In the Garden of Gethsemane, a terribly worried Yeshua fell to his knees, and pleaded with YHWH. The following conversation ensued:
Yeshua: Father, if it is your will, relieve me of this cup of suffering.
YHWH: Can’t. It is your destiny to drink from that cup.
Yeshua: Make it such that it becomes my destiny to fight that destiny, then.
YHWH: If I did that, you wouldn’t be able to resist the destiny to fight your destiny. And if you thus fought your destiny, my plans for mankind’s redemption would be foiled.
Yeshua: But what if I fought the destiny to fight my destiny by not fighting it?
Short pause.
YHWH: You are starting to irritate me with your word play. Not very wise of you. I’ll make your cup of suffering bigger. I’ll make it into a mug of suffering.
Yeshua: No! Please don’t do that. The cup is fine, dad. Actually, if you could make it even smaller, I’d be ever grateful. Say, a thimbleful of suffering.
YHWH: A thimbleful of suffering is not enough. The minimum amount of suffering you should drink is a cupful. We are trying to wash away the sins of ALL mankind, remember?
Yeshua: But isn’t it all symbolic? The cleansing?
YHWH: It IS symbolic, yes. But even symbolic gestures have to scale in relation to the reality they represent. In this particular case, cleansing the entire human kind requires you to drink at least one cup of suffering.
Yeshua: I think your scale of reference is arbitral.
YHWH: Keep talking like that, and my arbitral scale will arbitrary award you with an entire pot to drink the suffering from.
Short silence.
Yeshua: What if I can’t drink an entire cup of suffering? What if the cup proves to be too much, and I drink, say, half the suffering?
YHWH: Then only the Jews will be cleansed. You’ll have to drink another cup for the gentiles later on. AND ride the donkey once again, into Jerusalem.
Yeshua: Whoa. I’ll drink the entire cup of suffering at a go, then. Didn’t like the donkey ride at all. People started calling me “Ass-Rider” from that day.
YHWH: Wise decision, son. Drink the entire cup at a go.
N/B: For access to all anecdotes in this series, check out List of all “Chronicles of YHWH” notes.