WHAT WAS IN THE CUP: GOOD FRIDAY 2025

§ INTRODUCTION

Good evening.

I want to thank you all for gathering here tonight. You know, during Holy Week, as disciples of Jesus we slow down, and we walk mindfully and intentionally through the events of the last week of Jesus’ life. And as we do so, we act out, and we live out again, each year, the mystery at the center of the Christian faith.

We’re gathered here this evening on what’s called “Good Friday.” And it’s on this day that we remember, and reflect on what happened on that Friday afternoon 2,000 years ago, when Jesus Christ experienced a prolonged and painful death.

These services are always more subdued and reflective, because it’s one time in the Christian year that we intentionally pause, when we need to get quiet, so that we can pay attention to just what it is that Christ did.

We remember that He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane; that He was betrayed and arrested; that He was falsely accused, mocked, and beaten; that He was condemned to die, and nailed to a cross, where He hung until He breathed His last.

The outside world hears the words 'Good Friday,' the horror of the cross, and asks (rightly so) 'how can this be good?!' To the outside world, and to everyone watching at the time, no doubt Jesus seemed to be the victim of some evil plot that had finally succeeded.

And yet… those of us who know Jesus know that He was headed toward the cross from the very beginning. We know that He died “according to the Scriptures.” We know that, as we read in Isaiah, “It was God’s will to crush Him.” We know that He came, and that He lived, in order to die.

And tonight, we remember that death on the cross, all those years ago, for you, and for me.

There are going to be times in this service to be silent. There will be times to listen along and reflect with music. There will be times where we read and respond to words on the screen. But in the midst of it, let’s begin to rehearse, to think back and to imagine, and to be blown away again by the sacrifice of Jesus.

*Pray*

§ WORSHIP

Blown Away

§ MESSAGE: WHAT WAS IN THE CUP?

Matthew 26:36–39 “Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

In this text, we pick up the story after the Last Supper, where Jesus told His disciples with the bread and the cup that His body would be broken, and His blood poured out, and that He would be betrayed by one of them unto death. And from that upper room in the city of Jerusalem, Jesus and all His disciples made their way down into the Kidron Valley, and up onto the Mount of Olives into a Garden called the Garden of Gethsemane. And it was in this Garden, this Olive Grove, that we read about the weight of what was to take place beginning to set in.

Notice with me this first point in Matthew’s Gospel: The cross did not sneak up on Jesus.

Jesus knew what was coming.

And as a result, it says that He began to be sorrowful and troubled. You can almost hear the pleading tone in Jesus’ voice as He says, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me!” And then we read that, “going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, [as He was being crushed under the weight of what was about to take place] “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

This is an incredible moment. You can almost sense the immense stress that Jesus is feeling, as quite literally the weight of the world is on His shoulders. Jesus, the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, is crying out under the force of that weight to His Father. He has spent His entire life in obedience, and now He knows that He’s come to the end.

And tonight, what I want to do is focus in our reflection on what was on Jesus’ mind that night. Notice the language Jesus uses in His prayer: He spoke of what was to come like a cup set before Him to drink. And He asks, if it’s possible, for the cup to pass from Him.

And if you’re reading this, it almost seems like Jesus is backing out of what’s coming. And if you keep reading, you see that three times Jesus prayed this same prayer. And even though He’s asking for the cup to pass from Him, in these moments, Jesus isn’t second guessing His mission. He isn’t considering backing out—although we all know that He could. Jesus could have backed out. He says Himself down in verse 53, “Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” Jesus could have been saved by the armies of heaven in an instant on that night. And so we see that Jesus was totally set on His path. See, Jesus didn’t want to drink the cup; but He knew it had to be poured out.

It was the anticipation of this cup that was crushing Jesus in the Garden. And so the question I want to set before us is this: What was in the cup? What was in the cup, full to the brim, that Jesus drank in the hours that followed the Garden all those years ago?

What was in the cup that was crushing Jesus in the Garden?

POINT ONE: THE PHYSICAL AGONY OF THE CROSS

And without question, one thing that would have been on Jesus’ mind in the Garden, that would have been weighing on His spirit, was the physical agony of the cross.

As a Jew in the First Century, Jesus would have been no stranger to crucifixion. It’s possible that on every trip through Roman-occupied Judea, which Jesus would make multiple times each year for the Jewish festivals, Jesus had seen His own countrymen, Jewish enemies of the Roman Empire, hanging on crosses, and left for the wild animals of the field.

And as we saw earlier, Jesus knew what kind of death awaited Him. Just one chapter later in Matthew’s gospel, we begin to see the physical suffering play out. Picking up just after Jesus is sentence to death, we read… Matthew 27:24–31 “[Pilate] had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand. Then they knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again. After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him.”

