The Cup

“The Cup” came from the turmoil of the garden of Gethsemane, the mystery, the hope, the reconciling of man to the Creator of the universe, to be children of God, forgiven and loved. This was on the shoulders of Jesus, permeating his entire being. He knew what was before him. Even writing this, it is astounding and incredible that one person could bear all of the sin, wrong, evil, harm, sorrow, loss and pain of humanity. In Mel Gibson’s movie, Passion of the Christ, the devil asks, “Do you really believe that one man can bear the full burden of sin? No one can carry this burden, I tell you. It is far too heavy. Saving their souls is too costly. No one. Ever. No. Never. Who is your father? Who are you?” It is and will always be a leap of faith. Only one who was man and God, only one sinless could accomplish this. That’s why Jesus is the stumbling block. And yet it is a possibility that what happened at Calvary is true. The only way it could be true is if God resurrected Jesus after this ferocious death, a human history changing moment.

In the passion of the Christ, the focus is the sacrifice. The anguish for Jesus was that he knew this moment his death would be severe, abusive, vicious, saturated with anguish and pain, and ending in separation from His father. But it was being done for the good and restoration of mankind.

But still, the words: “Oh Lord, take this, cup from me,” and his resolve “I’ll drink the cup,” rang true, the tearing apart of his soul. Yes, this is too hard and yes, this is what needs to be done.

When I wrote the song, those words, the battle within, what was at hand, was my goal to capture. I pursued text painting this agony in the garden.

The guitar is tuned in a way that I could accomplish the fullness of the tension that moment. It tuned to E F# C# F# B E. I was able to get some very interesting harmonics from that tuning and also the pounding drive I needed to color that moment.

The song was basically a duet between Joe playing “Oh Lord, take this, cup from me” and the bass expressing “I’ll drink the cup.” A musical fleshing out of the dynamic that Christ was going through. I was knocked out with all of Joe‘s solos. Joe’s first solo expressed the excruciatingly contemplation of what’s before him, of what’s coming. Which was interspersed with the bass solo, manifesting of the throes of struggle that felt like it was coming from the foundation of the universe. Concluding with Joe completely musically capturing the cross like no other instrument I believe ever has. I was extremely happy with these solos. They captured that moment musically as dramatically and as vividly as I could create. It was an honor to do this song.

In April 2020, a month after Covid started rampaging our world, a friend asked, “Do you have a video or something I could use for good for Good Friday service?” I had just finished recording the drums a week or two before and I said, “Yeah I think I do.” I reviewed the movie The Passion of the Christ and remixed it into six minutes using my song as the guide. It was tricky. I had Jesus envision the coming evening and day in the garden. I’m happy with the video remix which you can see at this link (www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FzscPJY8uw). It manifests the target I was shooting for. Maybe someday I’ll have videos for all my songs.