Drink It To the Dregs

I'll start with a story about bullying. One memorable Easter when I was eight or nine, our family attended the sunrise service, held at the home of one of our church families. I was somewhat of a loner at that point in my life, especially among the kids at church. My best friends were at my school, so among the church crowd, I kept to myself.

This Easter morning, we had finished the service and eaten the potluck breakfast (yummy!). I was bored and restless and wanted to head back to the church for the "real" service so we could finish up, go home, and I could read (it was always about reading for me). 

I went outside and sat in the backseat of my parents' car, waiting for them to finish talking and decide it was time to go. We had a small church, but there were a number of vehicles there, and the rest of the kids in our church had crawled into the van parked next to our car and were socializing inside of it.

I heard thumping on the van windows, and I glanced over. A few noses pressed against the window as some of the kids looked out at me. A couple of them made faces. One person held up a piece of paper with a crudely-drawn picture on it. 

It took me a minute to see and understand what it was, but after I stared at it for a second, I realized the artist was depicting me, and the details of the face were intentionally cruel. The person who held up the picture laughed, the sound muted where I sat in our car. 

I turned my face away. At first I was hurt, and then I was extremely angry. I wanted to make a face back. I didn't, but boy, I really wanted to. I wanted to think of something sharp and cutting and mean to say in response, and I let my mind wander over the possibilities. But I didn't allow them to vent. I sat in the car and tried to calm myself down as the kids in the van continued to pound on the windows and try to get my attention again. I kept ignoring them.

Finally, I'd had enough of sitting under their ridicule like a bug under a microscope. My parents were taking forever; I left the car and went to find them. They were inside the garage, still talking, and I made my way toward them. 

The artist of the picture left the van and followed me inside the garage. He'd added some more details to the picture -- in this case, some boogers dripping from the nose -- and he worked his way over to the table where I was standing and handed me the picture. Obviously, he thought I hadn't understood that I was the object of his bullying; he needed to clear up any confusion, so he helpfully wrote my name across the top, so I could understand. Then he watched for my reaction before returning to his friends.

I was really struggling with not losing my temper. Again, I wanted to lash out. I had lots of words, and they started to cram together in my throat. I couldn't decide which one to use first. I knew it would be wrong, though; I could hear the voice of my parents in my head, every time that I had been bullied up to that point my life (I was never top of the popularity totem pole, nor even near the top): It's not worth it. It's just their insecurity. Let it go. Treat others as you want to be treated. 

I stared at the picture and at my name. After a minute, I found my dad, pulled out the pen he always kept in his shirt pocket, and crossed out my name. I wrote the boy's name instead. Returning my dad's pen (he was still talking, having no clue what was going on), I folded the picture, approached the boy and his friends, and handed it back to him.

Then I fled. It was a walking flight, but I was trembling all over, feeling like I had maybe won a battle, but wasn't sure, and didn't want to stick around to find out.

My parents and brother were finally ready to go, and we all piled into the car. On the half hour or so drive to the church, I vented. I cried. I told what had happened, and how hurt I was. The hurt didn't even stem from the picture itself, which -- by any standard -- was far less than expert. It was the laughter, derision, and the feeling of being the butt of a group's jokes. 

I don't remember much of what my parents said; maybe they considered the matter over, and they spent most of their time comforting as best they could. 

It wasn't quite over. The artist had some admirable persistence. Apparently, my edits to his drawing had been taken offensively, and so, to clarify -- in case there remained any doubt in my mind who the caricature was intended to be -- on the drive back to the church, he'd written: "This is you" at the bottom.

At the church, he found me in the lobby and shoved the picture back into my hand. I was really angry this time. I'd already vented in the car, already poured out my woes to my family; now I was ready to move on, heal, get over it. 

The artist walked away, but this time, he'd been less careful. This time, he'd done his action in sight of my mother, who was perhaps a bit extra watchful as a result of our conversation. She came over and we opened the picture together. As we read it, her lips pressed together, and I could tell she was holding back.  

After a long, silent pause, she handed me a pen and pointed to the sentence. "Put a comma at the end of it, and write his name," she said quietly. "Then give it back to him, and whatever you do, don't accept it back. This needs to stop."

I did. The note now said: "This is you, [name]." I folded it up, and handed it to him. Once again, I was shaking from adrenaline and anger. I could hear him react behind me, but I refused to look around, just kept walking. He tried, for the rest of the morning to hand the picture back to me, but I wouldn't take it. If I saw him coming, I'd hurry away or make sure I stood next to my parents. Eventually, when it was time to go home, I saw the folded picture in our church mailbox. I don't remember if I threw it away or if my parents did, but none of us opened it up again. 

This morning, I didn't really mean to write a treatise on bullying or how to handle it. I guess I kind of did. For anyone side-eyeing my parents for their suggestion, let me just say I thought it was a brilliant way to a.) stand up to the bully without b.) tearing him down.  

