This is a follow-up to a previous post, part of a series on “Band-aids for our health.”

Jesus died for us.

We don’t get saved by Jesus’ teaching, by doing what he said, but by his death. How does that work?

The Bible has a number of different explanations for how it works. The simplest is an executive summary: Jesus died instead of us.

Jesus  came to serve, not to be served–and then to give away his life in exchange for many who are held hostage. (Mark 10 v 45, The Message - as are all the rest of the quotes)

This is just the executive summary, like when my surgeon says, “This operation will make you feel better”. So when it turns out that I have a week of agony after the operation, did my surgeon lie? Of course not, he just overlooked that little detail. And it’s the same with Jesus sacrifice: there’s a lot more to it than simply that Jesus died in our place.

The Bible has a lot more to say about the details of how Jesus’ sacrifice works, many of them metaphorical. One of the more interesting metaphors is that of the cup.

Jesus’ followers remember his sacrifice regularly by taking the bread and the wine. When Jesus started this custom, he said:

“This cup is the new covenant written in my blood, blood poured out for you.” (Luke 20 v 22)

There’s a whole interesting symbology associated with the cup. To start with, there’s the whole idea of intimate fellowship associated with sharing a cup. Here’s an interesting example:

There were two men in the same city–one rich, the other poor. The rich man had huge flocks of sheep, herds of cattle. The poor man had nothing but one little female lamb, which he had bought and raised. It grew up with him and his children as a member of the family. It ate off his plate and drank from his cup and slept on his bed. It was like a daughter to him. One day a traveler dropped in on the rich man. He was too stingy to take an animal from his own herds or flocks to make a meal for his visitor, so he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared a meal to set before his guest. (2 Sam 12 v 1-5)

Well, that’s nice. A lovely image, feeding a cute little lamb - don’t all kids love to do that? But the metaphor isn’t only for nice things. Here’s a rather more common usage:

This is a Message that the GOD of Israel gave me: “Take this cup filled with the wine of my wrath that I’m handing to you. Make all the nations where I send you drink it down. They’ll drink it and get drunk, staggering in delirium because of the killing that I’m going to unleash among them.” (Jer 25 v 15-16)

This starts to provide some real depth to this notion of drinking up Jesus’ Sacrifice, one that underscores the notion of a covenant written in blood. “Drink this up” - just what are you drinking up? Whatever is in that cup, whatever you drink, that’s what’s going to happen to you. So what’s in Jesus cup, the one we drink?

How about this:

Then Jesus went with them to a garden called Gethsemane …  He plunged into an agonizing sorrow. .. He fell on his face, praying, “My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this. But please, not what I want. You, what do you want?” .. Again he prayed, “My Father, if there is no other way than this, drinking this cup to the dregs, I’m ready. Do it your way.” (Matt 26 v 36 - 42)

Jesus saw his sacrifice in front of him, and called it his ‘cup’. And that’s what’s in that cup that we Christians drink: Jesus sacrifice.

This is no cup of wine that you lift to your lips, toss it back, and cast it away: drinking this cup means that Jesus’ sacrifice is going fill our lives up too. This is where Jesus’ teaching comes into our lives: it fills us up, with it’s message of self-control, self sacrifice, service to others.

Jesus sacrifice: it’s no band-aid. It can really save your life.

Jesus sacrifice: it’s no band-aid that you stick on the outside of your life. You drink it up, and it changes your whole life.

Our current healthcare system is the crowning achievement of modern civilization. So far as we can tell, we live longer and better now than ever before. This is not an abstract achievement - nearly everyone in the modern world is directly affected by this (like me - I’d be dead if it weren’t for modern healthcare, with the rest of my family). Sure, there’s lots of problems with modern society - finance and politics, anyone? - and there’s always been Galtists or Luddites who want to leave it all behind. But even the hippies in the Byron Bay forests come out when they’re sick.

However all this comes with a problem: the costs of healthcare are spiraling out of control. What few people realise is that this is inevitable: if you save people from dying from one disease, they’ll live longer and contract a nastier and more expensive one (and the worst case is old age). Keeping people healthy is a losing proposition - it gets harder and harder as they stay alive longer. The real problem is that no matter how hard we work at it, we’re all going to die.

When looked at from this perspective, our fabulous modern healthcare system looks rather like a band-aid:

“My people are broken–shattered!– and they put on band-aids, Saying, ‘It’s not so bad. You’ll be just fine.’ But things are not ‘just fine’!” (Jer 6 v 14, The Message)

The Bible tells us that the reason we die is moral, not physical: that in the beginning we sinned, and since then, we’ve been dying. (”Everybody dies in Adam” - “Because you ate from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from, you’ll be working in pain all your life long, until you return to the ground yourself, dead and buried; you started out as dirt, you’ll end up dirt.” 1 Cor 15 v 22 & Gen 3 v 17, The Message)

It follows, then, that if the problem is moral, the solution is moral. But at this point, many professed followers of Jesus take a wrong turn. “A ha”, they say, “so, if that’s so, then we should make everyone lead a moral life now, and it’ll all get better.”

Err, No.

Putting aside that problem that there’s no moral way to make people lead a moral life - you don’t need to know much history, or even current events, to know that - this dismisses Jesus’ sacrifice. “You didn’t need to do that”, they say to Jesus, “We can save ourselves in our own way. All we have to do is follow your teaching.” Well, that won’t work. Jesus didn’t sacrifice himself for nothing, and certainly not to have people tell him that they’ll find their own way, thanks very much.

Jesus sacrificed himself for us. And that’s no band-aid. So you don’t just stick it on from outside either: you drink it up.

Next post: Drinking up Jesus’ Sacrifice.