Are You Able?

Today and tonight, millions of Christian people around the world will participate in a sacred moment commemorating the last supper shared by Jesus and his followers. The scene is dark. The cross is not far away. The inevitable is about to become the reality. And in the course of the shared meal, Jesus gives new meaning to bread and wine as sacramental symbols of his life. He concludes his final comments to his friends with the words: Do this in remembrance of me. Eat and drink to remember.

I wonder if his followers remembered a conversation not long before this Last Supper moment? To his energetic, perhaps naive, disciples, Jesus asked the question: Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? That is, are you able to bear the suffering, the pain, the death that will signal freedom to the world? Sobering question. The cup from which people will drink today is both remembrance and risk. You can’t have one or the other; you have to taste both.

So, I am waiting in line to receive my Maundy Thursday meal of bread and wine and as I draw closer and closer to the sacred food, I hear a voice: Can you drink the cup that I drink? In order for the sweetness of remembrance to come through, you have to taste the bitterness of risk and sacrifice. Still want the cup? Bottoms up!