“This Cup”
March 16, 2008
Matthew 26:36-46
We’re going on a slight detour from our series on the Holy Spirit for the next two Sundays.
Today is Palm Sunday and next Sunday is Resurrection Sunday, and then we’ll return to our examination of the Holy Spirit’s major ministries to and through us.
Today, even though it’s Palm Sunday, we’re going to fast-forward beyond the Triumphal Entry and even beyond the Last Supper into Jesus’ prayer time in the Garden of Gethsemane.
It is the night before the Cross, and the Lord Jesus and his disciples have shared an intimate dinner full of teaching about His departure, the coming Holy Spirit, the new commandment to love one another and the Lord’s Supper.
Now, Jesus and his disciples have sung a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives, a familiar place Jesus had often disappeared to.
And there, Jesus found a special spot in a little garden to pray.
But this was no pleasant prayer time comfortably nestled in nature.
No, in this garden, Jesus was confronted with a cup.
“This Cup.”
And He had to pray about whether or not to drink it.
WHAT WAS IN THIS CUP?
What was Jesus staring at that made Him feel this way?
In verse 36, Jesus took all of his disciples to the garden of Gethsemane which basically means the “Olive Garden” but they weren’t here to enjoy the salad and pasta!
And He took His inner circle of three: Peter, James, and John along with Him deeper into the garden. And then He began to break down.
Verse 37 says that he began to be “sorrowful and troubled” and it doesn’t mean that he began to frown!
He began to be in deep distress and anguished. He says to Peter, James, and John (v.38), “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”
And Jesus doesn’t exaggerate!
He feels so overwhelmed with sorrow that He’s just about to die with it! He feels like He’s going to die!
I’m sure He was crying. He was, perhaps, sobbing. I’m not sure what this means.
The Gospel of Luke tells us that when He prayed, his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground–He was that intense!
Verse 39 says that this almost overwhelmed Jesus went a little further and then fell with his face to the ground!
He can’t even stay on His feet, He’s in such agony!
Over what?
Over “This Cup.”
His Father has placed this cup in front of Him and bid Him to drink it.
And the very thought of this brings Him anguish of soul!
This is very different than how Jesus normally acts, isn’t it?
In four gospels full of information about Jesus Christ, He is seldom overwhelmed!
No, instead He normally is the master of whatever situation He is in.
Healings, Resurrections, Debates, Teachings, Miracles...
These all seem to be natural for Jesus. Even when they’re trying to stone Him, He just walks right out of the crowd! No problem.
But here, we see a different Jesus. In all of His humanity, struggling with “This Cup.”
What was in “This Cup?”
What would cause Him to pray like He does in verse 39?
“My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Whatever is in this cup, He doesn’t want it! He doesn’t want any part of it!
“May this cup be taken from me?”
Perhaps, in His incarnation, He didn’t know just like He didn’t know the timing of His eventual return.
So, He asks: “May this cup be taken from me?”
In fact, He asks three times! V.39, verse 42, and verse 44.
We’re so used to stories that come in threes that we expect there to be a different answer the third time. Like the three little pigs.
But Jesus gets the same answer all three times.
“You Must Drink This Cup.”
What was in “This Cup” that was so abhorrent to our Lord?
I don’t know what words to use. Can you be fearful and not sin?
Jesus never sinned, but He seems almost afraid of “This Cup.”
He’s going to die, He’s overwhelmed by its contents.
He doesn’t want to drink it, unless the Father says that He must.
What was in “This Cup?”
You need to understand that there was no literal cup sitting in front on Him like there is here in front of me.
A “cup” was a way of talking about an experience that must be experienced.
The Father had put in front of Jesus something that He had to undergo.
A “cup” that He had to drink.
Not just something to agree with, but something to choose to go through.
An experience that He had to experience.
And “This Cup” was the “The Cross.”
We can get so “used to” the Cross. We talk about the Cross as if it were a small thing!
We all have our “crosses to bear.”
We wear them around our necks for crying out loud!
But for Jesus, the Cross was “This Cup.” V.42
“My Father (the Gospel of Mark says that Jesus called Him “Abba” here–Daddy), if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
What intimacy and agony in the same prayer!
I think this was, perhaps, the toughest moment in Jesus’ life.
I think that Satan was present and tempting like he hadn’t tempted Jesus before.
Remember when Satan and Jesus squared off in the desert and Jesus used the Word of God against Him. Satan disappeared until a more opportune time.
I think that’s right here.
Satan was tempting Jesus to go around the Father’s will and to try to save His people without going through the Cross. Without drinking from “This Cup.”
