a Twilight Musing

Partaking of the Lord’s Supper may not always be a pleasant experience. The events which it recalls, far from being pleasant, were intensely painful and emphasized the capacity for suffering in human life. There has never been a more anguished cry uttered than that of Christ on the cross: “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” The physical torture that Jesus endured when He was crucified is often graphically described, but it was the torment within His soul which racked His whole being. He endured a depth of despair which no other human being can ever fathom. Even the material world around was torn and disrupted by the death of Christ. Although we believe that in the midst of all this suffering a tremendous redemption was being wrought, the price that was paid is awful to contemplate.

But the Lord’s Supper is not merely contemplation; it is participation as well. Paul says that we must “suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom. 8:17). It is not without significance that Jesus spoke in Gethsemene of His coming ordeal as “this cup.” Earlier, when James and John requested special favors, Jesus asked if they were able to drink the cup that He was going to drink, and even in the face of their imperfect knowledge of what it was, He assured them that they would indeed share it with Him (Mark 10:32-40).

Here is the pattern that is reaffirmed every time we drink the cup at the Communion table. If the Son of God could not accomplish the purposes of the Father without imbibing the bitter cup of suffering, we must not expect our confession of Him to be without the pain of sacrifice. Only when we have voluntarily acknowledged that His suffering is our suffering can the inescapable pains of life serve to make us mature rather than bitter.

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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