cup

171:0.5When Je­sus heard Sa­lome’s re­quest, he said: “Woman, you know not what you ask.” And then, look­ing straight into the eyes of the two honor-seek­ing apos­tles, he said: “Be­cause I have long known and loved you; be­cause I have even lived in your mother’s house; be­cause An­drew has as­signed you to be with me at all times; there­fore do you per­mit your mother to come to me se­cretly, mak­ing this un­seemly re­quest. But let me ask you: Are you able to drink the cup I am about to drink?” And with­out a mo­ment for thought, James and John an­swered, “Yes, Mas­ter, we are able.” Said Je­sus: “I am sad­dened that you know not why we go up to Je­ru­sa­lem; I am grieved that you un­der­stand not the na­ture of my king­dom; I am dis­ap­pointed that you bring your mother to make this re­quest of me; but I know you love me in your hearts; there­fore I de­clare that you shall in­deed drink of my cup of bit­ter­ness and share in my hu­mil­i­a­tion, but to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to give. Such hon­ors are re­served for those who have been des­ig­nated by my Fa­ther.”

171:2.5“Now should you ex­am­ine your­self to find out your mo­tive for be­ing my dis­ci­ple. If you seek honor and glory, if you are worldly minded, you are like the salt when it has lost its sa­vor. And when that which is val­ued for its salti­ness has lost its sa­vor, where­with shall it be sea­soned? Such a condi­ment is use­less; it is fit only to be cast out among the refuse. Now have I warned you to turn back to your homes in peace if you are not will­ing to drink with me the cup which is be­ing pre­pared. Again and again have I told you that my king­dom is not of this world, but you will not be­lieve me. He who has ears to hear let him hear what I say.”

136:9.4As the days passed, with ever-in­creas­ing clear­ness Je­sus per­ceived what kind of a truth-re­vealer he was to be­come. He dis­cerned that God’s way was not go­ing to be the easy way. He be­gan to re­al­ize that the cup of the re­main­der of his hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence might pos­si­bly be bit­ter, but he de­cided to drink it.

182:3.2The Mas­ter re­mained in a prayer­ful at­ti­tude for a few mo­ments, and then, go­ing over to the three apos­tles, he found them sound asleep, for their eyes were heavy and they could not re­main awake. As Je­sus awoke them, he said: “What! can you not watch with me even for one hour? Can­not you see that my soul is ex­ceed­ingly sor­row­ful, even to death, and that I crave your com­pan­ion­ship?” Af­ter the three had aroused from their slum­ber, the Mas­ter again went apart by him­self and, falling down on the ground, again prayed: “Fa­ther, I know it is pos­si­ble to avoid this cup—all things are pos­si­ble with you—but I have come to do your will, and while this is a bit­ter cup, I would drink it if it is your will.” And when he had thus prayed, a mighty an­gel came down by his side and, speak­ing to him, touched him and strength­ened him.

182:3.3When Je­sus re­turned to speak with the three apos­tles, he again found them fast asleep. He awak­ened them, say­ing: “In such an hour I need that you should watch and pray with me—all the more do you need to pray that you en­ter not into temp­ta­tion—where­fore do you fall asleep when I leave you?”

182:3.4And then, for a third time, the Mas­ter with­drew and prayed: “Fa­ther, you see my sleep­ing apos­tles; have mercy upon them. The spirit is in­deed will­ing, but the flesh is weak. And now, O Fa­ther, if this cup may not pass, then would I drink it. Not my will, but yours, be done.” And when he had fin­ished pray­ing, he lay for a mo­ment pros­trate on the ground. When he arose and went back to his apos­tles, once more he found them asleep. He sur­veyed them and, with a pity­ing ges­ture, ten­derly said: “Sleep on now and take your rest; the time of de­ci­sion is past. The hour is now upon us wherein the Son of Man will be be­trayed into the hands of his en­e­mies.” As he reached down to shake them that he might awaken them, he said: “Arise, let us be go­ing back to the camp, for, be­hold, he who be­trays me is at hand, and the hour has come when my flock shall be scat­tered. But I have al­ready told you about these things.”

182:3.5Dur­ing the years that Je­sus lived among his fol­low­ers, they did, in­deed, have much proof of his di­vine na­ture, but just now are they about to wit­ness new ev­i­dences of his hu­man­ity. Just be­fore the great­est of all the rev­e­la­tions of his di­vin­ity, his res­ur­rec­tion, must now come the great­est proofs of his mor­tal na­ture, his hu­mil­i­a­tion and cru­ci­fix­ion.

182:3.6Each time he prayed in the gar­den, his hu­man­ity laid a firmer faith-hold upon his di­vin­ity; his hu­man will more com­pletely be­came one with the di­vine will of his Fa­ther. Among other words spo­ken to him by the mighty an­gel was the mes­sage that the Fa­ther de­sired his Son to fin­ish his earth be­stowal by pass­ing through the crea­ture ex­pe­ri­ence of death just as all mor­tal crea­tures must ex­pe­ri­ence ma­te­rial dis­so­lu­tion in pass­ing from the ex­is­tence of time into the pro­gres­sion of eter­nity.

