Can You Drink the Cup?

When Jesus calls people to follow him, he calls them to begin walking out of whatever broken family story they have been living in to that point. Every one of us receives some story-formed brokenness from our birth family’s dynamics. For some, it is the experience of being neglected or abused. For others, it may be the weight of expectation or the withholding of affection. For James and John, it was a lust for power. The sons of Zebedee were born to a man who ran things, a man who had strived to climb above his peers. And their mother had similar plans for the boys. “Tell me they will sit at your right hand and your left,” she demanded of Jesus. But Jesus was calling James and John into a very different kind of story. He meant to heal them of their family’s lust for power. And his means of healing would be a cross. “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink?” he asked them. In calling us to walk out of our broken family stories, Jesus first heals us for the cross. And then heals us by it.