Approaching the Cross II: Draining the cup

A three part sermon on Matthew's account of Gethsemane (Matthew 26.36.46).

I. The gathering storm
II. Draining the cup
III. Stay awake!

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Why is Jesus sorrowful and troubled? Why does he say his soul is "overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death"? Extreme emotion is not alien to Jesus. He was no calm Stoic walking through life unaffected and unengaged. The Gospels record his anger, grief, delight, compassion, weariness, joy, sorrow and here, deep anguish. He shows us that being human doesn’t mean seeking to minimise or escape from our emotional life. But why is he so sad on this night? Is he scared of pain? Crucifixion was a horrendous procedure, designed to maximise the suffering of the victim, and made worse by the fact that Jesus had already predicted the desertion of his closest friends, even Peter, who had sworn to die for him. Being abandoned by his companions to a gruesome, extended death – is this what makes him so sad? It would be understandable if so, though certainly many others have faced death with more courage. Socrates drank his hemlock calmly, and many of the early Christian martyrs were said to been smiling or singing. Is Jesus weaker than they, to tremble at what he knows is coming?

A clue to what might be going on can be found in the combination of terms that appear in this passage that hint that we are dealing with more than just the impending death of an innocent man. When Jesus speaks to his father of “the cup” that he must drink, at one level this is a simple metaphor for having to face the particular experience he is about to undergo, but this language was also a common Jewish image found in Isaiah 51 and elsewhere depicting God’s anger as a cup of bitter wine that must be drained to its dregs. When we find this image in close proximity to talk of "the hour" having arrived and Jesus instructing his disciples to "stay awake" and pray in order to not come into the "time of trial", then this cluster of references all fit within a Jewish apocalyptic framework that pictures God’s decisive judgement upon human sin and wickedness, a powerful divine interruption into the normal course of events to bring evil to account. This night in this garden praying with friends was not like other nights. Not just because Jesus anticipates his own death just hours later, but also because he is anticipating that in the events about to unfold, nothing less is at stake than God’s definitive evaluation upon wayward humanity.

The cross of Jesus is not simply another tragic example of miscarried justice involving an oppressed minority, or of imperial brutality against perceived threats, or of religious violence against heretics. In short, his death doesn’t simply carry some of the various human meanings we attribute to such deaths. It has meaning for God. The meal of bread and wine spoke of a renewed covenant, of God acting again with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm to redeem those enslaved. But here, in the garden, the meaning of Jesus’ death is that it will be the point at which the world is judged and found wanting, where God’s own sorrow and anger at human pride and corruption is concentrated and expressed, where God says a resolute "no" to human violence and folly.

Jesus’ grief and anguish is because he himself will hear that "no", will suffer that judgement, will experience God’s rejection. This is the horrendous prospect of Gethsemane. This is why the man of sorrows is sorrowful. This is the bitter cup that Jesus would prefer not to taste. And yet, in obedience to his Father, he is willing to finish the last drop. "Not as I will, but as you will." In these words, Jesus fights and wins the battle to be obedient. He refuses the paths of violence self-assertion and self-justification as well as of retreat and hiding. And he entrusts himself to his Father.

Why Christians must grieve (and fear, rejoice and desire)

Or, why tranquility is overrated (for now)

"And so a rightly directed will is love in a good sense and a perverted will is love in a bad sense. Therefore a love which strains after the possession of the loved object is desire; and the love which possess and enjoys that object is joy. The love that shuns what opposes it is fear, while the love that feels that opposition when it happens is grief."

- Augustine, City of God (trans. Henry Bettenson), XIV.7.

The four basic passions (or loves) fall out on a simple grid: future or present, attraction or repulsion. Attraction in the present is joy, in the future is desire. Repulsion in the future is fear and in the present, grief. In each case, Augustine argues that there can be good or bad versions, depending on whether the love in question is rightly directed or perverted. This put him in opposition to Stoicism, which saw these four as emotional disturbance of the mind and as the origin of all moral failings.

