Lent 2011 Midweek Sermon

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our text for today is the Gospel text from Luke 22

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Never the less, not my will but yours be done.”
Have you ever prayed that prayer? Have you (or perhaps has someone you love) ever been face to face with intense and dire suffering? Suffering to the extent that you know there is nowhere to turn, no one who can help, there is only faith, and with faith, there is only prayer.
“Father remove this cup. Father remove this suffering. Father preserve me, spare me, I have nowhere to turn but to you. I am yours. Save me.”
Have you ever prayed that prayer?
Jesus did.
Tonight, the image that guides our meditation is the work of Italian artist Sebastiono Ricci. This particular work in entitled Christ on the Mount of Olives and it was painted in 1730. Here Ricci depicts that scene in our Gospel from Luke 22.
I encourage you to examine the image as I read and see the details of the text depicted in paint and canvas.
[41] And Jesus withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, [42] saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” [43] And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. [44] And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. [45] And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, [46] and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
(Luke 22:41-46 ESV)

As you look at the painting, the artist uses color and light to draw your eye to the figures in the foreground. First to Jesus. He is solitary and alone, kneeling in prayer, his eyes fixed on the ground. His expression is humble and acquiescent, his right hand is draped by his side in pleading, his left hand raised in submission. Jesus is willing to receive the leading of his Father.
But he suffers. He suffers the same way you would if you were in his shoes.
Have you ever suffered? Have you ever had the weight of the world on your shoulders? How have you carried a load too large for you to bear? Where have you turned and what have you done? Our Lord would have us turn to him in faith, to turn to him in the same way that Jesus turned to his father in prayer.
There are times when that is all you have left. Jesus knows what that is like… to be abandoned. You can see it in the painting. Jesus’ friends, his close friends and confidants who should be supportive, who should offer their shoulders to lean on and who should lend sympathetic ears to listen have drifted off to sleep – too self-absorbed to lend that sympathetic ear. Jesus had to go it alone. Perhaps you have too.
And as much as we feel the weight of the world, it is hardly the weight of the world. It may be the weight of your world, the world as you know it or as you want it to be. But your world is hardly the whole world. Not so with Jesus. He literally carried that weight, the whole world and the sin of the whole world on his shoulders, and he knew it was heavy. He knew and fully grasped the size of that burden. And it was intimidating. So he asked that it be taken from him.
“Lord may this cup of suffering be taken from me.”
Lord may I be spared the suffering that will come with the task you have willed for me to do. Lord may there be some other way to win salvation and pay for sin. But if this is your will, Lord, so be it.
This was Jesus’ prayer to His heavenly Father and the Father responded with comfort. He sent an angel, a messenger of comfort and hope. Jesus here is your cup, yield to the will of your father. Notice the angel. One hand holds the cup, representative of the suffering that Jesus will endure. One hand points upward, reminding Jesus of His Father’s will. Jesus yields. He receives the cup, he carries the weight, he devotes himself to fulfilling the will of the father.
And so here is Jesus, suffering, timid, humble and alone, carrying literally the weight of the world on his shoulders, suffering rejection even from his friends, and he submits. He receives suffering. He drinks the cup. And you receive salvation. Because of the suffering and death and willing submission of Jesus, you are saved.
In the painting we are reminded that the Father sent an angel, a messenger from heaven with the Authority of God to preach hope and comfort to Jesus in the midst of His suffering. If he has done that for Jesus he has also done the same for you.
When you suffer, as you are in the midst of your suffering he sends to you his messengers. Just as the Father sent this angel to Jesus he has sent his messengers to you. See how the angel points to the Father reminding Jesus of his father’s will? Likewise the Lord’s messengers remind you to look to your Lord in faith. Yield to the Lord’s will. What he ordains is always good.
These messengers take many forms. Sometimes friends, parents, siblings, cousins – fellow Christians who urge you to look to the Lord. God sends pastors, men he has called and to whom he has given the specific task of preaching the good news and pointing you to Him. God sees to it that you are not left to yourself to suffer alone, instead he comforts you with the consolation of Christian brothers and sisters.
But what of that cup, that cup of suffering that Jesus pleaded to be relieved of, what happens when you beg to have that cup taken from you? Each of us will have our cross to bear and our cup to drink, but we won’t ever drink it alone. And when we do, that cup will not ever lead us away from the Lord. Because he drank his cup for us. He drank the cup of suffering down to its most bitter dregs. And in return he gives you his cup of salvation. His cup of love, of mercy and grace, his cup of fellowship and even joy. In the picture the cup is in the hand of the angel. For you that cup is in the hand of his messenger given to you. Jesus fills the cup with his own blood and gives it to you to drink for the forgiveness of your sins and the strengthening of your faith.
And so you are not alone. As you see Jesus, solitary and suffering know that just as he is not alone, but is helped and comforted, know that you are not alone. He sends his angles to guard you in all your ways and comfort you in all your sorrows, He sends you Christian friends and loved ones. He sends you his pastors to carry his message of consolation and his cup of salvation. Drink deeply. Receive his word of hope and be strengthened in your suffering.
Amen.