This Cup

This Cup
By James A. Langley

 “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not
as I will, but as thou wilt.”  (Mt. 26:39)

On a mission heaven-sent, amid acclaim and rejection,
The eternal plan keenly rising in His reflection,
Urged to shun Samaritans and call down fire
Upon them, with compassion He countered such ire,
For the Savior has come the despised to redeem,
Showing divine love for the least an ever flowing stream,
Prophetically heralded by the inspired observant,
Reaching its zenith in Isaiah’s ‘Suffering Servant’;
Cognizant of the cost of His Messianic mission,
And committed from eternity to the divine commission,
The Redeemer set His face like flint for Jerusalem,
Undeterred by the sense He would surely be condemned,
Fully knowing the opposition arrayed against Him,
Facing the incalculable burden of man’s depravity and sin;
Killing Jesus was the determined plan of Temple authorities,        
Rome’s self-serving Procurator had only Roman priorities,
All marshalled by demonic forces from the depths of hell,
By earthly reasoning the encounter could not go well;
In this time of greatest need Jesus’ disciples failed the Lord,
Denying, and one betraying, Him in deed and word.

Jesus’ prelude to Golgotha, Gethsemane’s crucible—
Prostrate, praying thrice for this cup to pass if possible,
If He died in this way, might not rejection,
A.M. Fairbairn conjectured, mean greater condemnation?
Even so, with pure conviction His Father’s will was paramount,
For all time setting the way for us and our account.

Human suffering runs the gamut and is variously viewed,
The agony endured by Christ was of another magnitude,
Bearing the sins of the race, which only God can know,
Is a burden of the soul unknown in any man’s woe,
Never a metaphor more pregnant with suffering beyond the pale,
Nor a more perfect storm blowing a cleansing gale,
A deep sense of His affliction by a Durer depiction
We gain, but His burden is beyond our comprehension;
Though scourged and crucified for our transgression,
The Savior was maligned as deserving God’s affliction,
Suffering exceeding what we can share or even know,
Enduring misery far greater than a Dantean Inferno,
He cried in torment from the Messianic Twenty-Second Psalm,
(Was He abandoned, or only imagining the qualm?),
“My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”
Never has the cry of dereliction expressed such agony;
In direst anguish Christ perceived Himself by God bereft,
On the Cross, in His depths of agony, the Rock was cleft.

CET