Session 10: This Cup

SESSION OVERVIEW

Discovery Aim. Participants open their sealed guesses from week one, then discover with their own eyes that Jesus, at a Passover meal, speaks Exodus 24:8 and Jeremiah 31:31 in a single sentence over a cup; they follow the unfinished Passover from the Upper Room to Calvary, watch the corridor of blood from Genesis 15 receive its answer, and see the third promise of Genesis 12 sworn at last.

Catholic Touchstone. By celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning; his passing over to his Father by his death and Resurrection is the new Passover, anticipated in the Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist (CCC 1340).

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Tonight is harvest. Ten weeks of planted threads converge on one meal and one hill, and the leader's task is almost entirely restraint: ask the questions, keep the pace slow, and let the group experience the recognition themselves. The session opens with the sealed guesses. Before any Scripture, have every participant open Take-Home 1 and read their week one guess aloud (voluntarily; never compel): where is God's covenant plan headed, and how will he get the whole world in on it? Receive every guess with honor; ten weeks ago none of them knew about the corridor of blood, the fourth cup, or the blank price line in Jeremiah. Then tell them: tonight the text answers the question you have been carrying. And begin.

The Synoptics are explicit that the Last Supper is a Passover meal (Luke 22:15, "I have earnestly desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer"; Mark 14:12 to 16). Everything the group learned in Session 6 is therefore in the room: an unblemished lamb, a household gathered, blood that marks, flesh that must be eaten, and a zikkaron in which later generations participate. Into that dense liturgical setting Jesus inserts new words, and the words are the payoff of the entire study. Over the bread: "This is my body which is given for you" (Luke 22:19). Over the cup, in Matthew's form: "this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Matthew 26:28); in Luke's and Paul's form: "This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood" (Luke 22:20; 1 Corinthians 11:25). Set the two halves side by side. "My blood of the covenant" is Exodus 24:8, Moses' sentence at Sinai, the sentence the group memorized four weeks ago, now with a possessive: not the blood of bulls thrown from basins, but MY blood. "The new covenant" is Jeremiah 31:31, the only place in the entire Old Testament where those words occur, now given its missing mechanism: in my blood. And "for the forgiveness of sins" is Jeremiah's fourth term, the check, being cashed. One sentence, two covenants, and the blank price line filled in. The group must find these equations themselves via the discovery questions; if the leader announces them, the study's largest moment dies on the table.

Then the strange incompletion. Jesus says he will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom (Matthew 26:29; Mark 14:25), and the meal ends with a hymn and a departure to the Mount of Olives, which, on the Passover customs later codified in the Mishnah and argued by some scholars to reflect first-century practice, would be a meal broken off before its final cup. A well known and illuminating proposal (associated in our day with scholars like Brant Pitre and Scott Hahn, and worth presenting honestly as a scholarly reading rather than defined doctrine) follows the unfinished Passover out the door: in Gethsemane Jesus prays three times about a cup ("let this cup pass from me... your will be done"); on the way to Calvary he refuses the drugged wine (Mark 15:23); and at the very end, John records, "I thirst," and they lift sour wine to his lips on a branch of hyssop, the Passover plant, the blood applicator of Exodus 12:22, and when Jesus has received it he says "It is finished" (tetelestai) and hands over his spirit (John 19:28 to 30). On this reading the Passover that began in the Upper Room is consummated on the cross: the fourth cup is drunk on Golgotha, and "it is finished" is the Passover's completion cry. Whatever one concludes about the proposal's details, the details John records are explicit in the text and have been read from the earliest centuries as deliberate Passover framing: the sour wine is offered on hyssop; John places the sentencing on the day of Preparation of the Passover, about the sixth hour (John 19:14), a timing many readers understand as placing Jesus' death while the Passover lambs were being slaughtered; and not one of his bones is broken, which John explicitly flags as fulfillment: "For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled, Not a bone of him shall be broken" (19:36, a fulfillment citation widely read as invoking the Passover lamb rubric of Exodus 12:46, echoed also in Numbers 9:12; some also hear Psalm 34:20). The sealed envelope from Session 6's Dig Deeper opens tonight: the rubrics always described him.

And Genesis 15 receives its answer. The group has carried one question since Session 4: God alone walked the corridor of blood, swearing both sides of the covenant; what happens when the human side breaks it? Galatians 3:13 answers in covenant language: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed be every one who hangs on a tree." On the reading this study has followed since Session 4, Genesis 15 as a self maledictory oath that God alone swore, the self sworn God keeps the self curse. The smoking fire pot that passed between the pieces passes, in the fullness of time, between heaven and earth on a tree, and the covenant curse that the human side earned is absorbed by the divine party who swore. Immediately after, Paul states the payout: "that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles" (3:14), and names the singular seed: "It does not say, And to seeds, referring to many, but, referring to one, And to your seed, which is Christ" (3:16). The seed of the woman (Session 2), the seed of Abraham sworn on Moriah (Session 5), the son of David (Session 8): one man, and through him the third promise of Genesis 12, all the families of the earth, moves from promise to sworn covenant: "the new covenant in my blood." The chart's blank row can now be filled: mediator, Jesus; seal, his own blood, the Eucharist; scope, the world.

