Transcription of the Video: The Fifth Cup: Our Way of Hope

It wasn't a long walk that night. We've sort of experienced that today. But it must have been a difficult walk for them as they left, maybe the Temple where they sang that final hymn and then, came to where they had been staying.

We know a few things about it that they would have experienced. One, we know it's a full moon. Because Passover is always on the 14th day of the month. And the month is marked by the moon. So, it would have been under a full moon, which would have created this beautiful, stunning light above and these shadows and almost eerie-kind-of-feeling maybe under the trees where they ended up. We also know that they crossed the Kidron Valley. 

Now, that's interesting to me because the Temple Mount where the altar stood would have had several hundred thousand sacrafices during the Passover season. And the blood was drained down into the Kidron Valley into the stream that ran there during the end of the rainy season - Passover. 

Now, I don't don't know this for sure, but it is intriguing to imagine Jesus and the disciples crossing that valley and possibly that bloody water - at least where the blood would have been - as the Lamb of God made his way to the place they were going. 

If you look at your Bible though, you'll find that what we traditionally call the Garden of Gethsemane doesn't actually exist in that sense. I'd like to have you come with me in your mind and remember the day we went to Mareshah south of here, an hour's drive to the southern part of Israel, and we talked about where was it Jesus went that night? Come with me in your mind. Let's go back there. 

After their Passover meal, Jesus and the disciples went to Gethsemane. Westerners have labeled it the Garden of Gethsemane. But the Bible really doesn't say that. That's a conflation of two ideas. 

In Luke (22), Luke tells us that Jesus and the disciples went to a place on the side of the Mount of Olives. And he says it's the place they've been staying that week. So, from there, we know it's on the Mount of Olives, and that's where they've been for a few days. 

John (18) calls it a cultivated plot - a garden in other words. Matthew (26) and Mark (14) simply call it Gethsemane. And from that cultivated plot and Matthew's and Mark's Gethsemane, we've come with the Garden of Gethsemane. 

But actually, there are two distinctive things. They may have been next to each other. They may have belonged to the same owner, but they're not the same. This is what we call gethsemane. Let me show you.

First, you'll notice a very large cistern over here. You need a lot of water in one of these. Here, a storage cave and another large one behind for what's processed here. Now, a gethsemane is in two parts. The first one is here. Notice a wheel called a millstone and a base where the wheel rolls called a sea. You would place ripe olives in that basin and then, using this lever-- see the beam up to the ceiling and down to a bearing below-- and you would turn the wheel in a circle - a donkey, a hired person, a couple of your children, in the ancient time of slaves, like Samson.

And you would turn the wheel and smash those olives to a pulp. And I mean smash them to a pulp (pits, skins, everything). The initial oil comes to the surface. It comes bubbling up to the surface out of what's been smashed. You skim that off. We call that extra virgin. The Bible calls it the finest oil. That belongs to God. You always give God the best. 

What's left, you gather into what looked like pillows. They're baskets in a sense. They used hemp for theirs. And you take those baskets full of oil - I'm sure on a tray of some kind. Because you don't want to lose a drop of that precious substance. You bring that to the other part of this process. Let me show you.

Once that oil has been crushed into a pulp up there and put in those pillows, you bring it to this part of the cave, this part of the operation. Those pillows would be placed in slots. Here's one. Notice there's a hole in the bottom of this slot. There's also a place where I can get in to get at the slot from the back. Now, at that point, you have to look on the other side and see how they pressed those pillows. Notice there are models of pillows here like those baskets they have the olives in. 

And then, I suppose they would have used a cedar from Lebanon - the most expensive thing in here - like a telephone pole. And that extends into a hole in the wall. You see it here. 

Now, below it, in a trench in the floor are some very large stones (weights) that hang on this pole. Using what we might call a primitive system of pullies, you would have two or three men turning on these wooden cranks. This one isn't in very good condition. And that would lift those weights an inch or two off the ground, creating a lever. That put enormous pressure on those baskets, and it would squeeze-- the oil would run out. I've seen it. It's as big as your little finger and just golden-- down into the hole in the ground. 

Then they would take the pole out when that was finished. The pulp in the baskets is as dry as sawdust. If you've ever seen it, it's not liquid at all. It's just dusty dry.

They would take that out. That's used in the stove. It still has enough oil in it to burn. They would, then, pour water into the oil, because olive oil has a lot of acid in it. Acid and water mix. Water and oil don't. The oil comes to the surface. You skim it off. And the water and the acid remain. And you can use that, I understand, a few times before you have to pitch the water. 

