Matthew Series 19: Partaking the Cup

Sunday Sermon 2010-03-07

Alex Tseng

Today we have reached Chapter 20 in our series on the Gospel of Matthew. Today we will be looking at a passage that stretches from verse 17 to verse 28. Matthew 20:17, “Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, ‘We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life.”

Remember back in Chapter 16, we saw how Peter finally grasped the knowledge of Christ's full and true deity, but failed to understand His full and true humanity. There Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say I am?” And Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” After commending Peter for a sound confession of Jesus’ deity, Jesus began to talk about His death and resurrection for the very first time in the Gospel of Matthew. The death and sufferings of Christ had to be understood in the light of the deity of Christ. Jesus had to make it absolutely clear to the disciples that His upcoming death as a human being was also to be the death of the Son of the living God, who would die without ever ceasing to be the living God, because of the inseparable union and abiding distinction between deity and humanity in the one person of Christ. In Chapter 16 Jesus for the very first time talked to the disciples about His death and sufferings and His resurrection. And as we saw, the disciples did not take Him seriously. They might have thought that Jesus was speaking in parables and did not mean it literally. To the minds of the disciples, if Jesus was God, then Jesus could not die in any real or true sense, because according to the beliefs of their absolute monotheism, God cannot die. In Chapter 17 again Jesus talked about His death and resurrection during the transfiguration, but again the disciples did not understand Him.

Here again in Matthew 20, Jesus spoke of His death and resurrection. This time the descriptions are clearer and more detailed than the two previous instances in Matthew’s narration: Jesus talked about where He was going to die—He was going to die in Jerusalem; Jesus told the disciples who His murderers would be—there would be a traitor who would turn Him over to the Jewish religious authorities and they would murder Him by the hands of the Romans, the Gentiles. Jesus also talked about how He was going to suffer and die—He would be “mocked and flogged and crucified”. These descriptions paint a most shocking picture of the death and sufferings of Christ, especially the part about the crucifixion. The cross was the greatest humiliation in the Roman Empire. It was the most inhumane form of punishment that the Romans deemed inappropriate to be used on Roman citizens. Those who were crucified were considered sub-human; they were the most despicable criminals who did not deserve to be treated like human beings even in their death sentence. A person on the cross would be ripped of all his human dignity.

And if we think along these lines, for Jesus to tell the disciples that He was going to be crucified was really an act of emptying all His glory as God and even His dignity as a human being. It must have been like for a rape victim being required to describe the details of being raped. When Jesus spoke to the disciples about the details of His death and sufferings, He was being completely vulnerable. Even if it was just a parable or some metaphoric expression—it was not, thought the disciples might have thought it was—it should have shocked the disciples.

And yet just like in Chapters 16 and 17, the disciples completely ignored Jesus! Whenever Jesus told the disciples about His death, His words would fall on deaf ears. They just never took Him seriously until it actually happened, and when it happened, they couldn’t make sense out of it! When Jesus was crucified, these disciples just didn’t seem to remember that Jesus had also told them about the resurrection, so they became hopeless! Even a crucified criminal beside Jesus knew that the crucified Jesus still reigned over the Kingdom of heaven on the cross, asking Jesus to remember him when Kingdom comes, but these disciples just didn’t get it. They never got it from the very beginning. Here Jesus was being completely vulnerable in telling the disciples how He was going to be crucified, but the disciples never lent Him their ears!

In verses 17-18 Jesus gave a plain prediction of His own death. And the next verse starts with the word “then.” Then—right after Jesus made this plain prediction about His death and resurrection, disciples James and John came with their mother to Jesus to ask for power in the earthly kingdom that they thought Jesus was going to establish. They just never took seriously Jesus’ teachings about His death and resurrection. They were still hoping for a political Messiah in Jesus. They were hoping for an earthly revolution; they were hoping that Jesus would restore the kingdom of Israel on earth over against the Roman Empire. Verse 20, “Then the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to Jesus with her sons and, kneeling down, asked a favor of him.” Verse 21, “’What is it you want?’ [Jesus] asked.” She said, ‘Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom.’” How selfish! How vainglorious and self-seeking! Jesus was talking about His death and sufferings a moment ago, and they never listened. Instead these two disciples came with their mother to ask for earthly vainglory from Jesus.

