John 18:10-11
Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus. Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword back into its sheath. Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?”
Having spoken yesterday about how differences between the gospels give us clues to their intent, it’s important for us to recognize in these verses one of the most distinct differences between John’s Gospel and the other three.
In each of the other three narratives, the Evangelists describe Jesus’ moments before his arrest as a time of moral and existential trial. More than that, each shares Jesus’ agonizing prayer that “this cup would pass from me” and his obedient acceptance of his fate, “not my will but your will be done.” (See Mark 14:36, Matthew 26:39, and Luke 22:42.) This is the account with which most of us are familiar.
Yet in John’s story of Jesus, things couldn’t be more difficult. There is no time of existential anguish, no petition for his disciples to pray with him, no invitation to stay awake to wait and watch, and certainly no prayer that he be spared this hour. Indeed, this hour is the one that John’s whole Gospel has pointed to, as his crucifixion that is the very vehicle for him to be “raised up” in a peculiar yet powerful form of “glory.”
John’s Jesus is, quite frankly, a powerful Jesus, not susceptible to anguish or temptation, and eagerly embracing his destiny of fulfilling Scripture and in this way redeeming the world God loves so much. And so far from praying that this cup would be removed, in this scene Jesus asks a stunned Peter, who had just done violence in order to protect his Lord, “Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?”
Everything he has done thus far has led to this moment, and so Jesus is not about to have Peter muck it up by a misguided attempt to spare him. Jesus’ mission, according to John, is not just a mission but a quest, a confrontation with evil, a battle to the death with death itself that he might wrest victory and life from the “prince of this world.”
“Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?” Or, in other words, “Game on!”
Prayer: Dear God, in our moments of weakness and doubt, let us remember Jesus’ strength and victory and find peace. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Post image: A depiction of Peter striking Malchus (circa 1520, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon).
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