And then, the oil - now processed - is stored somewhere. In fact, just up above there is a large cave cut off to the side, which is a storage cave. You would expect to find that. 

And just on the exit, on the way out, is a very large cistern collecting water from rain above. And you need that as well to put into the oil to separate the acid and the oil. 

Now, the name of this part of the operation is gath, which means press. This is a gath, a press. Shemenim, which basically translates as oil or oils. So, a gath shemenim is an oil press. And the whole operation got its name from this part of the operation. So, we are in a gat – shmanim. In English, a gethsemane.

And Jesus went that night to a cultivated grove (a garden), and in or next to that garden was a gat-shmanim. Maybe they joined together. Maybe they were totally separate owners.

But I need you to picture, now, that where Jesus and the disciples were, was an underground cave like this one. In fact, we learned they had been staying there for the week before the crucifixion. And it makes sense. Olive oil is processed in the fall - October, November. Jesus had Passover- his crucifixion - in the spring. So, this was empty except maybe for some stored oil.

So, maybe someone said, "Oh, Rabbi, I love your teaching. I have a gethsemane. You may use it to stay." Because there are many pilgrims in Jerusalem during Passover, so maybe somebody loaned it to him. Or maybe they paid top dollar for this wonderful place to stay.

So, every night, Jesus and the disciples are in a cave that probably looked like this with that pungent smell of olive oil still hanging in the air. And it's a nice place on a cold night. Jerusalem can be cold as you know. And they could stay there.

That last night they came here-- and I assume the disciples are all preparing to sleep here. Remember, one of them ran away and all he had on was an undershirt. He lost that in the process. (Mark 14) So, it would make sense.

And Jesus said to the three, "Come with me." And he went out to pray. And see them, then, go out the stairs into the grove to pray. So, that apparently is the setting of the gethsemane story. So, with this picture in your mind, of where they were staying, let's look at what happened that night in the place called Gethsemane.

So, I think what we can say is that Jesus and the disciples cross the Kidron and came to an olive garden, an olive grove. Maybe it was a bit like this one. And in it or near it was a gethsemane. They probably went inside and began to think about going to sleep for the night. It was probably late. Jesus took three of the disciples and then, he went out and wandered off a bit into the darkness. Maybe he found one of those beautiful, ancient olive trees as he, now God's only begotten Son, came to meet with his Father. 

But there's something else we know about that night. The night has a name. I don't know if you knew that or not. In Hebrew, you say "leyl shimerim". It means "the night of watching". The reason that night is called that goes all the way back to the Exodus. 

So, come with me. Imagine that night when God said, "Take a ram," - that animal that's sacred to the Egyptians that you thought they'd stone you for sacrificing. "Tie it to your house until the 14th. Then kill it and paint the blood on your doorpost and on the lintel on top of your door where everybody can see it. Draw a line in the sand, because tonight the angel of death will pass. And if you have the blood, he will pass over. If you don't, he will enter."

Now, imagine that night if you had been one of those Hebrews. You have blood on your door. The cool breeze passes through your house as the angel of death moves from house to house. You begin to hear the screams as people discover their first born have died. And you watch, wondering, "Will God keep his word? Will the angel stop here?" And all night, you sit shivering in that cool breeze. And then, you discover by morning that God watched over you. 

And God said in the Book of Exodus 13, "From now on, for all generations, because God watched you, I want this night to be a night of watching for you. So, watch on the night after Passover." 

So, every Jew would spend part or all of the night after Passover watching to see what would happen. They read their Bible. "He who watches Israel never slumbers nor sleeps." (Psalm 121) So, they said, "We won't either. We'll stay up tonight." And they even extended it, and they said, "Remember that night after we left Egypt and we got to the shore of the Red Sea. And there was the sea and we couldn't swim. And here came the chariots. We could hear them, and then, we could see them. And we watched in terror. We can't swim. What will happen?" God watched. 

"Then we watched that cloud come and stand between us and the Egyptians. And then, we watched as the wind blew and created this path through the sea, and we rushed in and came out the other side like we were born again, a new people. And then, we watched as God brought the sea together and the Egyptian army was drowned. And we stood and called him King and Lord, and we danced to the tambourine, watching."

Watch, Israel, as God watches. And so, Jesus came to the Gethsemane. Some of the disciples went in and he said, "Peter, James, John, come." He walked out into the darkness, and he said, "Watch with me." And he went off to pray. 