What was in “This Cup?”
More than we can understand!
More than we will ever know.
But at least these three things:
#1. Torture.
Physical torture.
If Jesus drank this cup, He would go through a terrible whipping, a crown of thorns pressed down on His head so that it bled, battering, shameful mistreatment, spitting on His face, nails driven into His hands and feet, and then slow suffocation.
Pressing down with His feet in excruciating pain so that he can open His chest enough to breath and then falling down again and losing breath for six hours!
This was a cup of torture that the Father had placed in front of Jesus to drink.
But worse than the torture was the abandonment.
#2. Abandonment.
If Jesus drank “This Cup,” He would be abandoned.
He was left by all of His friends.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter, James, and John keep falling asleep on Jesus.
They can’t keep their eyes open and leave Him by Himself three times.
Peter had boasted that he wouldn’t fall away even if everybody else did!
But Jesus knew where the road led that was paved with good intentions.
He said, “The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” “You talk a good fight, but it won’t be there when it counts. You will all fall away.”
Much worse than falling asleep is that they all ran away.
Well, all but one of them. One of the Twelve, Judas Isacariot didn’t run away, he walked right up to Jesus and kissed Him on the cheek.
He singled Jesus out to the Romans as the one to crucify.
Jesus was betrayed.
And then He was insulted and forced to go through a travesty of justice–a completely illegal and unjust trial.
He was abandoned by people.
But even worse, He was abandoned by His Heavenly Father!
I think this is what made the cup so odious!
When Jesus hung on the Cross, He cried out with the words of Psalm 22, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”– which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Jesus experienced that question! And He never should have.
He had enjoyed an eternity of uninterrupted fellowship with God the Father!
And now the Father turned His back on the Son.
And, worse yet, poured out His wrath on Him.
#3. Wrath.
If Jesus drank “This Cup,” He would experience the wrath of God.
This language of a “cup” is drawn from about a dozen places in the Old Testament when God promised to bring righteously angry judgment upon the wicked for their sin.
Listen to Psalm 75, verses 7 and 8, “It is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another. In the hand of the LORD is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices; he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs.”
This is the cup of the wrath of God brought in perfect justice for those who deserve it to drink!
But, paradoxically, it is not the wicked who is being asked to drink it here.
It is the Sinless One!
The Father has set This Cup of His Righteous Wrath in front of His Sinless Son and asked Him to drink it...for us. In our place.
To experience what Hell is for–the justice of God punishing the ungodly.
That’s what Jesus is staring at that causes His soul to be “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”
Torture, Abandonment, and Wrath.
What I deserve for my sinful rebellion against a Holy God.
That’s what’s in “This Cup!”
...And He drank it...
He drank the whole thing.
As we just sang, “He drank the bitter cup reserved for me.”
He drank “This Cup.”
The Father had placed it before Him.
And Jesus asked three times if there was another way possible.
But each time, He said, “Not my will, but yours be done.”
Just as He taught us to pray, “Your will be done.”
He prayed, “Your will be done!” He surrendered to the Father.
And He drank “This Cup.”
All of it!
All of it! He didn’t leave any of it behind for us to drink. There is no condemnation, no purgatory, no limbo, no wrath, no cup-drinking for those who are in Christ Jesus!
He drank it all for us.
When He got up the third time, the anguish of soul seems to be over.
In verse 45 and 46, He knows what the Father’s answer is and He is submissive to it.
He is ready to drink, and He says, “Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer.”
And He goes out to meet Judas, confident that He is doing what God wants.
“He drank the bitter cup reserved for me.”
So that I get grace when I deserved judgment.
So that I get forgiven when I deserve to be condemned.
So that I get adopted as God’s child when I should have been cast off.
So that I get comforted when He was forsaken.
So that I get set free when I should have been imprisoned.
So that I get conformed to His image when I should have been annihilated.
So that I get restored to what I should have been before the Fall into sin.
So that I get Heaven instead of Hell.
He drank everything that I deserved so that I would get everything that He deserves!
“May your will be done,” Jesus said.
And He drank the bitter cup reserved for me.
Let me suggest four responses to “This Cup” for our lives:
#1. BELIEVE.
I call upon you today to turn from your sins and to trust in the Savior.
He drank the bitter cup reserved for you!
Jesus endured the Cross to pay for the sins of those who would believe in Him.
I urge you today to repent and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I must tell you that if you do not, there is another cup waiting for you to drink.