Handle Moriah's geography with the study's usual honesty: 2 Chronicles 3:1 places the temple on Mount Moriah, and Golgotha stands outside the wall on the same Jerusalem heights; Scripture does not state that Calvary is the very spot of the Aqedah, and the study should not overclaim it. What Scripture does give is enough and more: on the ridge country of Moriah, where a father once said "God will provide himself the lamb" and the text added "on the mount of the LORD it shall be provided," future tense, a beloved Son carried the wood of his own sacrifice up the hill, and this time no voice from heaven stopped the offering, because the Father, as Romans 8:32 says, "did not spare his own Son." The vacancy on the mountain is filled.

OLD TESTAMENT ROOTS AND FULFILLMENT

This session is the trunk into which every root runs; the leader's map, briefly: the garments of skins (Session 2) anticipated God providing the covering at the cost of blood; the ark's one door (Session 3) anticipated salvation entered through a wounded side (John 19:34); Melchizedek's bread and wine (Session 4) anticipated the priest king's offering, and Psalm 110:4's "priest for ever" finds its subject; the Aqedah (Session 5) supplied the beloved son, the wood, and the unstopped hand; Passover and Sinai (Session 6) supplied the lamb rubrics, the words of the cup, and the meal that seals a covenant; the interim priesthood (Session 7) meets the priest whose office cannot expire; the Davidic king who carries the covenant in his body (Session 8) is enthroned, as the Fathers dared to say, with a titulus over his head reading King; and Jeremiah's check (Session 9) is cashed. Resist reciting this list to the group; the discovery questions surface the connections one at a time, and what the group finds, the group keeps.

One forward looking note the leader should hold: the Supper was not a farewell performance but an institution: "Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24 to 25), with zikkaron participation (Session 6) as its grammar and "as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (1 Corinthians 11:26) as its horizon. What the Church does with that command, and how the covenant family lives now, is Session 11. Tonight ends at the cross and the torn veil; resist Easter and Pentecost for one more week.

VOICES OF THE CHURCH

CATECHISM CONNECTION

CCC 1339 to 1340. Jesus chose the time of Passover to fulfill what he had announced at Capernaum: giving his disciples his Body and his Blood. By celebrating the Last Supper with his apostles in the course of the Passover meal, Jesus gave the Jewish Passover its definitive meaning; his passover to his Father by his death and Resurrection, the new Passover, is anticipated in the Supper and celebrated in the Eucharist.

CCC 610 to 611. Jesus gave the supreme expression of his free offering of himself at the meal shared with the twelve, on the night he was betrayed. The Eucharist he instituted at this moment will be the memorial of his sacrifice; he included the apostles in his own offering and bade them perpetuate it.

CCC 613. Christ's death is both the paschal sacrifice that accomplishes the definitive redemption of men, through the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and the sacrifice of the New Covenant, which restores man to communion with God by reconciling him through the blood of the covenant, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

CCC 1365. Because it is the memorial of Christ's Passover, the Eucharist is also a sacrifice; the sacrificial character is manifested in the very words of institution: "This is my body which is given for you" and "This cup which is poured out for you is the New Covenant in my blood."

THREAD WATCH

Leader only. Do not reveal. These threads are planted and developed quietly; participants discover them.

• Tonight is the payoff of the entire study. Preparation is everything: reread Sessions 4, 5, 6, and 9 before leading. The discoveries must be found, not announced; your restraint is the delivery mechanism.
• OPENING RITUAL: the sealed guesses are opened first, before any Scripture, with honor and lightness. Never compel a reading; never grade a guess. The point is not who guessed right but that the question they wrote blind is the question the text answers tonight.
• The two great equations must come from the group: Matthew 26:28 = Exodus 24:8 + possessive; Luke 22:20 = Jeremiah 31:31 + mechanism. They memorized Exodus 24:8 and listed Jeremiah's terms; the equipment is installed. Trust it.
• The Genesis 15 corridor resolves at Galatians 3:13 to 14. Give the resolution silence when it lands; it has been ten weeks in the making.
• The chart gets its final row tonight: Jesus; his own blood, the Eucharist; the world. Bring the chart back (photo or redrawn) and let the group fill the blank row themselves at the session's end.
• Thread C, the mountain: handle Moriah and Golgotha with precision, the same Jerusalem heights, the temple pinned to Moriah by 2 Chronicles 3:1, no overclaim about the identical spot, and let Genesis 22:14's future tense do the work.
• The fourth cup material is presented as an illuminating scholarly reading, honestly labeled, never as defined doctrine. What is beyond dispute, John's hyssop, the preparation day timing, and the unbroken bones citation, carries the weight.
• Session ends at the cross and the torn veil (Matthew 27:51). No Easter, no Pentecost, no Church yet: one more week of discipline.