182:3.7Ear­lier in the evening it had not seemed so dif­fi­cult to drink the cup, but as the hu­man Je­sus bade farewell to his apos­tles and sent them to their rest, the trial grew more ap­palling. Je­sus ex­pe­ri­enced that nat­u­ral ebb and flow of feel­ing which is com­mon to all hu­man ex­pe­ri­ence, and just now he was weary from work, ex­hausted from the long hours of stren­u­ous la­bor and painful anx­i­ety con­cern­ing the safety of his apos­tles. While no mor­tal can pre­sume to un­der­stand the thoughts and feel­ings of the in­car­nate Son of God at such a time as this, we know that he en­dured great an­guish and suf­fered un­told sor­row, for the per­spi­ra­tion rolled off his face in great drops. He was at last con­vinced that the Fa­ther in­tended to al­low nat­u­ral events to take their course; he was fully de­ter­mined to em­ploy none of his sov­er­eign power as the su­preme head of a uni­verse to save him­self.

182:3.8The as­sem­bled hosts of a vast cre­ation are now hov­ered over this scene un­der the tran­sient joint com­mand of Ga­briel and the Per­son­al­ized Ad­juster of Je­sus. The di­vi­sion com­man­ders of these armies of heaven have re­peat­edly been warned not to in­ter­fere with these trans­ac­tions on earth un­less Je­sus him­self should or­der them to in­ter­vene.

182:3.9The ex­pe­ri­ence of part­ing with the apos­tles was a great strain on the hu­man heart of Je­sus; this sor­row of love bore down on him and made it more dif­fi­cult to face such a death as he well knew awaited him. He re­al­ized how weak and how ig­no­rant his apos­tles were, and he dreaded to leave them. He well knew that the time of his de­par­ture had come, but his hu­man heart longed to find out whether there might not pos­si­bly be some le­git­i­mate av­enue of es­cape from this ter­ri­ble plight of suf­fer­ing and sor­row. And when it had thus sought es­cape, and failed, it was will­ing to drink the cup. The di­vine mind of Mi­chael knew he had done his best for the twelve apos­tles; but the hu­man heart of Je­sus wished that more might have been done for them be­fore they should be left alone in the world. Je­sus’ heart was be­ing crushed; he truly loved his breth­ren. He was iso­lated from his fam­ily in the flesh; one of his cho­sen as­so­ciates was be­tray­ing him. His fa­ther Joseph’s peo­ple had re­jected him and thereby sealed their doom as a peo­ple with a spe­cial mis­sion on earth. His soul was tor­tured by baf­fled love and re­jected mercy. It was just one of those aw­ful hu­man mo­ments when ev­ery­thing seems to bear down with crush­ing cru­elty and ter­ri­ble agony.

166:1.4When the Mas­ter had thus spo­ken, they cast their eyes upon the ta­ble and re­mained silent. And since no one spoke, Je­sus con­tin­ued: “Many of you Phar­isees are here with me as friends, some are even my dis­ci­ples, but the ma­jor­ity of the Phar­isees are per­sis­tent in their re­fusal to see the light and ac­knowl­edge the truth, even when the work of the gospel is brought be­fore them in great power. How care­fully you cleanse the out­side of the cups and the plat­ters while the spir­i­tual-food ves­sels are filthy and pol­luted! You make sure to pre­sent a pi­ous and holy ap­pear­ance to the peo­ple, but your in­ner souls are filled with self-righ­teous­ness, cov­etous­ness, ex­tor­tion, and all man­ner of spir­i­tual wicked­ness. Your lead­ers even dare to plot and plan the mur­der of the Son of Man. Do not you fool­ish men un­der­stand that the God of heaven looks at the in­ner mo­tives of the soul as well as on your outer pre­tenses and your pi­ous pro­fes­sions? Think not that the giv­ing of alms and the pay­ing of tithes will cleanse you from un­righ­teous­ness and en­able you to stand clean in the pres­ence of the Judge of all men. Woe upon you Phar­isees who have per­sisted in re­ject­ing the light of life! You are metic­u­lous in tithing and os­ten­ta­tious in alms­giv­ing, but you know­ingly spurn the vis­i­ta­tion of God and re­ject the rev­e­la­tion of his love. Though it is all right for you to give at­ten­tion to these mi­nor du­ties, you should not have left these weight­ier re­quire­ments un­done. Woe upon all who shun jus­tice, spurn mercy, and re­ject truth! Woe upon all those who de­spise the rev­e­la­tion of the Fa­ther while they seek the chief seats in the syn­a­gogue and crave flat­ter­ing salu­ta­tions in the mar­ket places!”

175:1.18“Woe upon you, scribes, Phar­isees, and hyp­ocrites! for you are scrupu­lous to cleanse the out­side of the cup and the plat­ter, but within there re­mains the filth of ex­tor­tion, ex­cesses, and de­cep­tion. You are spir­i­tu­ally blind. Do you not rec­og­nize how much bet­ter it would be first to cleanse the in­side of the cup, and then that which spills over would of it­self cleanse the out­side? You wicked repro­bates! you make the out­ward per­for­mances of your re­li­gion to con­form with the let­ter of your in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Moses’ law while your souls are steeped in in­iq­uity and filled with mur­der.