The Bible says that “the cup filled with the wine of the fury of His wrath” will be poured out for unbelievers to drink forever.
And they will deserve it. Because they have spurned the glory of God.
But you don’t have to drink that cup.
He drank the whole thing put in front of Him so that you and I don’t have to.
Believe it!
#2. BE THANKFUL.
That’s why we sang, “Jesus, Thank You!” today.
Because we have nothing greater to be thankful for than the Cross!
In a minute we’re going sing, “It Is Well With My Soul.”
Verse 3 says:
My Sin–O The Bliss of This Glorious Thought
My Sin–Not in Part But the Whole
Is Nailed to the Cross and I Bear It No More
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, O My Soul!
Be Thankful, Christian.
Because He drank the Cup of Wrath, we get to drink the Cup of Salvation!
In fact, the cup that we drink from during the Lord’s Supper is called “The Cup of Thanksgiving” in 1 Corinthians 10.
Be Thankful! He drank the bitter cup reserved for you!
3. BE HOLY.
He didn’t die for these sins so that we would just run around doing more and more of them!
Listen to 1 Peter 2:24. Every one of us should have this one memorized:
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness...”
Be Holy.
Jesus drank from “This Cup” so that we would grow in holiness. So that we would die to sins and live for righteousness.
The reason why “This Cup” was so odious, so abominable, so detestable was because of our sin and what it deserved.
Now that Jesus has drunk it down, we are free to live for righteousness and to live for His Glory and to live holy lives.
That mean some changes need to happen.
What sinful habits are we trapped in? What needs to go?
It’s time to get serious about our sin and count ourselves dead to is and grow in righteousness. Not perfectly, but truly.
Be Holy.
And #4. BE BOLD.
Tell someone about the Savior and about “This Cup” that He drank.
It’s the best news in all the world, and it needs to be shared!
“He drank the bitter cup reserved for you!”
Tell the people in the Fishbowl.
Tell the people at work.
Tell the people at home.
Tell the people in your neighborhood.
Tell the people on the street.
Tell the 12 million lost people in our Awesome Allegheny District.
Tell the nations.
Jesus said, “Not as I will, but as you will,” and He drank “This Cup!”
Be Bold!
What do we have to lose?
We have gained everything!
Because He drank “This Cup.”
March 16, 2008
Matthew 26:36-46
We’re going on a slight detour from our series on the Holy Spirit for the next two Sundays.
Today is Palm Sunday and next Sunday is Resurrection Sunday, and then we’ll return to our examination of the Holy Spirit’s major ministries to and through us.
Today, even though it’s Palm Sunday, we’re going to fast-forward beyond the Triumphal Entry and even beyond the Last Supper into Jesus’ prayer time in the Garden of Gethsemane.
It is the night before the Cross, and the Lord Jesus and his disciples have shared an intimate dinner full of teaching about His departure, the coming Holy Spirit, the new commandment to love one another and the Lord’s Supper.
Now, Jesus and his disciples have sung a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives, a familiar place Jesus had often disappeared to.
And there, Jesus found a special spot in a little garden to pray.
But this was no pleasant prayer time comfortably nestled in nature.
No, in this garden, Jesus was confronted with a cup.
“This Cup.”
And He had to pray about whether or not to drink it.
WHAT WAS IN THIS CUP?
What was Jesus staring at that made Him feel this way?
In verse 36, Jesus took all of his disciples to the garden of Gethsemane which basically means the “Olive Garden” but they weren’t here to enjoy the salad and pasta!
And He took His inner circle of three: Peter, James, and John along with Him deeper into the garden. And then He began to break down.
Verse 37 says that he began to be “sorrowful and troubled” and it doesn’t mean that he began to frown!
He began to be in deep distress and anguished. He says to Peter, James, and John (v.38), “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”
And Jesus doesn’t exaggerate!
He feels so overwhelmed with sorrow that He’s just about to die with it! He feels like He’s going to die!
I’m sure He was crying. He was, perhaps, sobbing. I’m not sure what this means.
The Gospel of Luke tells us that when He prayed, his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground–He was that intense!
Verse 39 says that this almost overwhelmed Jesus went a little further and then fell with his face to the ground!
He can’t even stay on His feet, He’s in such agony!
Over what?
Over “This Cup.”
His Father has placed this cup in front of Him and bid Him to drink it.
And the very thought of this brings Him anguish of soul!
This is very different than how Jesus normally acts, isn’t it?
In four gospels full of information about Jesus Christ, He is seldom overwhelmed!
No, instead He normally is the master of whatever situation He is in.