SESSION GOALS

1. Every participant has opened and, if willing, shared their week one guess, and felt the study's question become the text's question.

2. Participants discovered the two equations of the institution narrative themselves: Exodus 24:8 made possessive, Jeremiah 31:31 given its mechanism and price.

3. Participants followed the unfinished Passover from the Upper Room to the hyssop, the timing, and the unbroken bones, with the scholarly proposal honestly labeled.

4. Participants received the answer to the Genesis 15 question at Galatians 3:13 to 14 and connected it to the sworn third promise.

5. The chart is complete: mediator, seal, and scope of the new covenant, filled in by the group's own hands.

6. The steelman on sacrifice was engaged at full strength, and participants can state the Catholic teaching precisely: one sacrifice, re presented, never repeated.

TIME NOTE (90 MINUTES)

Ninety minutes. Opening prayer and the guess opening ritual, 18 minutes; do not rush a single guess. Build, 52 minutes: the institution equations, 20, protected absolutely; the unfinished Passover to Calvary, 15; Galatians 3 and the chart completion, 10; steelman, 7. Send, Live It, memory verse, and closing prayer, 20 minutes.

• If running long: If the guess sharing runs long, let it: cut the Dig Deeper box on the wounded side to home reading and compress the steelman to its answer paragraph delivered as leader teaching.
• If running long: Never cut the equations, Galatians 3, or the chart.

I WILL BE YOUR GOD From the Garden to the Wedding Feast

SESSION 10

This Cup

The Upper Room, the Cross, and the Night Every Thread Converges

Opening Prayer

Father, ten weeks ago we wrote our guesses about where your plan was going, and tonight we bring them to the table where every road in Scripture converges. Open the seals, open the texts, and open our eyes, like the disciples at another table, to recognize what you have been preparing since the garden. Through Christ our Lord, the Lamb you provided. Amen.

WIN | OPENING QUESTIONS

W1. Open your Take-Home 1 and read your sealed guess, first silently to yourself. Who is willing to read theirs aloud? (Leader: receive each one with genuine honor; then say: tonight, the text answers the question you have been carrying since week one.)

W2. Before we open the passage: from everything this study has built, what are you now expecting the answer to be? Thirty seconds each, no wrong answers, and hold your Bibles closed.

BUILD | INTO THE WORD

1. Read Luke 22:14 to 16 and Mark 14:12 to 16. What kind of meal is the Last Supper, according to the text itself, and what does Jesus say about his own desire for it? Inventory: from Session 6, what does that meal setting automatically place in the room?

LIVE DISCOVERY (let the group find it)

2. Now the center of the night, and of the study. Read Matthew 26:26 to 28 aloud, twice, slowly. Four weeks ago you memorized a sentence and were not told why. Say that sentence from memory now, then set it beside what Jesus says over the cup. What has he done to it, exactly, word by word?

LIVE DISCOVERY (let the group find it)

3. Second equation. Read Luke 22:19 to 20 and 1 Corinthians 11:23 to 25. Last week you found two words that occur together exactly once in the entire Old Testament, and you found what was missing from that passage. What does Jesus call this cup, and what has just happened to the missing thing?

4. Now the strangeness. Read Matthew 26:29 to 30. What does Jesus vow about the fruit of the vine, and what do they do next? For a Passover meal of that era, what has just happened to the liturgy?

LIVE DISCOVERY (let the group find it)

5. Track it, then. Read Matthew 26:39 (Gethsemane), Mark 15:23 (the road), and then John 19:28 to 30 with total attention. What does Jesus pray about in the garden, what does he refuse on the way, and at the end: what does he say, what is lifted to him, on what plant, and what are his final words when he has received it? One of you should also check Exodus 12:22 for what that plant was used for.

LIVE DISCOVERY (let the group find it)

6. And now the oldest question in the room. Since Session 4 you have carried this: God alone walked the corridor of blood, swearing both sides of the covenant with a self curse, and the human side broke it, at the calf, in the kings, in us. What happens to the God who swore? Read Galatians 3:13 to 14, and then verse 16. Answer the question, and tell me what promise gets paid out, to whom.