The authors didn’t need to go into much detail on this point, because everyone in that day would have been able to picture exactly what was happening in crucifixion. But there’s a danger for us, who talk about the cross often, to become calloused to this reality so that it doesn’t even shock us. And yet any one of us witnessing it would be brought to our knees and nauseated, unable to watch, unable to cope with the odor, the humiliation, the shame, and the degradation inflicted upon Jesus’ body.

And yet Jesus knew exactly what was to take place.

So, what did the body of Jesus of Nazareth actually endure during those hours of torture? What do the Gospels record about the physical agony of Jesus?

The Jewish people spit in His face, blindfolded Him, beat Him with their fists, and slapped Him (Mt 26:37).

Pilate had Him bound and scourged. [elaborate here on the cat of nine tails, and the Jewish Law preventing people from being scourged with more than 39 lashes, because 40 lashes was considered a death sentence]

The soldiers wove a crown of thorns and placed it on His head, put a robe on His exposed flesh, and gave Him a staff like a fake scepter. After mocking Him, they spat on Him, took the staff and struck Him in the face and on the head. And I want to point out that in this verse in Matthew, the verb that translates them “striking” Jesus is in what’s called the Imperfect tense, which means that it wasn’t simply something that happened once and then was a completed action. Rather, according to this imperfect tense, it was something that they began (and continued) to do. It was something that they *were doing* to Him over, and over, and over.

He was made to carry His own cross until His legs gave out from the pain and exhaustion.

They drove nails through His wrists, and through His feet.

They lifted the cross and hung Him by the nails for the crowds to see. And with these nails, the purpose was not only to fix Jesus to the cross, but it was also to inflict continuous pain on Him. See, because of the weight of His body, which was so weak at this point, in order to get a breath in Jesus would have to push up with His feet and wrists against the nails so that His diaphragm could open up. And in the gospels, we have recorded seven sayings of Jesus while He was on the cross. For each of them, He labored against the weight of His failing body, fighting to continue to breathe.

The whole process of crucifixion was deliberately cruel. It was a long death. It was a slow death. It was an inevitable death. Crucifixion was designed to extract as much suffering and agony as possible from the human person.

One medical article from the National Institute of Health had this to say:

Death, which usually occurred between 6 hours and 4 days after crucifixion, was caused by a number of factors: the effects of being beaten and wounded beforehand, heavy bleeding and dehydration leading to shock and extreme pain. However, the most significant cause was the increasing inability to breathe, due to the position of the body on the cross. This lack of oxygen made the shock worse. Death likely often came through heart failure, brought on by severe oxygen loss, intense pain, physical blows, and in some cases, the breaking of the victim’s legs.

(The history and pathology of crucifixion)

So Jesus knew two things that night in Garden. On the one hand, He knew the kind of death that awaited Him back in the city of Jerusalem. And on the other hand, He knew that this path was the only one that would lead to the salvation of mankind. He knew that “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins” (Lev 17:11).

And so, as it was prophesied so vividly in the prophet Isaiah,

Isaiah 53:4–5 “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

Leader: So tonight, we remember that…

The cup of suffering and death was poured out on Jesus in my place.

Leader: Let’s pray and remember.

POINT TWO: THE WEIGHT OF THE SIN OF THE WORLD

Back in the Garden, after praying, we read that Jesus returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Couldn’t you men keep watch with me for one hour?” he asked Peter. “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

And then we read that “He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done” (26:40-42).

Jesus goes and prays a second time for this same cup. And as we continue to consider what was in the cup, I want to help you to see that, terrible as it was, the physical agony of the cross alone is not what was crushing Jesus in the Garden. There was another, unimaginable weight that was poured out onto Him that night. It was invisible to the disciples, and the crowds. It was invisible to Pilate and to the Roman Soldiers. Picking back up in Isaiah 53, the prophet continues in verse 6, where he writes that, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

Sometimes we can get this confused. The task in front of Jesus was not simply to endure the physical agony and shame of the cross. It was also, in the midst of a painful death, to be a vessel for the infinite sin debt of every person who had ever lived. In other words, as it says in 1 Peter, “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree” (2:24). During His passion, Jesus would become the vehicle that God would use to place our sin forever in the grave—that was His task. And that task was a burden that you and I simply cannot fathom.

In my favorite summary of the Gospel, Tim Keller has written that you and I are more lost and dead in our sin than we could ever dare to imagine, and at the very same time, more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared to hope. But focus on that first part with me tonight. We are more lost and dead than we could ever dare to imagine. In other words, we have no concept, no clue of just how much our sin cost Jesus that night in the Garden, and the next day on the cross.

See, when you and I come under conviction, we’re allowed by God’s grace to feel a fraction of the weight of our sin, so that we can be driven to repentance. But even then, what we feel is so small compared with the actual weight. Because if for one minute God were to allow us to experience the full weight of our sin debt, it would crush our spirit into oblivion. And the reason I know this is because of the way that people like the prophet Isaiah respond to being in the presence of the Holy God. Listen to what he says when he gets a taste of his sinfulness in Isaiah 6:5, ““Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.””

