What scenarios in your life have led you to desperate prayer?

When is your most honest prayer?

When was a time you called others to pray with you?

In this station, we have the cup of death juxtaposed against the serpent of temptation. Jesus found himself in a garden desperately praying about what lay ahead of him… the road to death.

I’ve never had a future in front of me where I knew if I kept going I’d suffer horrible torture at the hands of imperial powers and I would slowly die on one of the worst execution devices ever created by human beings.

That said. I get tempted.

Lingering too long on an image while scrolling on my phone, thinking annoyed thoughts at a person taking too long in a supermarket line, jumping in on a joke that might have racial or  sexual undertones. We all face these sorts of everyday temptations. And to often we give in to them.

But temptation is much broader – think about this –  have you ever felt tempted to not be HERE to the life that is right in front of you? The present that IS.

Relational commitments, being present to my family and friends. Sticking to the everyday  commitments of being a person, who see others, acknowledges their presence and is engaged in the everyday life that comes across my path each day. To be alive to now!

Jesus partook in the difficulty of saying yes to what’s happening.

The road ahead of me is not an execution device. Thank God. But constantly on all our roads is a DEATH that comes from denying our ability to be present to the now. Your body. Your family. Your capabilities. Your limitations. Your time. Your situation. Your place. Your short breath of life in this absurd and beautiful universe.

To say YES to your life is to say no to trivial – yes 2 hrs of binge watching Netflix is trivial. Which in a world filled with doorways to fantasy (the very phone your holding now)… this is so very hard to do.

The cocktail we want to drink is the inebriation of numb distraction.
The beverage we are offered is the reality of our glorious and dynamic fragility.

“Father, take this cup from me. But not my will, but yours be done.”