7. Bring back the chart from Session 8, with its blank row of question marks. Fill it, as a group, all three columns: mediator, seal or sign, scope. Then read the whole chart aloud, top to bottom, and set your week one guesses beside it. What was God doing, from the first row to the last?

Build, Then Press | "The New Covenant Ends Sacrifice, So the Supper Cannot Be One"

State it at full strength, from Hebrews itself: "we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all... by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified" (Hebrews 10:10, 14). Once for all: the sacrifice is finished, unrepeatable, sufficient. Therefore, the objection runs, the Last Supper was a farewell meal with symbols, and any claim that the Mass is a sacrifice either repeats what cannot be repeated or adds to what needs no addition, dishonoring the cross it claims to honor. The concern is the sufficiency of Calvary, and it deserves reverence.

8. Reverence it, then press three witnesses. First, the words of institution themselves: "my body which is GIVEN for you," "my blood... POURED OUT for many," is that meal vocabulary or altar vocabulary, and it is spoken in what tense, at a meal where, per Session 6, the sacrifice had to be eaten? Second, 1 Corinthians 10:16 to 21: what does Paul call the cup and the bread a participation in, and why does he set the Lord's table in direct rivalry with pagan altars if no altar is involved? Third, the prophet Malachi, addressing the future of the nations (1:11): what does he say will be offered among the Gentiles from the rising of the sun to its setting?

SEND | TAKING IT OUT

S1. You have now seen what the words over the chalice carry: Sinai, Jeremiah, Moriah, Egypt, and the corridor of blood, in one sentence. What will be different, concretely, the next time you kneel at Mass and hear them?

S2. Your week one guess is answered, but the answer creates a commission: the covenant is for "many," for all the families of the earth, and it travels by witness. Who is one person in your life who has never heard this story told as one story, and what is a first step toward telling them?

Live It This Week

• Go to Mass once this week, Sunday or daily, and at the consecration, silently pray the two source texts as the words are spoken: Exodus 24:8 and Jeremiah 31:31. Receive holy Communion, if you are properly disposed, as what tonight showed it to be: the covenant meal on the mountain.
• Reread Genesis 22:1 to 14 in one sitting, then Romans 8:31 to 32, and thank the Father, in your own words, for not withholding.
• Before next session, read Acts 2:1 to 47. Count the nations, watch what Peter tells the crowd to do, and notice what the first covenant family devotes itself to in the last verses.

Closing Prayer

Father, you provided the Lamb. On the night he was betrayed he took the cup we could never lift, spoke Sinai and Jeremiah in one breath, and walked the corridor of blood to its end, becoming the curse we earned so that the blessing of Abraham could reach every family on earth, including ours, including tonight. We have opened our guesses; now open our lives. Never let us hear the words of the chalice as small again. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

Scripture Memory Verse

I WILL BE YOUR GOD From the Garden to the Wedding Feast

SESSION 10

This Cup

The Upper Room, the Cross, and the Night Every Thread Converges

Every passage used in this session, in order of use. Mark these in your Bible before the group arrives.

Core Passages (in order of use)

• Luke 22:14 to 16 and Mark 14:12 to 16, the Supper is a Passover
• Matthew 26:26 to 28 with Exodus 24:8, the first equation: MY blood of the covenant (live discovery)
• Luke 22:19 to 20 and 1 Corinthians 11:23 to 25 with Jeremiah 31:31, the second equation: the price line filled (live discovery)
• Matthew 26:29 to 30, the vow and the unfinished cup
• Matthew 26:39; Mark 15:23; John 19:28 to 30 with Exodus 12:22, the cup tracked to the hyssop (live discovery; label the fourth cup proposal honestly)
• John 19:14 and 19:36 with Exodus 12:46, preparation day; not a bone broken (the Session 6 envelope opened)
• Galatians 3:13 to 14 and 3:16, the corridor answered; the blessing reaches the nations through the seed (live discovery)
• THE CHART completed: Jesus, his blood and the Eucharistic signs, the world
• Hebrews 10:10 to 14; 1 Corinthians 10:16 to 21; Malachi 1:11 (steelman)
• Matthew 27:51, the veil torn (session's final image)

Supporting Passages

• Luke 22:19 and 1 Corinthians 11:24 to 26, do this in remembrance; until he comes (Session 11 bridge; touch lightly)
• 2 Chronicles 3:1 and Genesis 22:14, Moriah geography, handled with precision, no overclaim
• Romans 8:32, the Father who did not withhold (Session 5 harvest)
• John 19:34 to 35 with Genesis 2:21 to 22, the opened side (Dig Deeper)
• CCC 1366 to 1367, one victim, the manner of offering different, truly propitiatory (steelman support)
• Psalm 110:4 and Hebrews 7, the priest for ever: surfaces fully in Session 11 if the group raises it