well; you shall drink my cup.” The cup of Jesus would be their cup. What Jesus would live, they would live. Jesus didn’t want his friends to suffer, but he knew that for them, as for him, suffering was the only and necessary way to glory. Later he would say to two of his disciples: “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer before entering into his glory?” (Luke 24:26) The “cup of sorrows” and the “cup of joys” cannot be separated. Jesus knew this, even though in the midst of his anguish in the garden, when his soul was “sorrowful to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38), he needed an angel from heaven to remind him of it. Our cup is so often full of pain that joy seems completely unreachable. When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot not think of the wine we will become. The sorrow overwhelms us, makes us throw ourselves on the ground, face down, and sweat drops of blood. Then we need to be reminded that our cup of sorrow is our cup of joy and that one day we will be able to taste the joy as fully as we now taste the sorrow.
Soon after the angel had given him strength, Jesus stood up and faced Judas and the cohort who had come to arrest him. When Peter drew his sword and struck the high priest’s servant, Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back in its scabbard; am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (John 18:10-11).
Now Jesus is no longer overcome by anguish. He stands in front of his enemies with great dignity and inner freedom. He holds his cup filled with sorrow but with joy too. It is the joy of knowing that what he is about to undergo is the will of his Father and will lead him to fulfillment of his mission. The Evangelist John shows us the enormous power that emanates from Jesus. He writes: “Knowing everything that was to happen to him, Jesus came forward and said [to Judas and the cohort]: ‘Who are you looking for? They answer, ‘Jesus the Nazarene,’ He said, ‘I am he.’… When Jesus said to them, ‘I am he,’ they moved back and fell on the ground” (John 18:4-6).
Jesus’ unconditional yes to his Father had empowered him to drink his cup, not in passive resignation but with the full knowledge that the hour of his death would also be the hour of his glory. His yes made his surrender a creative act, an act that could bear much fruit. His yes took away the fatality of the interruption of his ministry. Instead of a final irrevocable end, his death became the beginning of a new life. Indeed, his yes enabled him to trust fully in the rich harvest the dying grain would yield.
When we are crushed like grapes, we cannot not think of the wine we will become.
— Henri Nouwen
Last week, I posted a journal entry about how I felt “the weight of darkness looming at the edge of depression.” Today, I think I have crawled, then walked, to a relatively safe distance from that edge, but I can still barely feel its gentle, almost seductive pull.
James Lipton asks the following ten questions at the end of the TV show Inside the Actor’s Studio. These questions originally came from a French series, “Bouillon de Culture” hosted by Bernard Pivot. (Prompted by Steven)
What is your favorite word?
Muy bien
What is your least favorite word?
Formaldehyde—It smells bad too.
What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
Smiles and prayer
What turns you off?
Gossip—especially the malicious, life-denying kind
What is your favorite curse word?
Sh!t—I am afraid that my last words before I die will be, “Oh sh!t…”
What sound or noise do you love?
Giggling, laughter
What sound or noise do you hate?
Whining—Occupational hazard of being a teacher and parent
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
A painter
What profession would you not like to do?
Anything in sales
If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
I know you. Welcome home. I’m also afraid that he will ask, “Why did you take life so seriously?”