Augustine goes on to show how the Stoics (Cicero in particular) argue that for three of these emotions there is a corresponding disposition "in the mind of a wise man". Desire, joy and fear are each disorders, Cicero argued, and need to be replaced by will, gladness and caution respectively. The difference between the positive and negative term in each case was for Cicero whether they could be held without variation. For example, caution differs from fear in being always present in the mind of the wise and thus not dependent upon changing circumstances, unlike fear, which comes and goes in the presence or absence of a threat. Mental vacillation arising from responding to changing circumstances was thus the cause of all moral fault. The highest virtue is apatheia, impassibility.

While desire, fear and joy each have a positive (since unchanging) Stoic counterpart, Cicero has no place for any disposition corresponding to grief. This is a significant omission, since it reveals a crucial difference between Cicero and Augustine, or between Stoicism and Christianity, namely the place of suffering. For the Stoic, it is impossible for the wise to suffer, since wisdom provides a stability of mind that is the opposite of the perturbations of suffering. Only a fool suffers the fickleness of the passions (desire, joy, fear, grief). If one is wise, then the steady dispositions of will, gladness and caution are unchanging in all circumstances.

The difference in the Christian mindset is eschatology: that the world is open to God's coming future, revealing the present brokenness of all things. This opens the possibility of suffering not always being purely negative. Suffering that yearns towards the future is ever pierced by the failures of the present ("the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present"). The restlessness of Christian desire ("our heart is restless until it rests in you") is not a failure of wisdom or stability, but the proper expression of creation's present fragmentation. Augustine is clear that these disturbing passions are proper to us in this present age. The impassibility so cherished by the Stoics is for Augustine a future hope, but currently an inhuman impossibility "while we are in this place of misery". It is inhuman because to not feel anything means you're not paying attention. It is impossible because no one has so lost touch with their natural feelings as to be entirely impervious to the vicissitudes of life as we presently experience it.

And so grief is as crucial to a healthy heart as desire, joy or fear because the world is not as it should be. Augustine locates the expression of this present fragmentation in the experience of disordered desire, that is, in sin. Grief is therefore primarily grief over sin, as the apostle Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 7.8-11. The possibility of grief arises from the tension between what God has promised and our present experience of failure. And it is not just grief, but all the emotions that depend on this dynamic. We rightly fear sinning more than any physical pain or loss. We rejoice over the repentance of our neighbour. We desire God's promises to reach fruition. And we grieve when we find ourselves once again at fault.

These emotions can be expressions of our disordered hearts, where we fear or desire, rejoice or grieve over the wrong things, or in the wrong way. But Augustine is adamant that the faithful Christian life (and therefore, the truly human life) includes each of these emotions in their proper place.

"Among us Christians, on the other hand, the citizens of the Holy City of God, as they live by God's standards in the pilgrimage of this present life, feel fear and desire, pain and gladness in conformity with the holy Scriptures and sound doctrine; and because their love is right, all these feelings are right in them."

- Augustine, City of God, XIV.9.

'Being philosophical': Christianity vs Stoicism

Christianity vs Stoicism
Today, upon hearing that I work for a church, a doctor told me that I must be approaching my situation 'very philosophically'. In my experience, this phrase is used to mean that one is being 'stoic' despite bad circumstances. I understood what he meant, but had to disagree. I think that on this score, being Christian is the opposite of being Stoic.

The ideal in Stoicism is to cut oneself off from the world, to avoid making emotional attachments, to experience apatheia (apathy!), to become numb. (In my limited knowledge, this is similar to Buddhism in many respects.) Suffering is inevitable and the healthiest response is to avoid the attachments that will inevitably lead to pain when such transient things pass away. This includes (in fact, perhaps begins with) family members and other 'loved' ones. To be Stoic is to be pessimistic and so to avoid love out of fear of loss.

However, apathy is not a valid Christian response to suffering. Instead, loving God means loving what is good in creation for God's sake, and groaning in hope for its redemption. Because of hope, it is possible - even necessary - to love.
I would offer points for the identity of this sculpture, but I can't remember myself who it is! Instead, I'll offer eight points for the country is it located in. Bonus points if you can give me a convincing answer about the identity of the subject (preferably with a link to an image proving it).