The main point I wanted to make, though, is that our first reactions are generally unwise, savage, and tend to make things worse. And sometimes, they're not even our battles to fight. This particular battle, I believe, was one the boy fought with himself. My initial reactions would have done no good, my follow-up actions... I vetted, but I didn't want to. I wanted to come out of the pen, kicking and snorting and giving as good as I'd gotten. 

In John 18:1-14, Jesus has finally finished his upper room discourse with his disciples. They've shoved aside their plates, retied their sandals, stood, stretched, and made their way out of the house, down the street, out of the gates of the city, and east toward the Mount of Olives.

John doesn't record Jesus' agony like Matthew 26:36-45 does. "Going a little farther, He fell with His face to the ground and prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me. Yet, not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:39).

In John's Gospel, he picks up the story of Jesus' betrayal and arrest immediately. "Now Judas, who betrayed Him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with His disciples. So Judas came to the grove, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns, and weapons."

Weapons? Perhaps the stinging memory of the temple-clearing is still ringing in their heads: Jesus overturning tables and driving back vendors with a whip.

The Man they see now walks out to meet them with no weapon in His hand, no whip, just words. "Who is it you want?" He asks.

"Jesus of Nazareth."

"I am He," Jesus responds. John makes sure we know exactly who's side Judas Iscariot is on. He wants no doubt for his readers that this man has betrayed the Son of God. "And Judas the traitor was standing there with them." 

Instead of arresting Jesus, they... "drew back and fell to the ground."

My mind is a little boggled. Was it Jesus' overwhelming power? Did the disciples suddenly rush them, and they got a little scared? Doesn't seem likely, since the soldiers have weapons and likely outnumber them.

But it turns out Peter has a sword, too, so who knows?

Either way, Jesus asks the same question again. He wants them to be very sure that they're arresting Him, not His disciples. "Who is it you want?"

"Jesus of Nazareth," they say.

"I told you that I am He," Jesus answers. "If you are looking for Me, then let these men go." Apparently, the soldiers are trying to round up all twelve of them -- Jesus and the eleven disciples. 

It makes sense, and apparently the soldiers thought so, too. So they released the disciples. 

So Peter... ah, Peter. 

Peter draws his sword, wheels around on a guy name Malchus, who is the servant of the high priest Caiaphas, and he slices off his right ear.

Oh, he had words. He wanted to use them. He wanted to bring down the wrath of the heavens on the attackers and cut a swath right through the middle of them. And He starts to, but Jesus stops him.

"Put your sword away!" Exclamation point! Stop it, Peter!

"Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"

Descriptions of this cup are found in Psalm 75:8 and Ezekiel 23:31-34, where the cup is full of wrath and spices increase its intoxicating power. It is meant to be a picture of the anger and vengeance of God against the sin of man, and here...

Jesus, the sinless One, must drink it. Drink it to its dregs.

There is a scene in Book 6 of the Harry Potter series where Dumbledore, the beloved school headmaster, is forced to drink a cup of what turns out to be a deadly poison. Before he begins, he makes Harry promise to feed him the contents of the cup and to be sure he (Dumbledore) drinks the entire thing. Drinking all of it is the only way to advance the Greater Good, the only way to defeat evil. And so he places himself in this sacrificial role to accomplish the larger purpose. As he begins, he first grows sick, and then desperate, and then weak, pleading piteously with Harry not to give him any more of the cup.

And even though it tears Harry apart inside to continue to bring Dumbledore drink after drink, he does so until the cup is emptied to the dregs, and there is nothing left.

Jesus willingly drinks of this cup, the cup of God's wrath. Isaiah 53 gives us a clear picture of the suffering Jesus goes through for us. 53:12 says: "He poured out His life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors."

In plain language, the whole purpose of this scene in the garden was so that He could move forward with His plan to take my sin, your sin, on Himself, and pay for it with His death, His blood. He has to drink the cup. Torturous, unbearable, painful, broken as it is, He must drink it to its dregs, until the last drop is gone.

Jesus touches Malchus' ear and heals him, and then surrenders to His arrest. They lead Him away while the disciples scatter, flee, hide. It reads a little like the last line of Tolkien's The Two Towers: "Frodo was alive but taken by the enemy."

Jesus is alive, but certain death is on the horizon.

The only way I manage to read this story over and over and over again is the part I play in it. I am Peter; I'm the one to draw my sword and fight the battle that isn't mine to fight. I'm the one to slay with words at the first provocation instead of standing back and letting the Lord have it. I'm a temper-loser. I'm a keyboard warrior. I'm a slash-first-think-later soldier.

"Put your sword away!" Jesus says. Exclamation point. 

And He drinks His cup... for me, the look-before-I-leaper. He drinks it to the dregs.