Jewish Customs and the Cup in Passion Narratives

The Bible is full of customs, traditions, and rituals. Many Jewish cultural practices seem unusual to the rest of the world, and others were successfully assimilated via the broader Christian culture. People don't even think of them as Jewish but the gospels read by millions of non-Jews today are full of peculiar ethnic traditions. Take the most fundamental of the gospel narrative, the bread and the cup, the cornerstone of Christian practice known as the Eucharist. Its symbols and story come from a Jewish Passover celebration. Many Christians know very little about Jewish Passover or about the deep symbolism of its message. Sadly, much is missed in the gospels because this connection has been severed for centuries.

In the passion narratives after the Last Supper, Jesus ascends the Mount of Olives with his disciples. They are in the olive grove at nighttime, and the rabbi fervently prays to God about what is to come. It is a moment of agony, and Jesus is visibly uneasy in this story. He is resolute, he has no doubts, but in his humanity, he still struggles with what is approaching.

He says, “...remove this cup from me” (Mark 14:29, Luke 22:42). In Matthew’s story, he says, “...my Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” (Mat. 26:39).

Is this just a quaint phrase, or is there a deeper context behind it? Numerous Christian commentaries refer to this cup as the “cup of God’s wrath,” citing Psalm 11:6 and Isaiah 51:17 as background passages. In mere hours, Jesus will take sin upon himself and will have to carry its full weight. That makes sense and rings true. Similar ideas appear in another passage where rabbi Yeshua asks his disciples, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (Mark 10:38). In this context, the cup, of course, is an idiom that stands for what Jesus must endure, his future fate, i.e. his suffering. Yeshua is speaking about his death and what he must suffer. We know that Jesus predicted his sufferings and hinted to his disciples a number of times about his future.