The Tale of Two Cups
In the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices;
he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs. Psalm 75:8 NIV
God makes things simple for me. Often, he paints word pictures: truths in images, every day and common, easy to hold in my hand and in my thoughts.
December 2025 was a time of surprising experiences. I experienced surgery for the first time, an emergency appendectomy to remove my infected appendix. I didn’t see that coming. Eleven days later, as I began to dress for an appointment, suddenly my favorite ceramic coffee cup lay shattered in pieces on the floor. “How did that happen?” I thought. As I reached down to pick up the largest piece, I watched as my hand made the motion to close around the cup, but my fingers never made contact. I tried again and again. Apparently, my hand was nowhere near what I was attempting to retrieve. “My depth perception is off…” I slowly started to realize. “I can do this,” I thought, “this is stupid!” Determined, I tried again and again, like a child bobbing for apples under water. Finally, I grasped it and deposited it into the trash can. Finally, it registered in my dull brain, “I am having a stroke. I need to get to the hospital now!”
I went to get Jeff to tell him I needed his help, I was having a stroke, and we needed to go to the hospital immediately. The first sentence came out fine, he told me later. All the other sentences were nonsensical ideas, words strung together that could not tell my story.
He finally understood. We both dressed and drove through rush-hour traffic to Northside. During that excruciating drive, I continued to attempt to tell him what I was thinking, because I was thinking very clearly, but I could tell by his sidelong looks at me that the words in my mind were not the words that came out of my mouth.
I also recognized this particular stroke. My daddy had this same experience in his late 50s. He was the healthiest person I knew, but he suffered a heart attack, followed immediately by a stroke that jumbled his words, took away his ability to read, and his ability to write. I knew my life was on the precipice of change; the life I knew had just come to a sudden stop. My recovery would be long and hard and humiliating. I thought of that summer I had sat with my Daddy outside as he taught himself to read again using our childhood first-grade readers. His stroke had happened in the fall.
But God still grants miracles. Absolutely. Without warning, without reason.
In the hospital, as I was going into the CT scan, the technician asked me to sign a disclaimer. “Is he serious?” I thought. “Can’t he see I am having a stroke? I can’t even tell him my name or my birthdate!” He placed the pen in my hand and held the clipboard for me and I watched my signature appear on the dotted line. “I can still write!” I exclaimed in wonder in my little mind.
During that short time in the whirring of the CT scan as I slid in and back out again, I knew a change was taking place. I attempted to speak to the technician, and my words, hesitant and a little slurred, came out understandably.
Returning to my ER nurse, I was overjoyed and hopeful, saying to her, “I can speak! I can speak! It is a miracle!” She looked at me in amazement since she had spent the most time with me, “You can!” she affirmed. “This is so unusual. You are so lucky!” The effects of the stroke lasted one hour and fifty minutes. And quite suddenly, I had all my abilities back.
And in case you are one of those who would easily dismiss this, my ER doctor and my hospital neurologist both confirmed, “This was not a little episode. The tests show the signs of a full-on ischemic stroke.” I was declared by every medical professional over the next two days to be ‘very lucky’. A month later, my neurologist showed me the images taken in my MRI. “You didn’t just have a stroke,” she said, “you had two. One here, and a smaller one higher up, appearing brighter, which happened right after the first one. You are very lucky; you must have done something right in your life.”
But I didn’t. It was and is simply the unexplainable mercy of God.
I stayed in the hospital for 48 hours as I rode the rollercoaster of anger and frustration to finally arrive at peace with my unexplainable new circumstances. Typical of my church, the leader of women’s ministry called me that first evening I was ‘held captive’ (in my unreasonable opinion) in the hospital. Gathered with Elise were other mighty women of prayer; on speaker, they prayed aloud over me. As their voices came through the phone, I saw in my mind each dear face, women I had shared the offering of prayer with over the years. One familiar voice said something so profound to me: “You were not meant to pick up that broken cup. That is not what God had for you. He is giving you a new cup.” She spoke prophecy. She was right. He is.
God continued to slow me down through December, January, and February. To bring me to a full stop, at times. Fluid around my heart and lungs, two days of A-fib all piled on. Adverse reactions to medication, sleepless nights, fatigue, and pneumonia. “Stop. Rest. Do not try to put the broken cup back together. I am doing a new thing. Rest.” These were the words I heard from the Holy Spirit every morning. “I am your strength. I am healing you in my own time.”
My daily healing found its home and place of comfort in the Psalms. There are so many! It is hard to slow down and look closely at the words. The words of sorrow and fear. The words of steadfast love and a firm foundation; God as protector and savior and redeemer, and lifter of my head. Words of God’s unchanging character and his long history of deliverance. It has been a feast, overflowing, to be consumed slowly.
And then suddenly, there they were: the two cups. One I already knew about: the cup of God’s wrath. I had discovered it years ago while teaching the book of Jeremiah, the prophet.
This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them.” Jeremiah 25:15-16 NIV
And with it came the connection and the sudden understanding of why Jesus would fall on his face in the Garden of Gethsemane on that last night and beg with blood pouring like sweat, “Father, take this cup away from me,” terrified at what that cup held. And then his obedience, “Not my will, but yours” (paraphrased from Matthew 26:29). Oh my! Jesus came to take the cup of God’s wrath and drink it. To take on the sins deserving eternal irreconcilable separation. As they arrested him, lovely, impetuous Peter sliced off the ear of one of the servants of the high priest. Jesus asked Peter, “Am I not to drink the cup God has ordained for me?” The bleeding separated ear was restored (John 18:11, Luke 22:51).
But many will yet drink of the cup of God’s wrath. You can always find the rest of the story in Revelation 14:10.
They, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.
The cup of God’s wrath! How horrifying! Yet the story doesn’t end with God’s cup of wrath poured out. There is another cup. You can read about it in those prophetic, beautiful Psalms. It is called the cup of salvation.
I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. Psalm 116:13
This is from one of the Hallel Psalms, the songs of praise of the God who delivered the Hebrews from captivity. They sang these songs as they shared the Passover meal, remembering God’s miraculous acts of rescue: the blood on the doorway, the parting of the sea, the manna from Heaven, the water from the rock, and the healing snake raised on the tree.
It is only reasonable that those disciples who lived with him, followed him, who had come to believe he was more than a man, sang this song of deliverance during their last supper with Jesus.
Then Jesus did something unusual. Something shocking. We modern people do not begin to understand the horror of his words.
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”
Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Matthew 26:26-28
Jesus had turned water into wine at a wedding celebration. What a contrast to make wine symbolic for the sacrificial blood necessary for the forgiveness of sins. The perfect lamb would be slaughtered; his blood would stain the wood of the narrow doorway. Jesus, the good shepherd, would take the place of the lamb. His blood would be shed to defeat the consequences of sin, of death, to bring everlasting eternal life. “Take my cup and drink it.” The cup of salvation.
But you must accept it from his hand. You must drink it.
Is it really that simple, this tale of two cups? Slow down. Take it in. God’s cup of wrath. Jesus’s cup of salvation. You choose. Which do you want to drink?
Fill My Cup Andrew Ripp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtRMOUFf7e0
Photo by Marta Dzedyshko: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-coffee-cups-2775831/