A cup is a common biblical metaphor for what’s going on in life, e.g., ‘my cup overflows” (Ps.23:5). It might be a cup of delight, of consolation, of blessing, as in the example, or it might be a cup of desolation as we find in the Passion gospel for today. We see Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me . . .”

Likely we have all, at one time or another, felt that what life had to offer was just too much to bear. Our cup seemed to be overflowing with pain and grief and misery. We know what it feels like to want to avoid the cup, to have it pass from us just as Jesus did. Jesus, however, had the wisdom and discernment to recognize the cup may be just what we need in order to continue the journey home to God. He continued his prayer: “. . . yet not what I want but what you want. . . . My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”

We know the agony that followed—we also know the glory of the resurrection, the triumph of God’s love. In our own lives we, no doubt, can remember cups of dreadful pain that we can see in retrospect became cups of magnificent blessing that we could not have imagined even being possible at the time. God’s grace strengthened us to persevere in drinking the cup down to the dregs, and it somehow was food for the journey. It became the cup of transformation. May Sarton has said: “This cup holds grief and balm in equal measure, light and darkness. Who drinks from it must change.” That is the secret of the cup of life—as we consume the “grief and balm,” God can use it to transform us into the imago dei we were created to be.