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Day 65: Lift the Cup. Deuteronomy 5-6, Psalm 43 and Mark 14.
Lift the Cup
Our readings today are Deuteronomy 5-6, Psalm 43 and Mark 14. We are reading through the New Living Translation.
On the way, Jesus told them, Tonight all of you will desert me. (Mt 26:31)
There’s something that Peter, Judas, all the disciples, and even you and I, have in common. Betrayal. Despite our best intentions, despite all the resolve, we have betrayed him, with our lips, our words, our feet, a kiss. We’re all guilty of falling away. Jesus said so. All of humankind has fallen away.
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the LORD laid on him the sins of us all. (Isa 53:6)
All of us have been deceived by the lie of separation, and we’ve lived that way, we lived lives separating ourselves from God. We have all bitten into that deceitful fruit, that makes us betray our God, ourselves and others. So Jesus takes the cup, that’s going to mean bitter suffering and death, for him. It’s a cup of his blood, shed for you and me and all that have betrayed him. Jesus offers himself, in self-giving, radically forgiving co suffering love for all. In his death, he defeats death and draws us into his resurrection life. He drank the cup of suffering and death, and hands us a cup of life and hope. He takes the bread, that for him is the bread of brokenness. His body is going to be broken. But for us, who have all betrayed Him, when he hands us this broken bread, it is the bread of healing and life. He offers up his body and blood, so that we can be mended and made whole. He offers Himself. Because of the death He died, I can have the life he lived, then. I can have it now. Lift up the cup of salvation. Take the bread of His brokenness. Give thanks. And find your life and healing, each day, in the the life He offers, right now. And one day, you will live it there, with Him.
What can I offer the Lord for all he has done for me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and praise the Lord’s name for saving me. (Ps 116:12-13)
You are loved!