Healings, Resurrections, Debates, Teachings, Miracles...
These all seem to be natural for Jesus. Even when they’re trying to stone Him, He just walks right out of the crowd! No problem.
But here, we see a different Jesus. In all of His humanity, struggling with “This Cup.”
What was in “This Cup?”
What would cause Him to pray like He does in verse 39?
“My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Whatever is in this cup, He doesn’t want it! He doesn’t want any part of it!
“May this cup be taken from me?”
Perhaps, in His incarnation, He didn’t know just like He didn’t know the timing of His eventual return.
So, He asks: “May this cup be taken from me?”
In fact, He asks three times! V.39, verse 42, and verse 44.
We’re so used to stories that come in threes that we expect there to be a different answer the third time. Like the three little pigs.
But Jesus gets the same answer all three times.
“You Must Drink This Cup.”
What was in “This Cup” that was so abhorrent to our Lord?
I don’t know what words to use. Can you be fearful and not sin?
Jesus never sinned, but He seems almost afraid of “This Cup.”
He’s going to die, He’s overwhelmed by its contents.
He doesn’t want to drink it, unless the Father says that He must.
What was in “This Cup?”
You need to understand that there was no literal cup sitting in front on Him like there is here in front of me.
A “cup” was a way of talking about an experience that must be experienced.
The Father had put in front of Jesus something that He had to undergo.
A “cup” that He had to drink.
Not just something to agree with, but something to choose to go through.
An experience that He had to experience.
And “This Cup” was the “The Cross.”
We can get so “used to” the Cross. We talk about the Cross as if it were a small thing!
We all have our “crosses to bear.”
We wear them around our necks for crying out loud!
But for Jesus, the Cross was “This Cup.” V.42
“My Father (the Gospel of Mark says that Jesus called Him “Abba” here–Daddy), if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
What intimacy and agony in the same prayer!
I think this was, perhaps, the toughest moment in Jesus’ life.
I think that Satan was present and tempting like he hadn’t tempted Jesus before.
Remember when Satan and Jesus squared off in the desert and Jesus used the Word of God against Him. Satan disappeared until a more opportune time.
I think that’s right here.
Satan was tempting Jesus to go around the Father’s will and to try to save His people without going through the Cross. Without drinking from “This Cup.”
What was in “This Cup?”
More than we can understand!
More than we will ever know.
But at least these three things:
#1. Torture.
Physical torture.
If Jesus drank this cup, He would go through a terrible whipping, a crown of thorns pressed down on His head so that it bled, battering, shameful mistreatment, spitting on His face, nails driven into His hands and feet, and then slow suffocation.
Pressing down with His feet in excruciating pain so that he can open His chest enough to breath and then falling down again and losing breath for six hours!
This was a cup of torture that the Father had placed in front of Jesus to drink.
But worse than the torture was the abandonment.
#2. Abandonment.
If Jesus drank “This Cup,” He would be abandoned.
He was left by all of His friends.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter, James, and John keep falling asleep on Jesus.
They can’t keep their eyes open and leave Him by Himself three times.
Peter had boasted that he wouldn’t fall away even if everybody else did!
But Jesus knew where the road led that was paved with good intentions.
He said, “The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” “You talk a good fight, but it won’t be there when it counts. You will all fall away.”
Much worse than falling asleep is that they all ran away.
Well, all but one of them. One of the Twelve, Judas Isacariot didn’t run away, he walked right up to Jesus and kissed Him on the cheek.
He singled Jesus out to the Romans as the one to crucify.
Jesus was betrayed.
And then He was insulted and forced to go through a travesty of justice–a completely illegal and unjust trial.
He was abandoned by people.
But even worse, He was abandoned by His Heavenly Father!
I think this is what made the cup so odious!
When Jesus hung on the Cross, He cried out with the words of Psalm 22, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”– which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Jesus experienced that question! And He never should have.
He had enjoyed an eternity of uninterrupted fellowship with God the Father!
And now the Father turned His back on the Son.
And, worse yet, poured out His wrath on Him.
#3. Wrath.
If Jesus drank “This Cup,” He would experience the wrath of God.
This language of a “cup” is drawn from about a dozen places in the Old Testament when God promised to bring righteously angry judgment upon the wicked for their sin.
Listen to Psalm 75, verses 7 and 8, “It is God who judges: He brings one down, he exalts another. In the hand of the LORD is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices; he pours it out, and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs.”
This is the cup of the wrath of God brought in perfect justice for those who deserve it to drink!
