Among the frothy festivities of St Patrick’s Day is the attempt at the bar to ‘split the G’. That is, to raise a glass of the brown stuff and take one or two carefully calculated gulps to reduce the froth line to a point where it comes close to the halfway mark of the letter G in the word Guinness. The ambitions of the Irish are breath-taking.

But one day, the One who makes us saints will raise a glass and split something: The P for Paradise, that is emblazoned on the goblets of heaven? The V for Victory, that is the lot of the saints because of the Lamb? The W for Worthy, that is the continual cry of those saints who see their Saviour? For did he not say at that last Supper: ‘For I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom’?

What an awesome day that will be. But what an awful day led to it, when the cup of Gethsemane was placed in his hand. It is too holy a moment to think of splitting anything, for that cup was the symbol of judgement and wrath for sinners like me. And in his bloody obedience, he did not stop at one gulp or two and then rest it on the bar, but took three and four and more until it was drained to the bitter dregs.