“You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honour me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever”.
Psalm 23:5-6 NLT
We continue out journey through Psalm 23 with the thought about a cup. In this context, we’re not considering a tea or coffee cup, receptacles made of clay or something similar, an ornately decorated item with a handle glued to the outside and glazed and fired in a kiln. In my mind the cup used would have been more like a goblet, used for wine drinking, and with connotations of grandeur because of its contents. For fear of being poisoned, kings and royalty used someone they trusted to supply them with wine, employing them as cup-bearers. Nehemiah had this role, being engaged by King Artaxerxes (Nehemiah 1:11). The “cup” fits in well with the feast prepared earlier for David, food and drink supplied by the Lord, David’s “Good Shepherd”. We earlier read, “In Jerusalem, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will spread a wonderful feast for all the people of the world. It will be a delicious banquet with clear, well-aged wine and choice meat” (Isaiah 25:6). Our imaginations consider the plates full of our favourite foods with the best of wines to supplement the experience of being a guest at the ultimate banquet with the Lord Himself.
However we consider the spiritual aspect of the cup, and why it is overflowing. To David, the cup wasn’t full of wine but instead overflowing with blessings. We look through Psalm 23 and we find that it is all about being blessed. Green pastures, peaceful streams, God’s presence as he journeys and His protection and comfort available through the dark valleys, and here we are at a banquet with an overflowing cup of blessings. The culmination of a poetic description of living a life connected to God.
The cup overflowed with blessings, and in the Bible there is sometimes an association made between the contents of a cup, normally wine, and the Holy Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit gave the impression of drunkenness. Acts 2:13, 15, 17-18, “But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, “They’re just drunk, that’s all!” … These people are not drunk, as some of you are assuming. Nine o’clock in the morning is much too early for that. … ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants—men and women alike— and they will prophesy“. What a blessing that day was! Not just a cup full for David, but many cups full for the believers there in that upper room. In those days of poor sanitation, an alternative was necessary, and wine was the commodity often suppled. Jesus drank wine, much to the embarrassment of teetotal Christians (“Mark my words—I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom” (Matthew 26:29)). Perhaps Jesus was alluding to the Heavenly Banquet yet to come. We also remember that Jesus’ first miracle was the turning of water into wine at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee.
We also remember another liquid that would have been drunk from cups – water. In John 4 we read about Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman, who had come to draw water from a well outside the village of Sychar. Jesus told her, “ … Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life” (John 4:13-14). Not long after, Jesus spoke out in the temple at the Feast of Tabernacles, “On the last day, the climax of the festival, Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart’”” (John 7:37-38).
But David wasn’t thinking about wine or water when he said “My cup overflows with blessings”. His heart was full of gratitude to the Lord, who had supplied all his needs, not in a grudging or stingy fashion, but so bountifully that the cup wasn’t big enough to hold all the blessings supplied. But that is our God. Most of the time the problem isn’t that God lacks supply, but that we lack demand. I’m not talking about physical blessings, financial or otherwise, but the spiritual blessings that continually pour from Heaven filling our cups and more. Ephesians 5:18-19, “Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts“. The Holy Spirit is ready and willing to fill our hearts, but how willing are we to allow Him? What is the state of our “cups” today? Are they full to overflowing or are they only a quarter or half full? Or even empty and dry, dusty with a lack of use. An infilling of the Holy Spirit will not cost us any money (although a man called Simon tried that, as recorded in Acts 9:18). But it cost Jesus everything, His life. We only have to ask, and keep on asking, because God is always willing to provide all that we need. Jesus made it all possible that day on Calvary’s hill, and God’s overflowing blessings of the Holy Spirit haven’t stopped pouring into the cups of believers ever since.
Dear Heavenly Father. The cup You supply will never run dry. We drink deeply and hold it out for more. Thank You Lord. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 