~~~~~~
Stand up, O Jerusalem,
you who have drunk from the hand of the LORD
the cup of His wrath,
who have drunk to the dregs
the bowl, the cup of staggering.
~Isaiah 51:17
~~~~~~
Stand up, people
Get on your feet
Move on, assemble:
Your Maker addresses you.
Your King has summoned you.
God Most High speaks.
From the hand of the LORD,
from the hand that opens to satisfy
the desires of every living thing--
from the hand that guides, fashions,
makes, creates--
from the hand of the LORD--
a cup.
But not a cup of blessing.
It’s a deserved cup,
an earned cup,
a cup we’ve worked for
and asked for.
And we haven’t deserved,
we haven’t earned,
we haven’t worked for,
we haven’t asked for
a cup of blessing.
This isn’t a wishy washy God who holds the cup,
this is no friendly God, “me-and-Jesus” God, safe God.
This is not a tame lion.
But oh, He is good.
Good beyond reckoning, beyond comprehension.
Absolutely, fully, completely, ever and always
good.
And that’s bad news.
Because I am bad.
Rotten to the core, corrupt in my
inmost thoughts and outmost deeds.
Shot through with lust and lies and vicious
pernicious mischievous strangling hold of sin.
And this is a deserved cup.
A cup of wrath.
Furious, lightning bolt anger,
white hot and ice cold
melting my heart and freezing my blood.
This is not displeasure, or bad mood,
or disappointment.
This is despair-of-your-life, run-to-the-hills, call-for-rocks-to-crush-your-skull,
nightmarish, vengeful, retributive,
blacklisting, hunting, holy hate--
a thousand million billion lifetimes of
concentrated apoplectic rage fermented
down to the dregs of well-deserved death.
This is my cup.
A cup of staggering
strangling
haunting
hellish sadness.
O my God, I cannot bear
to take this cup that I have bought
with a costly lifetime
of purposefully
willfully
skillfully
stealthily
boastfully
recklessly
misplaced love.
One drop of this potion
will send me staggering to an infinite death.
And in this cup I see a bottomless ocean of red,
each drop screaming for my blood.
O my God,
if You permit Justice’s sword to fall
upon my guilty guilty guilty head
I am undone
undone
undone.
Is there another way?
Remove this cup from me!
~~~~~~
Thus says your Lord, the LORD,
your God who pleads the cause of His people:
“Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering;
the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more.”
~Isaiah 51:22
~~~~~
Stand up sinner
Get on your feet
For your Maker, your Creator,
your Savior answers you.
From the hand of the LORD--
the hand strong enough to save,
to meet and arm-wrestle
and overcome justice and meet holiness’ demands--
from the hand of the LORD--
a cup.
It is my cup.
Taken from my hands,
and given to Another.
And this other hasn’t deserved
hasn’t earned,
hasn’t worked for,
hasn’t asked for
my cup.
And yet He takes it and in this moment we see:
This is not a wishy washy God who holds the cup.
He is not a tame lion.
But oh, He is good.
Good beyond reckoning, beyond all comprehension,
absolutely, fully, completely, ever and always
good.
And suddenly, spectacularly, surprisingly,
that’s good news.
Because He has my cup.
It is a cup of wrath, and watch, suddenly:
it tips, it hovers, He cries,
it spills, He drinks.
Furious lightning bolt anger nailing Him to a tree
until His heart bursts and blood flows like water.
Horrible, wretched, screaming, bloody agony
as the dregs of my death boil over,
a violent, gruesome, mangling grace.
“Is there another way?”
Stony silence.
“Remove this cup from me!”
Heaven closes its gate,
bars the door,
shuts the window.
And the prayer that from my lips
evoked the thunderous, resounding, earth-splitting
Amen of atonement--
on His lips, rejected.
“Why have You forsaken me?”
Forsaken Him?
Forsaken Him?
Forsaken Him?
O my God-- You’ve forsaken Him?
But it’s my cup, not His--
my nightmare, my curse, my gore,
my horrible, wretched, screaming, bloody agony
on His lips
as He drinks my cup.
You’ve forsaken Him--
why in the world Him,
when You should have forsaken me?
And yet there He is
staggering under the weight
of doom
of malady
of grief
of death
of despair
of mourning, sickness, crying, pain,
rebellion, treason, murder, treachery,
of a cross.
See Him stagger under the cross!
O holiness--
terrible, frightening, demanding holiness
that blinds my eyes and burns my heart
and would require THIS as payment.
This is not a wishy washy God.
This is a God who would rather scream
under the mountainous, crushing, humiliating weight
of His own astronomical standard
than let one white lie
one lustful glance
one greedy thought
one moment of less-than-perfect love
go unpunished, unanswered, undrunk.
And so He punishes
He answers
He drinks it
Himself.
Trembling, terrified, broken,
I come to the cross,
to the cup--
my cup, my cross--
and behold, it is empty.
Down to the dregs, every last drop
of rancid, calamitous,
raging rebuke
has been swallowed, consumed, drunk, finished,
satisfied.
Satisfied.
Satisfied.
Justice, holiness, wrath and love--
oh sweet and tearful,
bitter and joyful,
mysterious, wondrous, glorious,
impossible, immutable, unchangeable,
availing, pleading, saving love--
satisfied.
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