Friends, there is a depth to the brokenness of sin that only Jesus has ever experienced. The cup of our sin was poured so completely onto Jesus that the Scriptures say, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).

See, you and I focus on the physical suffering of Christ because we have in some small way known pain; so we can grasp at it and imagine it. But friends, in the Garden, I believe there was no comparison to Jesus. The physical suffering of the cross was NOTHING compared to the darkness and anguish of taking on your sin and mine.

But as I considered these things, I realized that there was another person that night who began to feel the weight of sin. And that person was Judas. Judas recognized that the weight of sin was more than he could bare. Like Judas, our words should be the same. “What have I done?!” “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood” (Mt 27:4). **Judas had no relief from that weight. Tonight, we know exactly who bore it in our place.**

So not only do we need to reflect on the physical cross. But we also need to remember that each one of us contributed our own sin debt to the cup of Christ. When it comes to this cup that was set before Jesus in the Garden, you and I have poured in our poison as well. And as such, we can hear our voices in the crowd mocking Jesus, and calling for His crucifixion. It was your sin and mine that was mixed into that drink.

But in spite of that reality, Jesus took it, and He drained it to the dregs. And as He took on a debt that was far higher than we could never repay, He also showed us a love that was deeper than we could ever know. Or as Paul says, “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Leader: So tonight, we remember that…

The cup of the sin of the world was poured out on Jesus in my place.

Leader: Let’s pray and remember.

POINT THREE: THE WRATH OF GOD

As we come to the end of our time, the last thing I want to help you see about the cup is also the most important. See, not only was the cross physically grueling. Not only did we contribute our sin to His burden. But what we need to come to terms with about the cup is that the cup that Jesus drank is the cup that was meant for you and for me.

That cup was ours to drink. And not only was it a cup of physical suffering. Not only was it a cup of the weight of sin. See, what’s interesting is that, in the Old Testament, the cup was the preferred Biblical symbol for the outpouring of the very wrath of God. In Isaiah 51:17, it says that they enemies of God “have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his wrath...” And again in Psalm 75:8, “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.”

See, the cup that Jesus drank was not just the mission that God had given Him. It wasn’t simply the physical suffering of the cross. It wasn’t just the weight of the sin of the world. Rather, it was through the cross, and as He took on the sin of the world that He paid the penalty for sinful mankind BY taking the very judgment of God toward sin onto Himself. Friends, the cup was a symbol for the wrath that you and I deserved because of sin. It was the fury and the judgement of almighty God against all the brokenness of the world—from Adam until now.

Up until that point, Jesus had experienced perfect intimacy with the Father for all of eternity. And this is the relationship that you and I were created for! To share in the love that had been shared between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for all of eternity!

But in our sin, we are cursed and gone astray. We ran away from the Father like the prodigal son, and we rejected Him. And as a result, we deserve to be cut off. This is what it means when Paul says that “the wages of sin is death.” Because of sin, we deserve to be cut off from life, to be cut off from God, to be let loose, abandoned, and forsaken. And yet Jesus came to drink that cup for us, to take on our rejection, to take on the penalty of our waywardness.

And as the full cup of divine wrath was poured out on the Lord of all creation, the sky went dark, and He cried out, “Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani,” My GOD, my God—why have you forsaken me?

It was there in the Garden that Jesus saw the tidal wave of God’s wrath coming over the horizon. And He remained there and waited patiently for His betrayer. Luke tells that this was a place that He often went. It’s the exact place that Judas would know to go to look for Him.

Jesus didn’t go into the Garden to retreat. He didn’t go to hide, or to escape, or to negotiate. He went there to wait for His betrayer. He went there to wait for the cup.

You see, God’s wrath had to be poured out against sin; and yet, He was not willing to pour it out on the people that He loved. And so the whole Bible tells the story of how a Holy God sought to destroy sin without destroying sinful people. He desired to save us. Even as Jesus is being betrayed, Peter lashes out against the soldiers with His sword, and Jesus says “Stop! Enough! Peter, put away your sword!” And then what does He say? “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me? ” See, Jesus knew that, in order to save us, He had to drink the cup. It meant that He would have to suffer. But the magnificent plan of God was this: God would take His own wrath toward sin onto Himself, so that we could be saved. In the words of Paul, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree’ ” (Gal 3:13).

Leader: So tonight, we remember that…

The cup of the wrath of God was poured out on Jesus in my place.

*THE BITTER CUP*

It’s not even a fraction of the bitter cup that Jesus drank. Apple cider vinegar, it’s something that people at times choose to drink. But no one would have chosen to drink the cup of Jesus. But if it’s bitter to our tongue, for us it can be a reminder tonight of the cup that Christ took in our place.

§ COMMUNION

Communion Set Up

§ CLOSING

Read Matthew 27:23–50