You know, I think that’s a good reflection on the way we are sometimes. The Bible has taught us all about Christ’s humiliation and crucifixion, how He emptied Himself and took on the form of a servant. We just don't take it seriously. Instead we keep on asking Jesus for this and that, expecting Jesus to fulfill our vain desires.

Jesus’ answer to the two disciples was, “You don’t know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?” (Verse 22) This cup, of course, would be His death on the cross, the cup of God’s wrath, the cup of divine poison, the cup of judgment, the cup of death. This cup was the most horrifying death that embodied the sum of all the deaths of God’s people. It was the fullest cup of God’s wrath. Who can drink this cup? Who can endure this infinite horror of divine judgment? With a rhetorical question, Jesus told the disciples that no one but He, the sinless Lamb of God, could drink that cup of wrath and death. When Jesus asked, “Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?”, it was a rhetorical questions. Jesus was telling the disciples, “You cannot drink the cup I am going to drink!”

Yet, the disciples did not understand the rhetorical question! They perceived the cup to be that of a royal feast! They thought that Jesus was going to march into Jerusalem triumphantly and become an earthly king, and they would drink the cup together in a royal celebration! So they answered, “We can.” “Of course we can drink the cup! We are going to follow you to Jerusalem and persevere with you until we seize power and you become king, and then we will drink the cup with you in a royal feast.” “Yes, we can! We can drink the cup!” These disciples just didn’t know what the cup was!

But what’s even more astonishing than the stupidity of the disciples is Jesus’ affirmation of their mistaken self-affirmation. In verse 23, Jesus answered the disciples, “You will indeed drink from my cup.” This astonishing affirmation is extremely rich in meanings. If the cup that Jesus was about to drink was the cup of diving wrath and judgment, the cup of death, how is it that the disciples would also drink from His cup?

Let’s fast-forward to Chapter 26, the Last Supper. On the night Jesus was betrayed, He explained the meaning of the cup. Verses 27-28: “Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’” This cup is the blood of the covenant for the forgiveness of sins. In this respect, the cup is still a cup of death and judgment. On the cross Jesus drank the cup of death and judgment, so that He, as Apostle Paul puts it, “condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). This is penal substitution—He took on our sins and was punished in our place. This is propitiation—by drinking that cup of judgment Jesus appeased the wrath of God and accomplished the reconciliation between God and sinners. That cup of death and judgment on the cross therefore carries the forgiveness of sin. Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11:26 that when we drink that cup, we “proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” By being partakers of that cup of death and judgment, we participate in the death of Christ. As Apostle Paul puts it in Romans 6, we become “united with [Christ] in His death.” The crucifixion was not just Christ’s dying for us; as He died, we who are in Him, we who are one with Him, also died with Him. And on the cross He accomplished a perfect righteousness on our behalf—that perfect righteousness being His perfect love for the Father, obedient even unto death, as well as His perfect love for us, dying for us even when we were still His enemies, still sinners against Him. He accomplished that perfect righteousness on the cross for us, and we who are in Him, we who are one with Him, receive the righteousness that He has accomplished for us. Because we are one with Christ, what is His also becomes ours, and we are endowed with His righteousness to become righteous before God. By partaking the cup of death with Christ, we become partakers in the “wonderful exchange” in which Jesus’ righteousness is conferred to us as our sins become His. Let me read to you a quote from Martin Luther about the “wonderful exchange.” Luther writes: “[Christ] says to me: ‘You are no longer a sinner, but I am. I step into your place—you have not sinned, but I have. The whole world is in sin, but you are not in sin—I am. All your sins are to lie on me and not on you.” This “wonderful exchange” is the heart and basis of the New Covenant. By drinking the cup that Christ drank, we become partakers in the New Covenant in Jesus Christ.

And that’s not all. There is yet a deeper level of significance to the Eucharistic cup that Paul does not address fully in 1 Corinthians 11. It is unfortunate that many churches today base their understanding of the Lord's Supper exclusively on 1 Corinthians 11, and neglect what is in the Gospels. In Matthew 20, as we saw a moment ago, the disciples thought of the cup as that of a royal feast. They said to Jesus, “Yes, we can drink this cup with you when you establish your kingdom on earth!” And Jesus responded with an affirmation. Why did Jesus affirm that the disciples could indeed drink the cup with Him?

The meaning of this affirmation is again made clear in Matthew’s account of the Last Supper in Chapter 26. There Jesus declared that the cup was to be the cup of the New Covenant for the forgiveness of sins, and then Jesus pointed to the ultimate future, saying in verse 29, “I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s Kingdom.”

A royal feast in the New Jerusalem! When Kingdom comes, when heaven and earth are renewed, when the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, we shall drink the cup of the royal feast with our Lord Jesus in our Father’s Kingdom! In fact, this is what 1 Corinthians 11 also teaches, though many people miss that point, because it is very brief. We drink the cup not only to proclaim the Lord’s death, but also to proclaim the Lord’s death “until He comes!” We recite this passage in all our Eucharist services, don’t we? When we say “until He comes”, we are looking to the ultimate future in which we shall drink the cup with Christ anew in the Father’s Kingdom. There the cup will be the cup of life, the cup of glory, the cup of victory—our victory over death that Christ has accomplished for us. When we drink the cup, it signifies not only participation, but also anticipation—the anticipation of the Kingdom feast in the New Jerusalem—where “the Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’” (Revelation 22:17) “And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.” This is the royal, glorious, futuristic aspect of the Lord’s cup.

The cup of Christ, then, has a threefold meaning. First, it is that of a priestly offering: Christ the High Priest offered up His blood as a sacrifice of propitiation. In drinking the cup, we participate in His High Priesthood and self-offering. Second, it is that of a prophetic message: The cup is the proclamation of Christ’s death until He comes. Christ died as the Prophet who proclaimed God’s ultimate love and justice on the cross, and in drinking the cup, we make that same prophetic proclamation with Him—we “proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” Third, it is that of a royal feast: Christ the King shall drink with us when the Kingdom comes. In drinking the cup, we anticipate the glorious future where we as co-kings with Christ reign with Him forever. And for the future theologians among us, I’ll say this: In our understanding of the Lord’s cup then, we have Reformed Christology on top of Chalcedonian Christology—the threefold offices of Christ as King, Prophet, and Priest in His full and true deity and humanity.

All this theology is indeed great and exciting, but how is it to transform our lives? How is the proclamation of the Lord’s cup to transform our lives? Back to Matthew 20. Verse 24, when the other ten disciples heard about James and John asking for power in Jesus’ kingdom, “they were indignant with the two brothers.” And then “Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. [Not so in the Kingdom of God]. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

You see, drinking the cup of the royal feast with Christ in the Kingdom of heaven has a prerequisite, and that prerequisite is to drink the cup of death with Christ, which means to participate in His self-sacrificial love and live with the same kind of sacrificial love, serving others and not expecting to be served. When we drink the cup on the Eucharistic table, it is not only a proclamation of the Lord’s death; it is a proclamation of our being united to Christ in His death. And that translates to sacrificing ourselves for others. It translates to sacrificing our leisure time to give a caring phone call to our newcomers or our old members who didn’t show up on Sunday. It translates to sacrificing whatever you have to sacrifice to help someone who is in need. It translates to staying at church a little longer to pick up the pieces of leftovers on the floor when everyone else is gone. If you drink the cup in the Lord’s Supper but then you are unwilling to move a finger when other people are serving you, then you are merely paying lip service to the cup; you are not proclaiming the Lord’s death in drinking the cup. But let the anticipation of the glorious royal feast motivate you and encourage you to participate in the cup of servanthood, so that in your daily living you may proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.