George and the Cup

I used to have a close friend named George. He was an African pastor, and he would occasionally come to America and visit me. And I would take him around and introduce him to people at church, and he would tell folks that he and I were brothers.

Even though our skin color was different, we were brothers nonetheless. And this man was like a true brother to me. And I mourned him like a brother when he died.

My pastor friend George once told me a story I will never forget, and I want to share it with you friends. He said near his church in Africa was a distant village that would not accept outsiders into their community unless they accepted a cup from the tribal chief who dipped the cup in the river that ran adjacent to his village. George told me that he felt led of the Lord one day to go and visit this village with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And he knew all about the custom of the tribal chief who would hand you a cup of that river water and ask you to drink it down. If you drank the cup of water, you were then accepted into the village. The problem was that river was a filthy stream where cattle stood and defecated in the water, so did the people of the village.

They washed themselves in that dirty water as well. My friend George said to take a drink of that polluted water was to put one's life at risk. And if you wanted access to that village, you not only had to accept the cup from the tribal chief, but you had to drink it all down.

One sip would only insult the chief, because you'd be saying his water wasn't worth drinking. Well, George knew all this when he traveled by foot to the distant village that day with his Bible under his arm. Once there, George announced himself, and he waited patiently by the river for the old chief to appear with his cup.

The chief bent down and put the cup into the water and scooped up enough until it was full. The chief then handed the cup to George, who told me when he held the cup to his nostrils, the stench from the filthy river water made him silently gag. He looked at the chief who was watching him, and George then looked down into the cup.

George told me the water in the cup was brown, and it was thick, and it appeared as if some vermin was swimming in there. With his Bible in one hand and the cup in the other, George silently prayed, and as he prayed, his mind ran to another man who was handed a cup as well, 2,000 years ago, that he had a drink. In Gethsemane, Jesus was handed a cup that was full to the brim with my filthy, dirty sins, and he had to take it and drink it.

George took a deep breath and swallowed the contents of that cup, and he went through the village that day with the good news of the gospel about one who came down here so we can go up there. I'll never forget that story, and I'll never forget George as he sat at my kitchen table relating that story to me. But then one day, I got the news that my friend George had died.

He was the one person I could go to when I needed prayer, and I knew he had power on high to gain God's ear. Well, I was going through an old Bible the other day, and I found a note that my daughter had wrote me, as she consoled me over the death of my friend George. My little teenage daughter had wrote, Daddy, I'm so sorry for your loss.

But just think, George is in a better place now. In heaven, there is no pain and no suffering and no sorrow. He is with Jesus, dancing and laughing and singing.

He has no more pain or any more of his suffering. I'm sure he is looking down on you, smiling. You will see him again someday, and it will be wonderful.

Well, when I miss my friend George, I get out that note that my daughter wrote. And I think about the time he shared that story with me about the cup where he was a man who cared enough for the souls of men, that he was willing to take them to gospel, even if it meant first having to drink their bath water. What in the world have I done for Christ? It seems my life is so insignificant alongside my friend George, like I'm just a little ant crawling in the dirt compared to my friend George.