Easter Week - Jesus Takes the Second Cup

Linda, walking in Jerusalem

SCRIPTURE - LUKE 22:14-18

¹⁴When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. ¹⁵And he said to them, "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. ¹⁶For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God."

 ¹⁷After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, "Take this and divide it among you. ¹⁸For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THESE VERSES?

The cup Jesus takes is one of the four cups taken at the Passover meal. New Testament scholar Joel Green thinks Jesus took the second cup. This is important.

Cup #1 – the head of the family gave a blessing over that cup. Cups three and four came after the Passover meal. Then, Psalms 114-118 were sung – "The Great Hallel."

Cup #2 – This was the point in the Passover Meal where the youngest son in the family asks the father, "Why is this night different from other nights?” “Why is unleavened bread eaten on this night?” And other questions… 

Jesus, on that night 2000 years ago, took the second cup. It was a different night, and would change the world.

At the Passover meal the father, on taking Cup #2, would tell the story of the exodus, and give a message on Deuteronomy 26:5-11. The meal was interpreted as and seen as an act of remembering and thanking God for his past liberation of an oppressed people. It was a celebration of God’s faithfulness and hope for the future deliverance of God’s people.

They would eat lamb and bitter herbs. They would drink the series of four cups of wine.

At the original exodus Passover lambs were slaughtered. The blood of these lambs was applied to the doorways of the Jewish homes as a sign for the Angel of Death to pass over their homes and spare the life of their first born. When the father told this story, the Jews at the meal imagined themselves in the world of Moses in Egypt. Haven't you heard someone tell a story in such a way that you feel as if you are right there? You feel the emotions that were felt, you could smell the food being described, you sensed the oppression, and then... 

            … you experienced being set free!

Here, unknown to Jesus' disciples, it was a different night. The Jewish Meal of all Meals was happening, for the one-thousandth time. The original Passover was a night different from all other nights. It was the night when the avenging angel of death “passed over” the homes of the Israelites so God could liberate the people of Israel. But this night, recorded in Luke 22, is going to be very, very different from any other night. It will be remembered forever, not just by Jews, but by the peoples of the world, to include you and me.

This quite-and-very-different night begins by Jesus talking, not of the Moses-Exodus story, but about his impending death, and his Kingdom that is coming in its fullness. Jesus is changing the meaning of Passover. This is shocking and unexpected.

Can we just stop here for a moment?

Change is hard. This change is beyond hard. Because up to this point Passover was celebrated in the SAME WAY ALL THE TIME! "We always have done it this way!” (These, BTW, are the Seven Last Words of the Church.) The same questions are asked. The same answers are given. And it has been this way for hundreds of years.

But ON THIS NIGHT, as Joel Green says, “Instead of the expected focus on the historic deliverance enacted by God in Israel’s past, Jesus talks about his own death and vindication, and the coming of God’s dominion.” (JG, Luke, 761) "As you drink Cup #2, this cup, remember Me." What Jesus does on this night draws on the Exodus story. But, as N.T. Wright is fond of saying, this is the "New Exodus."

"After taking the [second] cup, Jesus gave thanks and said..." He did this on a night that is different from any before it, and from any that will follow. Jesus was showing that he was the "New Moses" who was leading not only Israel but all of humanity in the New Exodus and their resultant liberation.

Tonight, the night Jesus was betrayed, Jesus lifted the second cup. 

It was the night before the day when all humanity would be set free.

REFLECTION

1. Had you been one of Jesus' disciples at that Passover Meal, how would you have felt when Jesus reinterprets hundreds of years of tradition in terms of his own life and sacrificial death?

2. Think of how Jesus has liberated you from your enslavement to sin. Count the ways he has done this. Give thanks to God for this.


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My two books are:

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.

I'm now working on...

Transformation: How God Changes the Human Heart 

Technology and Spiritual Formation

I am editing a book of essays on the Holy Spirit, authored by my HSRM colleagues. Hopefully this book (Encounters With the Holy Spirit) will be out by June.

And, when all this settles, Linda and I intend on writing our book on Relationships.