But, paradoxically, it is not the wicked who is being asked to drink it here.
It is the Sinless One!
The Father has set This Cup of His Righteous Wrath in front of His Sinless Son and asked Him to drink it...for us. In our place.
To experience what Hell is for–the justice of God punishing the ungodly.
That’s what Jesus is staring at that causes His soul to be “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.”
Torture, Abandonment, and Wrath.
What I deserve for my sinful rebellion against a Holy God.
That’s what’s in “This Cup!”
...And He drank it...
He drank the whole thing.
As we just sang, “He drank the bitter cup reserved for me.”
He drank “This Cup.”
The Father had placed it before Him.
And Jesus asked three times if there was another way possible.
But each time, He said, “Not my will, but yours be done.”
Just as He taught us to pray, “Your will be done.”
He prayed, “Your will be done!” He surrendered to the Father.
And He drank “This Cup.”
All of it!
All of it! He didn’t leave any of it behind for us to drink. There is no condemnation, no purgatory, no limbo, no wrath, no cup-drinking for those who are in Christ Jesus!
He drank it all for us.
When He got up the third time, the anguish of soul seems to be over.
In verse 45 and 46, He knows what the Father’s answer is and He is submissive to it.
He is ready to drink, and He says, “Rise, let us go! Here comes my betrayer.”
And He goes out to meet Judas, confident that He is doing what God wants.
“He drank the bitter cup reserved for me.”
So that I get grace when I deserved judgment.
So that I get forgiven when I deserve to be condemned.
So that I get adopted as God’s child when I should have been cast off.
So that I get comforted when He was forsaken.
So that I get set free when I should have been imprisoned.
So that I get conformed to His image when I should have been annihilated.
So that I get restored to what I should have been before the Fall into sin.
So that I get Heaven instead of Hell.
He drank everything that I deserved so that I would get everything that He deserves!
“May your will be done,” Jesus said.
And He drank the bitter cup reserved for me.
Let me suggest four responses to “This Cup” for our lives:
#1. BELIEVE.
I call upon you today to turn from your sins and to trust in the Savior.
He drank the bitter cup reserved for you!
Jesus endured the Cross to pay for the sins of those who would believe in Him.
I urge you today to repent and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I must tell you that if you do not, there is another cup waiting for you to drink.
The Bible says that “the cup filled with the wine of the fury of His wrath” will be poured out for unbelievers to drink forever.
And they will deserve it. Because they have spurned the glory of God.
But you don’t have to drink that cup.
He drank the whole thing put in front of Him so that you and I don’t have to.
Believe it!
#2. BE THANKFUL.
That’s why we sang, “Jesus, Thank You!” today.
Because we have nothing greater to be thankful for than the Cross!
In a minute we’re going sing, “It Is Well With My Soul.”
Verse 3 says:
My Sin–O The Bliss of This Glorious Thought
My Sin–Not in Part But the Whole
Is Nailed to the Cross and I Bear It No More
Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, O My Soul!
Be Thankful, Christian.
Because He drank the Cup of Wrath, we get to drink the Cup of Salvation!
In fact, the cup that we drink from during the Lord’s Supper is called “The Cup of Thanksgiving” in 1 Corinthians 10.
Be Thankful! He drank the bitter cup reserved for you!
3. BE HOLY.
He didn’t die for these sins so that we would just run around doing more and more of them!
Listen to 1 Peter 2:24. Every one of us should have this one memorized:
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness...”
Be Holy.
Jesus drank from “This Cup” so that we would grow in holiness. So that we would die to sins and live for righteousness.
The reason why “This Cup” was so odious, so abominable, so detestable was because of our sin and what it deserved.
Now that Jesus has drunk it down, we are free to live for righteousness and to live for His Glory and to live holy lives.
That mean some changes need to happen.
What sinful habits are we trapped in? What needs to go?
It’s time to get serious about our sin and count ourselves dead to is and grow in righteousness. Not perfectly, but truly.
Be Holy.
And #4. BE BOLD.
Tell someone about the Savior and about “This Cup” that He drank.
It’s the best news in all the world, and it needs to be shared!
“He drank the bitter cup reserved for you!”
Tell the people in the Fishbowl.
Tell the people at work.
Tell the people at home.
Tell the people in your neighborhood.
Tell the people on the street.
Tell the 12 million lost people in our Awesome Allegheny District.
Tell the nations.
Jesus said, “Not as I will, but as you will,” and He drank “This Cup!”
Be Bold!
What do we have to lose?
We have gained everything!
Because He drank “This Cup.”
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