A mystery shrouds the scene of Jesus' agony. You must leave your proud reason outside the Garden of Gethsemane, loosen your sandals as Moses did before the burning bush, and free of bias, with humility, enter the sacred realms and listen in faith to the prayer of Jesus of Nazareth. Then you will understand that the cup Jesus was called on to drink was not merely the natural feeling of displeasure or bitterness felt by everyone who comes into contact with death. For Jesus, this was minor.This was one drop of all the bitterness contained in that cup. The horror of the cup consists of something else. The innocent and sinless Jesus, 'who committed no sin, nor was guilt found in His mouth' (I Peter 2:22); Jesus, who to the Jews posed the unique, unanswerable question, 'Which of you convicts Me of sin?' (John, 8:46); Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God, obedient in everything to the will of His heavenly Father; Jesus, upon whom the shadow of sin never fell; Jesus, whose virtue covered the skies, reached the hour -- the most meaningful hour in the story of human redemption -- to descend into the depths, to raise all the weight of humanity's sins, and thus the sinless One would appear as the most sinful of men, as guilty of [i.e. unto] death, death on the cross. This was the cup; none bitterer was ever drunk nor ever will be. In this cup each one of us has thrown our droplets, and I who write and you who read have thrown the bitterness of our sins into Jesus' cup. This is the terrible cup which Jesus was called on to drink dry, and He drank it in all its horridness.
Metropolitan AUGOUSTINOS (Kantiotes) of Florina (+2010), Follow Me
Twentieth Century