A Twilight Musing

When the disciples James and John wanted to be assured of prominent positions in Jesus’ kingdom, He asked them whether they were able to drink of the cup that He was to drink of. When in their presumption and beyond their understanding they said they could, Jesus predicted that indeed they would share His cup. But their sharing in that cup of suffering even to the point of martyrdom would have had no meaning had Jesus not drunk it to the dregs first.

The most oppressive burden that Jesus bore was not merely stooping to be human, or being rejected, or even being shamefully killed; it was fully knowing that ahead of Him was that moment of unique loneliness on the cross when He experienced the fullest measure of alienation from God, the death-penalty of sin. From that acute knowledge in Gesthemene burst the agonized prayer, “Father, if it is your will, remove this cup from me.” But none of this prescient agony could he communicate to His disciples, for even as He uttered that anguished plea for deliverance, the sleeping disciples behind Him symbolized the deep separation that He experienced even from those who knew Him best.

But the greatest wonder of the Gospel of Jesus is that after being driven to the depths of emptiness by his acceptance of the will of the Father, the Son of God wants to share with sinners what He gained by facing that emptiness alone. We can now share in the cup of suffering that He drank, but we can endure it in confidence and hope because He tempered its bitterness with the forsaken flow of His life’s blood. And He invites us to sit and eat with Him—the One who ate the bread of sorrow in desolation. For now that He has passed through the Shadow for all of us, He calls to us, “Dearest ones, do not cling to your loneliness and isolation, which I have endured for you; cast it off, and sup with me, and we shall be together, as it was meant to be.”

Dr. Elton Higgs was a faculty member in the English department of the University of Michigan-Dearborn from 1965-2001. Having retired from UM-D as Prof. of English in 2001, he now lives with his wife in Jackson, MI. He has published scholarly articles on Chaucer, Langland, the Pearl Poet, Shakespeare, and Milton. Recently, Dr. Higgs has self-published a collection of his poetry called Probing Eyes: Poems of a Lifetime, 1959-2019, as well as a book inspired by The Screwtape Letters, called The Ichabod Letters, available as an e-book from Moral Apologetics. (Ed.: Dr. Higgs was the most important mentor during undergrad for the creator of this website, and his influence was inestimable.

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