cup

"for I am already being poured out like a drink offering"

Interesting how seldom we speak to each other along these terms when "life" (small "l") brings what can subsequently spawn maturity.

There seems to be much obsession with eggshell-walking when hardship and trials are afoot.

And yet, the most powerful thing I've heard spoken in the midst of life's torrent is:

"when is any Christian going to come up to you and say, 'you know, you are being poured out like a drink offering. Crushed and pressed, just like a grape for wine'?"

This statement stirred me at a very deep root level, and even in the midst of embracing it I am still digesting it.

It pricks me, and stirs something mysterious yet powerful within, which I'm not tasting all of yet.

It's the kind of thing which impacts the paradigm about an entire season of life.

Or would that be life from here forward, period?

I just read last night when two were speaking with Jesus, and the subject arose they wished to be seated next to him in the next Life.

Jesus said "You don't know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?"

When do we talk about drinking our bitter cup, so that we can "know Jesus, and the fellowship of his suffering, as to be continually transformed into his likeness, even unto death"?

What do we think our bitter cup is?

Disappointment that sister Betty Sue didn't make her special broccoli rice casserole at the latest church potluck?

Wonder as to why the church bought a new video projector instead of cushions for the metal fold out chairs in fellowship hall, which are always so cold and uncomfortable?

Disgust that we missed the latest episode of our favorite tv show?

Lament that the store was sold out of the latest gadget we wanted to buy for ourselves or someone else?

Tears from living beyond our means, and subsequently our resolve to keep up with the Joneses in some form or fashion is being eaten away?

Outcry at having to wait fifteen extra minutes before our hairdresser can get to us, because the person before us was late?

The list goes on...and on...and on.

Do we even know what bitter is?

Do we drink it when offered to us, that we might actually start to become like the guy we speak all warm and positively of, Jesus? (gasp)

"That I may know Jesus, and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death" (third notch of Phillipians).

This explains a lot.

I've been silently pondering for some time how much this has become a gospel of words and debate and posturing. Posturing, not power...

Dead-raising power ebbs into oblivion, cause we don't want to go through the same sufferings Jesus went through.

I wonder at what point he quit being the Man of Sorrows.

Or, better asked, at what point did the Body stop acknowledging him the Man of Sorrows?

We won't see power unless we take the bitter cup...

And drink.

When we we are the most empty and the least "ourselves", that is the point when power beyond our comprehension can be birthed.

Jesus says "My power is made perfect in your weakness".

So while we waste days and time and lives and energy seeking for the Ward and June Cleaver life, there's a guy who watches, eager to see if we're going to let our guard down.

See if we're going to quit playing the "I've got it together", "I'm blessed" facade game.

See if we're going to dare to actually and literally follow.

See if we would defy all human sense and propriety and talk to Him about what our own bitter cup might be.

See if we'd be willing to drink it.

See if we're willing to abandon ourself.

See if we're willing to cut bait.

See if we will embrace bitter, instead of command it out of our life in Jesus' name.

See if we're willing to die.

It is here when "the kingdom of God is near".

Do we even care?

Dare we let the shackles be removed. They're uncomfortable, yet largely not enough to matter.

And so we continue to be bats of Grombiton. Staring at the ground, wondering what the hell we have wings for, and never looking up to heaven.