Do I need an upper or a downer?

“Christ also hath once suffered for sins, … by which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison.” (1Pet. 3:18).

Do I need an upper or a downer? I don’t mean amphetamines and barbiturates. Do I need a pick-me-up between meals or at the end of a meal? Do I need the vegetarian form of nicotine and a bowl of ice cream for a shot of alcohol after a “good meal”. Or, a cheese cake vegan style hit of acid to keep me going until supper?

As run-of-the mill “good-livers” we have our own uppers—legal uppers. We have cakes and pies. We have candy and candy bars. We have chips and other snacks. We have condiment-laden and fatty casseroles. We have sodium-filled veggie-this and veggie-that. We even have fake bacon that looks and tastes like bacon.

All to pick me up when I put it in my mouth, on my tongue, in my belly where delicate nerves are, so that I can pick myself up by the bootstraps. Almost instant gratification, but close enough.

But what do we see of Jesus? He went down at the bidding of His Father, and down, and further down. He went down and further down until, drained, no life was left in Him.

All during His ministry He sought endlessly to reach the people, even forgetting to eat and to drink. His disciples began to think He had lost His senses.

“And the multitude cometh together again, so that they could not so much as eat bread. And when His friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on Him: for they said, He is beside Himself.” (Mark 3:20,21).

Again, at the end of a long, hot day of busying Himself with public speaking and experiencing loss of strength due to virtue passing from Him to many needy persons.

“When the even was come, He saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side. And when they had sent away the multitude, they took Him even as He was in the ship.” (Mark 4:35,36).

Finally, having healed every disease, at His command, they assisted/carried Him into the boat.

In the wilderness Satan tempted Him to break His forty-some day fast of food and water. But He wouldn’t even live off the illusion of bread from the adversary. To Him accepting imitations and mirages count for falling to temptation. The smallest lust in the heart is seen by God. On the cross a Roman soldier thought Jesus needed the normal pain killer, but Jesus turned away from it.

“Not even by a thought could our Saviour be brought to yield to the power of temptation.… This is the condition in which those must be found who shall stand in the time of trouble.” Great Controversy, p. 623. He would go down and down and down, for His Father required it as an example for His children to follow.

We use our uppers to pick up our heart and brain from exhaustion. But, will we follow the Saviour, to take up His cross daily? Do we really need our culinary uppers? Did Moses need such uppers, while he stayed in the mount for 80 days and nights without food to eat?

“And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.” (Ex. 24:18).

“And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest. And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto Mount Sinai, and present thyself there to Me in the top of the mount…. And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.” (Ex. 34:1,2,28).

“When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water:

And the LORD delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.

And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the LORD gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant….

 And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke Him to anger.” (Deut. 9:9-11,18).

“Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by Thy name, O LORD God of hosts.” (Jer. 15:16).

Do we really need our uppers? A 7 year old holding her little hand to her forehead, like her mother maybe had the habit, once asked my wife, “I feel so stressed. I need a Coke. Do you have one?” I smiled and chuckled to myself. We only had a cold cup of water. What does God see in our “stress” and our yearning for pick-me-ups? Moses loved the beauty of Christ’s holiness so much that it became his food.

Yet a greater than Moses was among us, as Jesus went down further than did Moses.

“And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy.

Then saith he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here, and watch with Me.

And He went a little further, and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me: nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” (Matt. 26:37-39).

“And there appeared an angel unto Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in an agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:43,44).

Doesn’t the Father have stress too? isn't that what He unloaded upon His Son in Gethsemane. Yet, as we see from His Son, He asks for no pick-me-up except love.

“And He cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with Me one hour?

Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O My Father, if this cup may not pass away from Me, except I drink it, Thy will be done.” (Matt. 26:40-42).

“Again He had felt a longing for companionship, for some words from His disciples which would bring relief, and break the spell of darkness that well-nigh overpowered Him. But their eyes were heavy; “neither wist they what to answer Him.” His presence aroused them. They saw His face marked with the bloody sweat of agony, and they were filled with fear. His anguish of mind they could not understand. ‘His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men.’ Isaiah 52:14.” Desire of Ages, p. 690.

“And He came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy.

And He left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.

Then cometh He to His disciples, and saith unto them, Sleep on now, and take your rest: behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners” (Matt. 26:43-45).

Down, down, down, in great suffering even before leaving the garden. Down, down, down, being mocked as King of the Jews by those He was laboring to win, and struck with heavy sticks upon His crown of thorns, and back-handed in the face by while blind-folded, for fun seeing if He could prophesy which of the Sanhedrin guards assailed Him. Down, down, down, to the Roman flogging that shredded His skin. Lower and still lower to the excruciating crucifixion.

Nailed to His cross. It heavily dropped into its deep hole with a thud, and He free-falling into His bottomless well of full-hearted patience and kindness, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34). This, before heaven and earth, His eternal mission statement for His soon-coming ministry in the heavenly Holy Place so that our hope and faith in His oath and covenant can enter within that veil, sitting in heavenly places with Christ.

Lower and lower, stripped almost naked and shamefully exposed to heaven and earth, the soldiers joking and gambling for His clothes. Lower and lower treated like a common criminal and surrounded by barbaric murderers. “He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isa. 53:12).

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Phil. 2:6-8).

“By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities.” (Isa. 53:11).

“Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief: when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand. He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied.” (Isa. 53:10,11).

“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name:

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:9-11).

“Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul unto death: and He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isa. 53:12).

Is my mind fortified with the words of truth because the holy Bible has become my upper? Is the Bible to me the living “word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” (1Pet. 1:23)?

Let’s resolve to let the godliness of God and His Son guide us into the life that needs no uppers of any kind.

“Refuse profane and old wives’ fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. For…godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” (1Tim. 4:7,8).