He came back, and they were sleeping. "No, not Peter, James, and John. Not them! Couldn't you stay awake for an hour?" On the night of watching, Jesus came here to watch. But as he watched and maybe the breeze moved through the trees, something happened. In the Gospel of Mark (14), it says, "He was deeply distressed and troubled." If you do a study of those words, you'll discover they're hard to translate.

The deeply distressed literally means sudden, shocking awareness. The troubled you can't even put into English. It almost means to the point of sheer terror. Suddenly, shocking, aware. What happened?

I believe the Bible teaches that Jesus is God's Son. He has a divine nature. He could know all things. But my Bible also tells me that he was a man. And I think I see him wrestling here that night in his humanness as the Son of God, yes, but as the sinless man. And I think in the human nature that was Jesus, it suddenly came over him that, "Tonight is the night. Tonight is the night that I came into the world for. Tonight is the night." 

What triggered that sudden reaction? Maybe it was the Kidron. Do you remember all those tombs? Maybe he walked by and saw all those tombs and began to think, "Tonight, I'll need one." I don't know. 

Maybe it was remembering his ancestors in Egypt and how Pharaoh's army came and God protected him. But he had passed on the cup of protection. Do you remember in Passover, there are four cups or four times you drink, because there are four promises? God said, "I will bring you out from under the yoke." Yes. "I will set you free from being a slave. I will redeem you. I will take you, protect you." Jesus apparently passed on that last cup. 

There's a fifth cup too. The fifth cup - it's mentioned in the Bible in Jeremiah (25). "And the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel said to me, 'Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my fury and give it to the nations to drink." The cup of God's damnation. 

"Pour out your wrath on the nations," says the Psalmist. (Psalm 79) 

"They've scorned me. They've made me to drink vinegar. Pour out your wrath on the nations," says the Psalmist in another place. (Psalm 69) The cup of hell itself was poured out on Egypt. 

"God, pour it out on the nations that don't know you." (Psalm 79) Again, the Psalmist.

The rabbis debated, "Should we include that cup in Passover. After all, it's in the Bible that someday God's damnation, someday God's fury will be given to the nations to drink - those that don't acknowledge him. That's what he did to Pharaoh. Should we put it in the Passover?" 

They argued and they argued. Finally, they said, "We can't solve it. So, we'll wait until Elijah comes, and he'll settle the argument for us." So, they have, to this day, in the Passover, something called Elijah's cup. But Elijah's cup is not-- today, it's just Elijah's coming. But originally, Elijah's cup was to remind them that someday Elijah would come to decide what's going to happen to the cup of wrath.

And I think Jesus came to the garden and began to think about that cup that God will pour on the nations. Do you know what's in that cup? It's a terrible thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. And I think in his human nature, as he wrestled here near an old olive tree, it dawned on him, 'I have to drink it. No! No! Not that cup. Let that cup pass. I can't."

"Oh! Oh! If you want me to, I will." And he drank it. He drank it - every drop. Look. It's empty. "My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?" he would cry. (Psalm 22)

"It is finished," as he took the last swallow. (John 19) 

It's gone. That was for me. There he lay on his face like Abraham, like a worshipper in the Temple. His Father said, "I'm sorry. There is no protection for you tonight." And I think it would be completely appropriate if in your faith community, when you celebrate Eucharist, Holy Communion, the Lord's Supper, whatever you choose to call it, that at some point someone takes a cup to show you that cup of God's fury. In a sense, all of Scripture rests on that point. 

What God did to Pharaoh and the Egyptians, Jesus took. The redemption of his people, Israel, out of Egypt was one way he moved toward this very moment. Because of that very moment, he says, "I want to be your husband," like at Sinai.

He says, "I want to live among you," like the Tabernacle. 

He says, "I want you to be the repairer, the restorer of the broken walls in my name." 

But when that first people of his walked out of Egypt, he wasn't finished with them. He said, "Yeah, I did it all. Go to Sinai and learn how to be like me so that the world will see me in you." And I think that's exactly what Jesus asked. Look. There is nothing you and I can do or need to do. He drank it all. Every drop. 

And now, he says, "I've done it. Now, you've called me Lord. Not everyone who calls me Lord will enter the Kingdom. But only those who do." 

So, go. Walk as Jesus walked. Choose his path. And the world will experience the shalom, will see chaos defeated, and the Kingdom will come. And the Exodus, not replaced. It won't have been in vain. 

Brothers and sisters, don't let our Hebrew ancestors down. They suffered hard and long - 40 years the first group. They failed often, yes, had to die in the desert, yes. But they were part of what got it to this moment. Don't let them down. Pass it on. 

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might."