The Cup
Sermon, April 20, 2000
Maundy Thursday
Isaiah 53:5 - "He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities."
In our Gospel reading from Matthew 26, we see Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. Do you remember what "Gethsemane" means? Literally, it means an olive mill; it is a place where olives are pressed to produce olive oil. In a Gethsemane, olives are put under unbearable weight until crushed. A very appropriate place for our Lord to voice His dread anticipation of the crushing weight He is about to endure. Jesus prayed three times in Gethsemane that a particular "cup" be removed from Him. Obviously, this cup must have been a terrible, dreadful thing. What is this cup, what kind of cup is this, that causes our Lord so much dread? This is not the first time Jesus spoke of this cup. A few chapters earlier, two of the disciples, James and John, had asked for a particular honor to be bestowed upon them and Jesus replied, in so many words, "You don't know what you are asking. You don't know the cup you are asking to drink. Can you drink the cup I have to drink?" Now in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus chooses these same two disciples, James and John, along with Peter, to be with Him. Jesus tells them He is so overwhelmed, He is so full of fear and sorrow that He was at the point of death. Three times Jesus prays that this cup be taken away from Him. Other Gospel accounts tell us He was in such great anguish that His sweat was like great drops of blood...all because of concern about a cup. Again, what is this cup? What kind of cup is this?In fifteen different passages in the Old Testament there are references to a particular cup, a terrible cup, a cup which contains the wine of God's wrath. One we read earlier this evening, Psalm 75: 7 -- "But it is God who judges: He brings one down, He exalts another. In the hand of the Lord is a cup, and the wine foams in it, hot with spices; he offers it to every man for drink, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs." Isaiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Zechariah, all refer to this cup of fiery, foaming wine, the wine of God's wrath and fury.
One of the more interesting references to this cup is found in Jeremiah 25. Transport yourself mentally from here in Rhode Island to the summertime in dusty, hot Jerusalem, as best we can tell it is the year 605 BC. 605 BC was a year of momentous political consequence and upheaval in Israel. The prophet Jeremiah had already been preaching at this time for some 23 years, warning the citizens of Jerusalem that God was going to judge them for their sins, and for 23 years he was mocked and ridiculed. In 605-604, things are changing...the Assyrian empire which for two centuries has been in control all the way through Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) all the way down through the Tigris Euphrates over to the Indus river (modern Iraq, Iran and much of Saudi Arabia) down through Palestine and into Egypt, was coming apart. Again, the Assyrians had held their empire in the ancient middle east for two centuries (about as long as we've been a nation!), and it was now disintegrating. It was coming unglued, much like the situation in the former Soviet Union.
As Assyria began to lose her power, vassal after vassal, conquered people after conquered people revolted. Egypt revolts, and Assyria can do nothing about it. Babylon revolts, and Assyria doesn't have enough power to do anything about it. Assyria is shrinking-shrinking-shrinking. Finally, at this moment in history, the only thing left of the Assyrian empire is a little garrison at a town in north Syria. The great empire that has lasted two centuries is now, for all intents and purposes, reduced to a small army in one town. As the Assyrians had begun to decrease, those two great political powers that had been under her thumb, both to the east in Babylon and to the south in Egypt, began to reassert their power. Perhaps you can see what is going to happen. The Egyptians are going to push north through Palestine grabbing what used to belong to the Assyrians, and the Babylonians are going to push toward the northwest along the Euphrates river, grabbing what used to belong to the Assyrians, and pretty soon these two great powers are going to collide. In 605 BC it happened, in a town in north Syria called Karkimish. In 605-604 BC, we have the battle of Karkimish; the armies of Nebechudnezzar of Babylon and Pharoah Nekko of Egypt both which had been grabbing up Assyrian territory finally meet head on. Nebechudnezzar overwhelmingly defeats Nekko. The Egyptians then beat a hasty retreat; they come running post haste back down through Syria and through Palestine and back into Egypt. Now the whole of Palestine is left open to Nebechudnezzar. There is no other major army on the field. No one is going to be able to stop him. No other army is there that can resist the Babylonians. So now, picture yourself living in Jerusalem when the news has reached town that the Egyptians had been beaten. You know what that means. That means Nebechudnezzar is on his way.
It is under those circumstances, those political realities, that Jeremiah gives the sermon recorded in Jeremiah 25 (p. 775), and imagine you are in his audience. It's quite probable that Jeremiah uses a prop In his sermon (prophets often did that). Perhaps Jeremiah takes a cup and uses that cup as a symbol of the wine of God's wrath. (verses 2-11) "So Jeremiah the prophet said to all the people of Judah and to all those living in Jerusalem: 'For twenty-three years--from the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah until this very day--the word of the LORD has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened. And though the LORD has sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention. They said, 'Turn now from your evil ways and your evil practices, and you can stay in the land the LORD gave to you and your fathers for ever and ever. Do not follow other gods to serve and worship them; do not provoke me to anger with what your hands have made. Then I will not harm you.' 'But you did not listen to me,' declares the LORD, 'and you have provoked me with what your hands have made, and you have brought harm to yourselves.'"
"Therefore the LORD Almighty says this: 'Because you have not listened to my words, I will summon all the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them and make them an object of horror and scorn, and an everlasting ruin. I will banish from them the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. This whole country will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years. This announces the imminent beginning of that dread period of Jewish history known as the Babylonian captivity.
Twenty-three years Jeremiah has been warning these people, and very possibly on the very day that the news hit town that Nebechudnezzar was on his way, Jeremiah speaks these words of God. Verse 15: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: 'Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. When they drink it, they will stagger and go mad because of the sword I will send among them.'" Imagine Jeremiah taking this prop, a cup, and holding it before the audience. "Then tell them, `This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Drink, get drunk and vomit, and fall to rise no more because of the sword I will send among you.' But if they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink, tell them, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: You must and you shall drink it! See, I am beginning to bring disaster on the city that bears my Name, and will you indeed go unpunished? You will not go unpunished, for I am calling down a sword upon all who live on the earth, declares the LORD Almighty. Imagine the prophet taking a cup in his hand, holding it before his audience and saying: "Take and drink...this is the cup of the wine of God's wrath. Take and drink...you must, and you shall, take and drink!."
Jerusalem must drink the cup of God's judgement. And as mentioned elsewhere in the Old Testament, in Jeremiah, in the Psalms, in Ezekiel, in Lamentations, in Isaiah, in Zechariah, in Habakkuk... this is the cup of the wine of the wrath of God. Psalm 75 spoke of this cup as a cup reserved for the wicked; it is a cup which the sinful must drain to the dregs. Now there isn't a person here, myself included, who doesn't deserve to drink a portion of the wine of God's wrath. Jesus Christ was the one man who had ever lived on this earth on Whom that dread cup had no claim. He was sinless. There was no need for Him to taste the cup reserved for the wicked. There was no sin in him. Now you might understand a bit more why the Son of God might feel revulsion when confronted with that cup. Jeremiah, in another passage, spoke of a time when the innocent would taste the wine of God's wrath. Here comes Jesus Christ, the only One who is innocent, and He drinks that cup....God's wrath is poured out on Him. There is a nice touch by John in his Gospel; John tells us that the very last act of Jesus Christ on the cross was to receive a drink of sour wine, a drink of vinegar, a drink of wine gone bad. It was lifted to Jesus' lips, when He had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." The cup reserved for the wicked is now finished. It is drunk to the dregs by Christ. The cross is the supreme demonstration of God's love, but let us never forget it is simultaneously the supreme demonstration of how God hates sin and what sin costs.
Just moments before going to Gethsemane to pray about that dread cup He faced, Jesus had met with His disciples in an upper room, and He offered to them there a new cup. "Take and drink," He said. No longer is this the cup of God's wrath, this has become the cup of God's grace. The cup of the new covenant is a cup of blessing. No longer is it a cup full of the wine of God's wrath, but it is a cup full of the wine of Jesus blood, shed for the forgiveness of our sin. It is a cup of wrath which, by the blood contained therein, has been transformed into a cup of blessing. This cup is now filled with the blessing of God gained through the broken body and shed blood of Christ.
There is one final place in Scripture where the cup containing the wine of God's wrath makes its appearance, in Revelation 14:10. Though full of vivid imagery and symbolism, Revelation 14 makes clear that those who don't serve God will one day taste the cup of God's fury, they will drink the cup of God's wrath. In conclusion, I want to reiterate the Biblical message that every human being is going to drink a cup: as Jeremiah said to the inhabitants of Jerusalem so many years ago, "You must and You shall drink!" The question is, which cup is it going to be for you? For we will drink one or the other...the cup of the fury of God, or the cup of the forgiveness of sin. For all who earnestly repent of their sin, to all who seek to follow Jesus Christ as Lord, the Host of this table, the author of the New Covenant, offers the cup...of God's blessing.