Lent: Fifth Week

When the Church uses the term, the “Paschal mystery,” she is referring to the mystery of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection. The word “paschal” comes from the Greek pascha, meaning Passover, so it is the “Passover mystery.”

The Jewish Passover meal had its own rules and regulations. Today the meal is called the Passover Seder, from the Hebrew word for “order.” That order revolved around four cups of wine, all of which must be drunk. Jesus, however, did not do this that Thursday night at the Lord’s Supper, His final Passover on earth.

The details are described in the book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, by Brant Pitre, Ph.D., Chapter 6 titled “The Fourth Cup and the Death of Jesus.” Below is a quick summary.

From the descriptions in the New Testament of how Jesus celebrated that last Passover meal, which we now know of as the Last Supper, three of the four cups can be identified. But what Jesus does differently is that he does not drink the fourth cup. After the second cup, Jesus consecrates the bread, “This is My Body which is being given for you.” Jesus consecrates the wine of the third cup Jesus by saying, “This chalice which is being poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.” (Luke 22:19-20.) But as to the fourth cup, Jesus says, “I shall not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God” (Mark 14:25).

Now the fourth cup is to come at the end of the Passover meal, and Passover is not completed until the fourth cup is drunk. But Jesus does not drink it before He and the disciples leave the Upper Room. They go to Gethsemane, where Jesus prayed three times to the Father about His “cup.” “My Father, if this [cup] cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done” (Matthew 26:42).

What “cup”? Likely the fourth and final cup of the Passover. Jesus has already identified His own Body as the sacrifice of the new Passover He is instituting, and He has identified the third cup, the “cup of blessing,” with his own Blood, about to be poured out for the forgiveness of sins, establishing the New Covenant. So Jesus is the Passover Lamb, Body and Blood. The Lamb of sacrifice.

In the Gospels, on the way to Golgotha, people offered Him wine to numb His senses, as was the custom, but He refused to take it. Only at the very end of His agony, the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus said, “I thirst.” We may understand that He was now asking for that fourth and final cup of the Passover, that fruit of the vine which would be “new in the Kingdom of God.” He drank the wine and immediately said, “It is finished,” and died. (John 19:23-30.)

The Passover was complete, now finished. Jesus had extended that last Passover meal to include His own suffering and death – He, the Lamb of God. His own death was the Passover sacrifice of the new Passover Jesus instituted. He united the Last Supper, the offering of Himself under the form of Bread and Wine, to His bodily suffering and death on the Cross. Because of that offering, and the continuation of the Passover through to Calvary, Jesus’ death was a sacrifice. He was the High Priest making the offering at the Last Supper, and the Paschal Victim at Calvary who died for us. He drank the wine, the “fourth cup,” and said, “It is finished,” the new Passover now consummated, the Kingdom of God now come.

Dibby Allan Green

Reference:

Thanks to Dr. Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist, Forward by Dr. Scott Hahn (New York: Doubleday, 2011).

Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church is located in California City, CA. Visit our website at ollcalcity.org.

Dibby Allan Green has a BA in Religious Studies (Westmont College, 1978) and MA in Theology (Augustine Institute, 2019), is a lay Catholic hermit, and a parishioner of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish.