Christ, Our Passover: Redeemed from Wrath

Grace, mercy, and peace be with you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ the Great Passover Lamb.

Who deserves your wrath? Who has hurt you and deserves your anger?

Or, whose wrath do you deserve? Who have you hurt?

Think of all the people in your life who have been mad at you at one time or another, or whom you’ve been mad at. That can be a quite an extensive list.

Before Adam and Eve fell into sin, there was no anger in the world. They were perfectly happy with each other, and God was happy with them. Nobody had anything to be angry about.

But after they fell into sin, then they learned what anger is. Adam was angry with Eve for tempting him. Eve was angry at the serpent. And they were both angry at God and blamed Him for creating the serpent in the first place. Blame is a type of anger, a misplaced anger.

Most of all, Adam and Eve were probably angry at themselves, and that was rightly placed anger.

God was right in being angry with them for sinning. Not because He didn’t love them, but because He did. It’s like parents can become frustrated or angry with a child who’s making bad choices in life, not because they don’t care about their child, but because they do.

God is angry with sin because he knows how it hurts people, and ruins the world, and that’s not what he wants for us.

Although God is rightly angered by sin, He never lets His anger cause him to lash out, and sin against sinners. Even in His anger toward sin, God is holy.

On the other hand, we may struggle with sin when we get angry. Our temper takes over and we strike back at those who hurt us.

But God has a better way of dealing with his anger toward sin; it’s called redemption. And that’s our theme tonight: Redeemed from Wrath.

Tonight, we’re going to look at the 4 cups of wine that were used in the Seder or Passover Meal, especially the 3^rd cup.

Some pastors may bring along some samples for you to try of the various parts of the Seder Meal, like the bitter herbs or unleavened bread or charoseth sauce, but given that I’m talking about FOUR cups of wine, that would be a pretty large sampling for you all. You’d all be singing robustly by the end of the service.

So tonight we’re just going to just LOOK at the cup of wine on the altar.

At the time of Jesus there may have been just one cup that was used during the Passover feast, and it was filled four times.

The 1^st cup of wine in the Seder Meal was called the Cup of Sanctification. It  reminded the people that God had chosen them, and called them to be holy.

The 2^nd cup was called the Cup of Deliverance. It signified that God delivered the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. So, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, we’ve been rescued from slavery to sin, death, and the devil.

The third was the Cup of Redemption, which we’ll talk more about in a minute.

The fourth was the Cup of Fulfillment. It was left full, and was to be drunk when the Messiah would come and bring peace to God’s people. Today, we remember that Jesus will come back to us, raise us, and bring us to our heavenly home.

Jesus may have been referring to this fourth cup when he said at the Last Supper, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes.  

There’s some debate as to which cup Jesus was blessing when he instituted the Lord’s Supper. Luke says that it happened after the supper, after they had eaten the roasted lamb. That indicates it was the 3^rd cup, the Cup of Redemption.

The 3^rd cup in the Seder Meal was associated with Exodus 6:6: I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.

Those great acts of judgment were the 10 plagues sent on the Egyptians. More broadly, it refers to the wrath of God that we have all brought on ourselves, and on the world with our sin.

Sometimes in the Bible, God’s anger toward sin is expressed as a cup of wine being poured out. Isaiah 51 refers to God’s wrath as a cup of wine that sinners are forced to drink, sort of like being forced to drink poison for punishment.

In Revelation 16 there are the seven bowls of wrath that are poured out on the unbelieving earth. They parallel some of the plagues poured out on the Egyptians. It’s a picture of the final destruction of all who oppose God.

God tells Jeremiah in chapter 25, Take from my hand this cup filled with the wine of my wrath and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it.

None of us could ever bear God’s complete wrath toward our sin. But God sent His Son, who drank the cup of His wrath for us.

At the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before he died, Jesus spoke with His Father about this cup of wrath or suffering.  He prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

There was no other way to redeem the world, other than for Jesus to drink the full cup of God’s anger toward sin. Otherwise the sin of the world wouldn’t be forgiven.

So Jesus drank it all, so to speak. He was beaten, suffered, and died on the cross, the full punishment for all sinners. The full cup of God’s wrath toward sin was poured out on him, and it killed him, but it saved us.

His death is our redemption. We’ve been redeemed from wrath. Now, regarding our salvation, God has no anger toward those who repent and believe in Christ, only blessings.

The Cup of Redemption in the Seder Meal is also called the Cup of Blessing. This is what Paul is referring to in 1 Corinthians 10:16: The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?

The story of Jesus doesn’t end with the cup of His suffering, but with the cup of His blessing.

He rose from the tomb and ascended into glory, so that He might come back to us, and raise us in glory on the Last Day. In Christ, our stories don’t end in wrath or punishment, but in joy and peace.

We deserve God’s wrath, but instead, for Christ’s sake, God blesses us with forgiveness, life, salvation, joy, peace and many more wonderful gifts. We receive these gifts by faith at our Lord’s Table, as with repentant hearts, in the bread and the wine, we eat we Christ’s body and drink his blood for our redemption.

We come to His Table deserving wrath, but we leave having been blessed instead.

Having been redeemed from wrath, we now can let go our anger toward those who’ve sinned against and hurt us.

This leads us back to where our sermon began. Who deserves your wrath?

There may a few or even many who do; but we have no right to execute our wrath toward those who’ve hurt us, because God has not executed His wrath toward us, but has forgiven us.

We’ve been redeemed from wrath so that we can let go of it; let go of our anger toward those who’ve sinned against us, and instead, live in peace.

God’s forgiveness also helps us to let go of our anger toward ourselves. If God is no longer angry with us, then why should we be angry toward ourselves for our past sins? We have peace with God, and that gives us peace within.

We’ve been redeemed from wrath, and given many blessings instead. May the blessing of God’s peace, which passes understanding, guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord and Redeemer. Amen.