If somehow you started your Christian life without someone explaining that you were signing up for suffering, it’s time to break it to you: there is no such thing as a Christian life without suffering.

There is a line in a well-known story of Jesus (Matt 20:20-28) that often gets overlooked. James and John have just allowed their mommy to ask Jesus for permission for them to sit at his right and left hand in his coming kingdom. Jesus ignores the mother and speaks to the two men: “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?”

They (foolishly) reply, “We are able.”

Jesus counters, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.”

The story continues as the other ten disciples get upset with the two brothers, setting the stage for a powerful lesson by Jesus on servanthood, which is the main point of the recorded dialogue.

But did you pick up what Jesus told the disciples? Jesus predicted that they would drink his cup! This statement takes your breath away when you recall that at the Last Supper Jesus symbolized the blood that would pour from his own body with a cup of wine (Matt 26:27-29), at Gethsemane Jesus agonized that the cup of suffering might be removed from him (Matt 26:37-39), and at his arrest Jesus told Peter to put away his sword, adding: “shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (John 18:11).

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