Today’s Gospel reading seems out of place for Advent. After all, Advent is the season of symbolic waiting. Symbolically, we wait and yearn for the coming of the Messiah as the Jews did for four hundred years between the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. And parallel to waiting for the Messiah to come, we who are Christians wait for our Messiah to come again. During Advent we look forward to birth of Jesus. So while our churches are flocked with blue and wreathes, our reading today calls to mind the Season of Lent where we prepare for the Resurrection of Jesus by learning about his death a few months from now.
If you notice in the Lectionary for Daily Readings, The readings started over with Jesus entering into the Jerusalem during Passover. Palm Sunday, right? However the reason for this odd combination of season and scripture is because as we read about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, we also symbolically await his coming into the world, Christmas.
Our readings have thus brought up to this point on the Mount of Olives. Here Jesus knowing what is to pass, prays.
In life, we wait. Waiting for Joyous occasions such as the birth of children, or children waiting to make their first trip to Disney Land. Or daily trivial events; waiting in the lines are grocery stores or the bank. Or less fortunate events when we are just “waiting for IT” to happen; foreclosure, divorce, even death. If I had to guess, this was probably Jesus’ version of waiting.
In these types of waiting, we don’t typically want them to happen. They aren’t fun. They are periods of anxiety where we may know what is coming, we may not know what to expect.
Here in his own agony and anxiety of waiting, Jesus returns one final time to his favorite retreat spot, and prays. In his prayer he asked if God was willing that this cup would be removed from him. But either way God’s will be done. Typically in scripture, Angels are sent to be messengers. If I were in Jesus situation, I would probably be absolutely stoked to see an angel, with perhaps hope of God removing “this cup”. But instead, the angel offers words of encouragement, only making the reality of God’s will, all too solid.
Jesus probably prayed a lot more that what is recorded in the Gospel. But the writer chose to note these words in his gospel. In this short prayer is the ultimate character of Christ: Obedience to the will of God. And particularly, obedience unto death. The will of God in his prayer is symbolized as a cup. Just a few verses before we see Jesus blessing the Passover wine as the blood of the New Covenant. A cup from which liturgical Christians remember and rejoice in every Sunday. Why a cup? A cup is something which holds something, and we take its contents in. In Holy Communion, we take the cup of salvation which holds the blood of Christ, and we take in the newness of life which came from Jesus death. In Jesus’ case on the Mount of Olives, the cup is the will of God for Jesus, and it holds the physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering for which he is about to endure. This is the point of no return for Jesus. Its Jesus’ had been waiting for since day one; Christmas.
Jesus was human. We are human. In his Incarnation is assumed all of humanity. All humans suffer and experience shortcomings in our lives, some darker than others. We all know too well the pain of emotional agony in our minds which in turn causes anguish on our bodies. We all know too well the pains of being mortal humans. So did Jesus.
In this season, we reflect on what we do most in life: wait. No matter what is waited for, it is important to see that in waiting we are not to just sit, wait, and do nothing. We act. Jesus acted by praying. Not only was he waiting for that which was to come, but he was preparing and getting ready. It’s easy to sit idle in dark times. It often seems that there is just simply nothing left to do. It’s all too easy to forget that depressing story about the death of an innocent man doesn’t end here. It was also God’s will that Jesus should overcome death.
Jesus was a man of action. From turning tables over riding on a donkey. Jesus kept pretty busy. So ought we. I’m not saying that God will take all our problems away and change his will for us just in one prayer. But if we discern what the will of God is in our lives and accept his cup, then we can always know that we will resurrect from our darkness and demons into something better. This is the hardest part of Christian Spirituality, knowing that as Julian of Norwich said, “In the manner of all things, all shall be well” will always be true.
In his Incarnation he was made fully man. Everyone one of us will face death. It is important to always remember that though our death clock seems to always be ticking, it is what we do in our “dead time” which will have everlasting impacts.
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