Focus: I Don't Want It!

Text: Mk.15:23

"And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh: but HE RECEIVED IT NOT."

Wherever you find yourself in life, even in tight corners, you do have a choice to make. Why say, 'do I have a choice,' when actually you do? Saying yes or no is your inalienable right.

Somehow life pushes us to tight corners where we find it extremely hard to say no. We prefer to save our lives by saying yes to what we should say no to, and by consistently saying yes to everything we kill our conscience and live with the consequences. A lot of us lack the moral power or courage to say no to myriad of things especially when they have so much to lose for saying it. In the world of business, Steve Jobs acknowledged that "innovation is saying no to 1,000 things." Those who lack the muscle to say no truly lack character or principles. Warren Buffett said, "The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything."

From the point of His arrest to the place of His crucifixion, Jesus had suffered a lot of injuries and endured so much pain inflicted on Him by His punishers - by those in authority. Now He was about to face or experience the most excruciating pain on the cross. So the soldiers thought of making His pain bearable by giving Him a kind of anesthesia in the form of a mixed drink or drugged wine. The drugged wine had a benumbing effect on the takers. It deadened pain. The pain of crucifixion could drive the sufferer crazy. It was an intolerable pain. They gave Jesus Christ the mixed drink, but He rejected it. He bluntly refused it. He would none of it. In simple terms He must have said to them, 'Thanks, but I don't want.'

Why did He refuse the drink, after all, it was a most needed drink under the circumstance? I believe the Apostle John would help us here to understand why He refused the anesthesia. John writes, "After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had RECEIVED the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost" (Jh.19:28,29,30). In Mark, Jesus Christ rejected the wine at the beginning, and here in John, He accepted it at the end of His redemptive work. 

When His atoning work on the cross was done He received the drink and then gave up His spirit. That tells us that He wanted to take all the pain that came with dying on the cross with His clear eyes and in His right senses. He needed no help saving man just the same way He needed no help creating him. He wanted to be conscious of Himself in every step of the way as He suffered to save humanity from eternal damnation. He wanted nothing that could diminish or lessen His agony. Jesus Christ said no to convenience because of us. He said no to what would have relieved Him of pain because of us. He wanted no escapism of any sort. He was utterly willing to drink the cup prepared for Him by His Father regardless of how painful it was for Him to bear. Truly, His no response to the offered drugged wine was a sacrifice in itself. He had power to reject or accept, and He used it rightly. At the time when He needed the mixed wine to help relieve His pain, He rejected it for our sake, and when it was absolutely needless He accepted it, because at that moment it meant nothing and served no purpose. Drinking it at the time He did neither added to nor subtracted from His work of redemption. He satisfied His Father and His own conscience. He lived and died well.

Let us make 'I don't want' expression a part of our daily vocabulary! W. Clement Stone said, "Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity." 

'I don't want' will save you from a lot of trouble. It will make you a person of principle and character.

Be ready at all times to refuse that drink, that juicy offer that may later damn your soul, that bribe, that gain or material position that may jeopardize your peace, or that indulgence or temporal pleasure that may ultimately destroy you.

Listen to Stephen R. Covey, who says, "You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, non apologetically — to say "no" to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger "yes" burning inside," and Madonna Ciccone, who says, "Freedom comes when you learn to let go, creation comes when you learn to say no." I pray that your yes or no will bring glory to God and peace to your heart from this day forward. Amen!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter