 If I didn't know me, I might be impressed. But I do know me, so I'm not all that impressed. But I am impressed with our Lord and the life that He has given to us through the Holy Spirit. So let's turn to Him now and unite our hearts in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Almighty God, our Father in heaven, we thank you for the gift of Jesus who became flesh to dwell among us, to teach us and to heal us, but also to suffer and die for our sins, to rise again, to pour out the Holy Spirit upon us. And so we gather now and implore you, Father, in the name of Jesus, for the Spirit of sonship, the Spirit of adoption, that we might cry out to you not just with our lips, but with our hearts and our lives, Abba Father, lead us closer to your Son, the first born among so many sisters and brothers. And hear us as we pray once again, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil all men. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. The title of my talk, as you can see from the program, is Finishing Strong, and it's subtitled Partakers of the Fourth Cup. And it's based upon a book that came out on Ash Wednesday, entitled The Fourth Cup, unveiling the mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross. You may have heard me give this talk before because I've given it dozens of times, dozens of ways, it never comes out the same. And so I based the book upon all of the different versions of the talk that came out over the years. But I think back to when it first began, because I was trying myself to finish strong. It goes all the way back to my last year as a seminary. My last semester, in fact, the very last month, as I was rounding the corner to kind of score, you know, to make it home because I was getting ready to graduate the top of my class and oh my, was I impressed with myself. I'm not much, but I am all I think about. And I remember it was April, with just about one month to go. When we were at our favorite church, listening to our favorite pastor, who also happened to be my Hebrew professor and my Old Testament instructor, and it was Palm Sunday. So we were listening to the passion narrative. And I remember this because I was a seminarian and I was getting ready for graduation and ordination, ministry, proclamation, all of that. And you know what it's like. I know what it's like now because I've got two sons in seminary and so I'm kind of looking at them as they continue on their course. I'm also reminded of another fellow who I encountered. He had just graduated from seminary himself. Ordination and then proclamation. I was a Catholic professor at this point, a freshman, my very first teaching assignment. And I would head from class late afternoon and go down to a five p.m. mass at St. Mary's in another city, in another state, everything will be unidentified. I remember this too because he was reading and preaching from the New Testament. The passage was 2nd Peter, chapter three, where Peter announces the coming of the Lord and the judgment that will come in fire. And so I couldn't wait to hear after the gospel what he would say, but I wasn't sort of pleased with what I heard because, well, he talked about how he had studied in seminary and learned that this sort of passage from Peter was the reason why the early church was so mistaken about the 2nd coming and so Peter just kind of passed on the confusion and in centuries later they figured out that Jesus wasn't really coming back again. And you could just see the ordinary faithful there for a daily mass looking at each other kind of confused. And I'm sitting in the back sort of churning and burning like, wait a minute, why would you do that? Well, he's a new graduate, right out of seminary, ordination, all of that. So he's taken what he learned and trying to share it. And I'll be honest, I was distracted for the rest of the mass in a way that I should never have been. You know, and I just want to stop for a moment and kind of tell you something because you might think it must be really tough for any priest to have to preach with me in their presence. I don't think there's anybody who is less critical of a homiless than me. I've made it my habit since I entered the church to enter the mass as a beggar who is coming to get the bread of life. And I have never been disappointed not only through the Eucharist, but hearing the word of the Lord I'm always able to pick up some crumb from the floor. And so I was looking for something but that day I was just really troubled. And I prayed and I prayed some more. And after Holy Communion, after the benediction, I wasn't sure what to do. But on an impulse, I just went back to the sacristy. And I could see that he was getting ready for something else. I said, do you have a minute? He said, not real. I said, just have a half a minute. He said, what do you want? And I said, you preached on 2nd Peter 3. You made it seem as though the end of the world what he was talking about, he was confused. He was confusing the early church. And he said, yes, so what? And I'm like, well, I just came into the church recently. I'm doing a doctorate in theology. I've been studying this material in the New Testament and I would propose to you that if you really look at the Old Testament background, you'll see that what Peter was talking about was not the end of the world, but the end of the Old Covenant. The judgment of God upon the Jerusalem Temple that came in 70 AD when all of the sacrifices ceased and gave way to the New Covenant. He said, are you done? And I said, I suppose so. He said, good because I've got a novena to lead if you don't mind. And so just leaving that sacristy, feeling totally sorry for myself, I gave it my best shot Lord. I prayed, I tried. And as I'm walking out, I hear him tap the mic and he said, look, before we do the novena, I'd like to clarify something. I'm just out of seminary, but I want to say that somebody came back and showed me that I was kind of wrong in my explanation of 2 Peter 3. Peter wasn't talking about the end of the world, but the end of the Old Covenant, the Old Jerusalem. And in fact, that prophecy was fulfilled. And I'm in the Narthex and I turn around and I look at him and he's like, let's go on with the novena. And I'm just like, thanks be to God. And I kept going back and he never did that again, but he always has fed me over the years. In fact, he just had me back to his parish last year to give a kind of, well, a day of retreat. And when I brought it up, he said, I don't think, I don't think that ever happened. I'm like, okay, but it did. But I know the feeling of trying to finish strong as a seminary and get ready for graduation and ordination because it was one month from graduation. And I'm sitting there listening to my favorite preacher go through the passion narrative in John chapter 19. And of course, all of this is familiar ground. And so when he gets to the point in John 19, verse 28, after this, Jesus knowing it all was now finished, he said, to fulfill the scripture, I thirst and a bowl full of sour wine stood there. So they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a Hissa branch and held it up to his mouth. When Jesus received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. And as he's reading through the narrative in the middle of his homily, he just kind of stops and says, did you ever wonder what he was referring to when he said, it is finished? What is finished? And I'm sitting about halfway back with Kimberly thinking, oh, that's an easy question. What is finished? Our redemption is finished. And he must have been reading my mind because he said, if you're sitting there thinking that our redemption is finished, think again, because Paul says in Romans 4.25 that he was raised for our justification. And since the resurrection hadn't happened yet, our redemption wasn't complete. What was finished? Frankly, I don't know. So let's move on. And I'm just sitting there thinking, was that some sort of rhetorical trick? I mean, it's a great thing to ask a question and then answer it. But to ask a question that you don't even have an answer for, I mean, on the one hand, it's a sign of humility and honesty and transparency. On the other hand, I found it deeply troubling. And so to be frank, I don't think I heard another phrase from that homily because I am looking down on John 19, trying to figure out, okay, what is finished? And I'm looking through the pages, backing up, reading it in context, reading John 18 and 19. By the time I was done reading through those two chapters, the sermon was finished. And on the way out, I shook his hand as was our custom. And I said, you can't do that. You can't ask a question and then not answer it. What are you talking about? It is finished. What is it? He's like, I still don't know, but I'm sure you'll figure it out and come back and tell me. I'm like, okay, I took that as a personal challenge. And so when Kimberly and I got back to our apartment, we had lunch and afterwards, I just basically went back to the books and I'm like, I want to go back to my professor and kind of give him the answer. I'm gonna impress him one more time. So I spent the afternoon and most of the evening burrowing through the scriptures, trying to figure out a quick and easy answer. Well, one day became a week and it became several weeks and even after graduation, even after ordination, I was still doing my research. I felt like Colombo in that old TV series, Peter Falk, looking for clues, kind of clumsily stumbling around and then finding one that led to another and another. And I remember the first stage of my detective research was really that day, Sunday afternoon and evening and the rest of that week because it struck me as obvious that the first major step to answering the question is by looking at the text in context, not just the literary context, but the historical context because we all know what was going on at the time of the passion narrative. The Jews were gathering as pilgrims to Jerusalem for the purpose of celebrating Passover. And so I just simply took a giant step back and kind of refreshed my memory by doing research on the Passover. Of course, it's set forth in Exodus 12. The very first Passover was celebrated by Israel when they were still in Egyptian bondage. When God gave to Moses the instructions that all Israelite families were to follow. And it wasn't terribly complex. You take a lamb, an unblemished male lamb without any broken bones and you slaughter the lamb and then you get a hyssop branch and you sprinkle the blood on the doorpost and then as a family you roast the lamb and gather around the table that evening in order to eat the lamb. And you do so standing up with staff in hand. Your loins are girded ready to flee from slavery into freedom following Moses the leader. And so Exodus 12 is the narrative, the Haggadah as the Jews still call it. And as I looked, I realized, whoa, I can connect some dots just with the very first Passover because this is where the covenant is sealed, the blood of the covenant, the blood of the lamb. This is also where you see this renewal that takes place between God and his people. But the Hebrew word for people, am, is literally kinsfolk or family. And so Jesus on this occasion gathers in the upper room with his disciples and basically follows the protocols that you can trace all the way back to Exodus 12. He gives thanks. He also renews the covenant. But what's so interesting is as you look carefully, you can see what John notices as an eyewitness. The beloved disciple was there at the foot of the cross and he sees what the other evangelists don't tell us that the two thieves on either side of Jesus had their legs broken to expedite their deaths, but not our Lord and why? Because he'd already expired. And so the narrator interrupts and says, thus to fulfill the scripture, not a bone of his shall be broken. What scripture? Exodus 12 46, because the lamb that you sacrificed was not allowed to be a lame or a gimpy lamb. No broken bones and John notices that. Likewise, John also notices what the other evangelists spotted that they offered him sour wine, vinegar. But Matthew, Mark and Luke don't tell us whether he drank or not. Only John, because only he was there. But what John also notices is that they lifted it up to his lips on a Hyssop branch there in John 1929. Exactly as Exodus 12 22 stipulates that the blood of the lamb was to be sprinkled using a Hyssop branch. John also notices that the soldiers, before they crucified him, stripped him of his garments. And after he hung there dying, they, what? They drew lots for the seamless linen garment. And the word in Greek for the garment I noticed was the liturgical vestment worn by the high priest when he offered the lamb in the temple for the Passover, just as the lambs were offered way back then. And so for me, I was feeling like I was getting some traction because the more you look into the old, the more it illuminates the new. And the more you really study the new, the more you can see how it fulfills the old. But I was already two or three weeks into this research getting closer to final exams. And so I kind of had to put it on hold after graduation came ordination. And I was still kind of gaining traction, momentum because I realized that my study didn't really, it wasn't complete. It's not enough to study the first Passover as it was celebrated in Egypt. You really have to look at the Passover as it was in the first century because it's obviously different because it's there in Jerusalem, not in Egypt. And so it gathers sort of customs. And so what I did was I picked up some rabbinic sources in order to understand better how was the Passover celebrated by Jesus and all of his fellow Jewish contemporaries back in Jerusalem in the first century. And what it discovered was that there was a standard form that was true back then, even as it is still true today without a temple, without a high priest, without all of the sacrifices that were done back then. But the Passover meal then and now is basically divided into four courses. And you can pick this up almost anywhere by reading rabbis who reflect upon how Orthodox Jews celebrate this. Now, when you look at the Passover liturgy, the first part of the meal is just the preliminary course. It's called the kadush because the first of four cups of wine is blessed and then shared. And it is this kadush cup. That is the cup of sanctification. And as soon as the preliminary course is done, you pass around a dish of bitter herbs to remember how bitter it was to be in bondage in Egypt. And thus you proceed into the second course of the meal. And that's where you hear the story of the Passover because the youngest member asks the questions that the oldest male there answers. So probably the beloved disciple and then Jesus would answer these questions as they went through the narrative in Exodus 12. And at the end of this, you would sing the little hellel, the little praise Psalm 113. And then this was followed by the hellel cup, the second cup of wine. And now you're ready for the main course, the third part of the Passover. This was the main meal. And it consisted of course of the lamb as well as the unleavened bread. And after that, you come to the third cup. And this is known as the cup of blessing, the barakah cup. And we know all of this because, well, this is where Jesus consecrates the chalice. And this is what Paul is referencing in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 16 and 17. When he's reminding the Corinthians of the origins of the Eucharist, he says the cup of blessing which we bless isn't not a communion in the blood of Christ. Now, where did he get that terminology? The cup of blessing. I never knew until I looked at the rabbinic background and I realized the cup of blessing was the third cup, the barakah cup. Barakah is that term for blessing. Well, at this point, you've practically reached the climax of the Passover liturgy because after you share this third cup, you proceed to sing the great praise, the great hellel, which consists of a series of Psalms beginning with Psalm 114 and climaxing with Psalm 118. I will take the cup of the Lord, Psalm 118. And so there really is something holy, something special, something climactic about this, great hellel. And once again, you can see the reflection of this tradition there in the gospels. So for example, Mark 14, verse 26, describes how after he consecrates the chalice and passes it around for all the disciples to share, they sang a hymn. Of course, this refers to the great hellel. At this point though, my research suddenly ran into a wall because what I discovered was that when Jesus and the disciples reached the climax of the Passover liturgy, they sang a hymn and they should have possessed into the fourth cup, the cup of consummation. But instead, what we read in Mark 14 is, and when they sang a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Now, it was very difficult for me to sense anything wrong with this, but the more I looked at the rabbinic commentaries on the gospel narratives, the more I realized that the rabbis were troubled by what they read. One of the most famous rabbinic scholars in the 20th century was a professor at Oxford University, Rabbi David Dalby, D-A-U-B-E. He wrote a book that I ran into in the library called The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism. Because what David Dalby does in this chapter entitled The Omission of the Fourth Cup is to comment upon what most Jewish readers of the New Testament observe. And that is, Jesus saying, "'Truly I will not drink of the fruit of the vine "'until I drink it new in my father's kingdom, "'until I drink it new in the kingdom of God.'" And it concludes by saying clearly the meaning is that the fourth cup is not going to be taken for this would be the normal thing. But instead, Jesus decides to postpone it until the kingdom is fully established. I didn't know what he was talking about. Until you look clearly and carefully at the Passover liturgy and sure enough, the climax of the Passover is the fourth cup, the cup of consummation, which is shared immediately after the great Halal is sung. But instead, what you read is that after they sang him, they went out into the night. And where do they go? The Garden of Gethsemane. And so what rabbinic commentators pointed out to me is that they sang a hymn and went out into the Mount of Olives without drinking the fourth cup. Close quote. That again was from Rabbi Dalby's book. And so I'm wondering, why didn't I ever notice this before? Well, I mean, from a Catholic perspective, I suppose we can understand because if you took a Jewish friend or a neighbor to Sunday Mass and for whatever reason, your priest either skipped, say the words of consecration or the right of Holy Communion, would every Catholic present notice? Of course, would any Jewish observer catch the omission? No, because it's unfamiliar like the ancient Passover was to me. But all these Jewish readers who notice that in the gospel narratives, there are multiple cups like you find in Luke 22 where you have the fullest description of the institution narrative, the question keeps rising again and again. Why did he skip the cup? And only a few Christian scholars even noticed. One of them suggested that perhaps there were psychological reasons because we read in Mark 1432, he began to be greatly distressed and troubled and he said to them, my soul is very sorrowful, even unto death. Perhaps he was just simply too anxious or upset to be bothered with liturgical precision and following all the rubrics. Well, I mean, that struck me as plausible, but still somewhat unlikely because if Jesus is so distracted and confused, why would he interrupt the Passover liturgy after the third cup, sing the great halal, and then say, I'm not gonna dirt taste of the fruit of the vine again until you drink it new till we drink it new in the kingdom of God. Why would he declare himself so plainly before acting in such a disorderly fashion? Jesus was clearly anxious about what was going on. You can tell that from the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, but he's a man who is in control of himself. So why did he choose not to drink? The question just lingered in my mind for days, for weeks. And then it was just sort of like, I found the answer and it was hiding in plain view because when you follow Jesus and the disciples to the Mount of Olives, where do they go? To the Garden of Gethsemane and what does he do? He prays for almost an hour and then he finds the disciples sleeping, but each time the evangelist described the prayer, what is the prayer of Jesus? Abba, father, take this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. Three times altogether, he praised the father to take away this cup. Now I was wondering what cup is he referring to? You check the Christian commentators and they suggest that maybe Jeremiah 25 or Isaiah 51 where you have these oracles concerning drinking the cup of God's wrath, but there's nothing from Isaiah or Jeremiah in the context. But what you have is clearly the three cups that they shared, the fourth cup that they skipped, they go straight to the Garden of Gethsemane and he prays three times, take this cup, take this cup, take this cup. Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done. And then on the way out of the Garden, the cohort arrives. And what does Peter do? He draws a sword. And what does Jesus say in John 18, 11? Shall I not drink of the cup which the father has for me? So at the beginning of the time in the Gethsemane until the very end when they take him away to the trial, he has this cup on his mind. So he has given us this pledge not to taste of the fruit of the vine again until he drinks it new in the kingdom. And so I naturally assumed like most of the others that I read that this must refer to the end of history, the second coming, the eschaton. When I drink it new with you in the kingdom of God, the marriage supper of the lamb, the eschatological messianic banquet or whatever. And sure enough, when you read in Mark 15 about the way up to Calvary, the Via de la Rosa, you see in verse 23 they offered him wine mingled with myrrh, but he refused to accept it. Now of course myrrh is a kind of sedative, an opiate. And so he wasn't interested in deadening the pain, but even more he had pledged not to taste the fruit of the vine until he drank it new in the kingdom. And so I assume that this must refer to the end of history when he returns again. But when I went back to the gospel of John, I began to realize that John always sort of provides a complimentary perspective. Some scholars say, oh, John contradicts the synoptics. No, it's supplemental, it's complimentary, but it sort of fills in some of the blanks. And so what you discover from John's gospel is that the essence of Jesus' kingdom is not the power that he's gonna wield at the end of time when it's payback time. The essence of the kingdom of God as Jesus reveals it is love. But not just love, L-U-V like in a summer of love back in 68, it's life giving love. Greater love hath no man than this than to lay down his life for his beloved as he told the disciples in the upper room in the midst of celebrating the Passover and instituting the Eucharist. And so John gives us sort of an ironic perspective. It's like the opposite of what we think. John's take on the kingdom is like the opposite of my previous understanding. So for example, in John 12, we read about this demonstration of divine power and how he's going to basically cast Satan out of heaven. And I, when I am lifted up from this earth, I will draw all men to myself. And then he refers to the fact that the prince of this world is gonna be cast down. When I am lifted up from the earth, that must be the resurrection, perhaps the ascension. No, John adds parenthetically so his readers don't miss it. This he said to show by what death he was to die. Because the death of Jesus that looks like the ultimate victory of the devil is actually the defeat of the devil and the triumph of love and the manifestation of the true kingdom of God. Because it reveals the power of God is not coercion or force that instills fear. It is this love that is life giving. And that is the mystery of what is happening at Calvary. And John should know because he was the only one of the 12 who was there. So with these kind of clues in hand, I began to kind of return to the scene of the question. It is finished. What is it? Well, on the one hand, the Passover is the key, but it's the first century Passover, the way that you celebrate it back then, just as they celebrate it in the 21st century. It's the fourfold structure of the liturgy, the four cups, three of which he shares, the third of which he consecrates. And then he says, I'm not gonna taste of the fruit of the vine again until I drink it new with you in the kingdom. And so when you return to the passage that my pastor was reading from there in John 19, I noticed something I hadn't seen before or if I had, I hadn't connected the dots. After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, all was now consummated, he said, to fulfill the scripture, I thirst. So moments before he expires, he says, I thirst. You can be sure that hours before he expired, he had been wracked with pain, but also thirst. And so John observes that he's saying this to fulfill the scripture. And so like the other evangelists, he notices how they raised up a stick with a sponge full of sour wine. But if all we had were Matthew, Mark, and Luke to go on, we wouldn't know whether he drank. In fact, we'd probably conclude that he didn't because he said that he wouldn't until he drinks it new in the kingdom. But guess what? John shows us what he saw. So they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a Hissa branch, held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, tell us, die. It is finished. You could translate that. It is consummated. What is finished? What is it that is consummated? It suddenly occurred to me like a Eureka moment. It's the Passover. It's the Passover that they had been celebrated together in the upper room. And then suddenly they had kind of suspended and somehow postponed the fourth cup until he would drink it new and manifest the essence of the kingdom of God, which for John, he's doing precisely here. And so he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. And if you look at all of these details, you can see that way back in the book of Exodus, the Passover was not an end in itself. It was a means to an end. The Passover was how the Exodus was made possible. It was the 10th sign, the final plague. And it was all ordered to flee from bondage to freedom under Moses because the Lord was with him. And so the Passover is ordered to the Exodus. But the Exodus is not an end in itself because ultimately the destination is Sinai to renew the covenant. And so 40 days later, they arrive at Sinai. And there's a connection not only between the Passover and the Exodus, but in the Jewish tradition, there is a bond that links the Passover with Pentecost because Jews to this day still celebrate Pentecost 50 days after Passover. And what do they commemorate? Well, in Passover, it's liberation from slavery, but at Pentecost, it is the proclamation of the law of the covenant because that's what they received there at Sinai. And so in three days, the Lord will come. And when the Lord came down, we read the glory of the Lord was there until the sixth day. And then Moses was invited to come up. Now, where have we seen a link between Passover, 40 days, and then nine more days? And then comes what? Pentecost. Pentecost derives its name 50 days from the fact that it is 50 days after Passover. And so in the Old Testament, I began to recognize the fact that this was all about the giving of the law. Now, in the Old Testament, you get the law of God and it's considered a great gift. But if you don't get the power to keep the law, what happens? What happened then? Moses came down with the stone tablets and sees them worshiping a golden calf. They violated practically every one of the 10 commandments as the rabbis would point out. So he smashes the tablets to show how they smashed the law and 3,000 perish that day. The idolaters at the edge of the sword wielded by the Levites. But when you fast forward from the Old Covenant to the New, you see the link between the Passover and Calvary. And what began in the upper room with the Passover is complete when Jesus drinks as it were the fourth cup. But I also began to recognize there's a link between the Passover, the New Covenant and Pentecost. 40 days and then wait. And how long did they end up waiting? The first Novena, wait. And then the glory of the Lord, the cloud came down at Pentecost. Only this time, it was the Holy Spirit who enables the early church to keep the commandments. The stone tablets are the old law. The Holy Spirit is the new law. So how many people in the Christian Pentecost, and by the way, these are the only two Jewish feasts of the Mosaic calendar that we still observe to this day. How many people perished and came to life in the waters of baptism through the preaching of the gospel, which is the sword of the spirit? 3,000. 3,000 at the New Pentecost, like 3,000 perished at the Old Pentecost, only they were brought to life in the power of the spirit. And so Jesus gave up his spirit to prepare his people, to enter out of the old and into the new. After days, after weeks, after months, I began to realize this is the Passover of the Old Covenant that Jesus came to fulfill as the Lamb of God. But in order to do so, he didn't just celebrate it one last time, he was fulfilling it, but not to do away with it, but to transform the old Passover into the new. And what was the Passover in the Old Covenant? It wasn't just a meal, it was a sacrifice. And so this is what came to me. This is why Jesus is using the language that really never made a lot of sense because for us, the Eucharist is what we called it, the Lord's Supper was just a meal. Calvary was the sacrifice. Only for you Catholics was the Eucharist somehow understood as a sacrifice, whereas we saw it as a meal, Calvary was the sacrifice. But when you go deeply into these sources, you discover what I found, and that is no Jews standing there on Good Friday at the foot of the cross or even near Calvary would have witnessed a sacrifice because for a sacrifice to take place in the Old Covenant, it has to be inside the temple, on top of an altar, with a priest standing by to preside at the sacrifice, Jesus is sacrificed, he's crucified outside the walls, far from the temple where there were no altars. What you would have witnessed as a devout Jew would not have been a sacrifice, it would have been a Roman execution. And so for me, the question became, how in the world does a Roman execution get turned into a sacrifice? And St. Paul provides the answer. When he writes in 1 Corinthians 5, 7 Christ, our Passover has been sacrificed, therefore let us keep the feast and the feast that he goes on to describe is what we call the Eucharist. You can only understand Good Friday, Calvary as a sacrifice and not an execution by looking at what Jesus was doing in the upper room, celebrating the Passover, fulfilling it as the Lamb, but transforming the Passover of the Old Covenant into the Passover of the New Covenant precisely by Institute of the Eucharist. And so what of the four chalices does he consecrate the third? What of the four chalices do we continually receive? As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10, the cup of blessing which we receive is a communion in the blood of Christ. So the Passover is still sort of the backdrop for the Eucharist, but it's always the third cup as it were. So he drinks the third, he shares with them, he says, I'm not gonna drink it new until it's in the kingdom, and then he drinks the sour wine there at the cross. What is that? That's the fourth cup. That's the consummation of the Passover. That is the transformation from the Old to the New, not some irrational animal, the Lamb, but the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Lamb of God. So for me, I went in search of a church that had come up with these amazing discoveries of mine, only to find out in the next year or two that I had reinvented the Catholic wheel. And at one level, it was very humbling. At another level, it was very exciting because to discover this is to really enter into the mystery of faith in a way that I never saw coming. For us, the Lord's Supper was just, you know, a meal. But I'm reminded of the late-grade cardinal, right, the Bishop of Pittsburgh, who was a rather corpulent fellow at over 300 pounds. When he heard that people called the Eucharist a meal, he roared, he said, a meal, it's not even a snack. Well, it's not a snack, naturally, but it is supernaturally the marriage supper of the Lamb. And this is what came to me over the course of time. I began to share with my Protestant friends and professors as well, they just backed off. They could see where this was leading me and they were not in any way supportive. But I'll be honest, it led me not only to attend my first Mass and to discover the real presence of Jesus and the fulfillment of the sacrifice of the Old Covenant Passover in the New Covenant Passover we call the Eucharist. It began to show me how to connect the dots, not just between the Old and the New, but between Holy Thursday and Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Holy Thursday, the Passover, the Eucharist, if it's just a meal, Good Friday is just an execution. But if the Eucharist is in fact, where the sacrifice of the New Passover begins, then we can understand how an execution is transformed into the consummation of the New Passover so he can declare it is finished because the manifestation of the mystery of God's kingdom is a love that is life-giving and he pours himself out as the blood and the water flow from his side, as he breathes the spirit upon his people. And so if Holy Thursday is what transforms Good Friday from an execution into a sacrifice, Easter Sunday is what transforms that sacrifice into a sacrament because his body is no longer bleeding on the cross. It's no longer buried in the tomb. He's raised from the dead, but not just resuscitated. His body is deified. It is transformed into a communicable gift so that we can all do this in remembrance. We can receive in the unleavened bread, the lamb of God. We can receive in the third cup, the cup of blessing, the blood of the New Covenant. And we continually drink from the third cup all of our lives because sooner or later, as we carry our cross, just like our Lord, we will come to the hour. And what is that the hour of death? And what occurs there? Well, up until Calvary, everybody who ever died lost their lives, but on Good Friday, what Jesus did was not lose his life, but he made his life a gift of love. And suddenly you begin to realize that he transformed suffering into sacrifice, pain into passion, not just for himself, but for all of us. And he continually strengthens us with the Holy Eucharist and with the chalice of salvation, the cup of blessing, knowing that we will come to the hour of death when we have to make the ultimate exodus. But he's given us his body and blood. He's given us the spirit of the new Pentecost. He's given us the power. When he breathed his last and he gave us the spirit, he enables us to do what we could never do on our own and that is keep the covenant. Fulfill the law. And so what I discovered in the course of my study was these connections, these connections between old and new, the Passover and the Eucharist, Thursday, Friday and Sunday, the Paschal Mystery, the Tritium, so that when I went for the first time to the vigil mass to be received into the church, it became for me not only the climax of a long pilgrimage, but the consummation of the covenant that I had been studying, the new Passover, the third cup for me, the precious blood as well. And then of course that just led me back into the scriptures. I don't have a lot of time, so I'm gonna have to share just briefly what I discovered because a lot of us tend to think that the Eucharist is what Jesus instituted because well, everybody's turned on him. You know, Palm Sunday, Hosanna in the highest. Then Friday morning, crucify him, crucify him. Knowing the night before what's gonna happen, you know, plan B, we're gonna have to consolidate our gains, cut our losses. We're not going to usher in the kingdom, so what am I gonna do? I'm going to, I don't know, celebrate the Passover, maybe institute a sacrament, you know, and leave that as a token because nothing else could happen. And so it almost feels like an afterthought, a plan B. So what you discover when you read John's gospel in the light of the cups, in the light of the hour, is that this is what Jesus planned all along. This isn't plan B. You go back to the very first sign of the seven that John records in his gospel, and it's the turning, it's at the wedding at Cana in, it's the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee, and what does the mother of Jesus observe there out of wine? And when she points it out to him, what does he say? So my hour has not yet come. Now we all know what the hour refers to in John's gospel. In John seven, verse 30, we read that they tried to arrest him when he was in the temple, but they couldn't because his hour had not yet come. You turn the page in the next chapter, John eight, verse 20. Once again, they tried to arrest him because he was in the temple, but they couldn't because his hour had not yet come. So what does the hour refer to in John's gospel? When Jesus finally does get arrested, tried and executed, that's the position, that's the perspective of his enemies, the opponents. But here in John two is the first of four times that Jesus speaks of the hour, not looking at it through the eyes of his enemies. They're out of wine, so my hour hasn't come. Did that response ever strike you as strange? All she says is they're out of wine. So why does he reply, so my hour hasn't come? It just doesn't seem to follow. The only way to make sense of that is to assume that Jesus associates the coming of the hour with providing something we call wine. They're out of wine, so my hour hasn't come. Do whatever he tells you, and so he goes ahead and provides the best wine performs his first sign. So from the very beginning of his public ministry, what does Jesus associate with the coming of his hour? Providing wine. What else does he associate with the arrival of his hour? The next time he uses it is in John four. Once again, there's a woman. Only it's a Samaritan woman at a well. And they have this conversation. And at one point Jesus says, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain, where the Samaritans worship, nor in Jerusalem, where you worship the Father, you worship what you don't know, we worship what we know for salvation, it's from the Jews, but the hour is coming and now is when you will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. So the second time Jesus speaks of the hour that he knows is coming, what does he associate with the arrival of the hour? Not only providing wine, but an entirely new way of worshiping. A new way of worshiping God as Father, not in Jerusalem, not at Gerasim, but worshiping God as Father in the spirit as family to unite Jews and Samaritans. The third time he speaks of the hour is in the very next chapter of John five. And this is when he heals the paralytic, who had been by the poolside for 38 years and the Jews won an explanation, and so he gives it to them. He says, truly, truly I say to you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. Now the Jews understood the meaning of hour. They didn't have a clock with a second hand and all of that, but hour was not just a designation of time, it was also a liturgical reference. So in Acts three, we read that Peter and John went up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer. Have you ever heard of the liturgy of the hours? Guess what, we didn't invent it. We inherited it from the Old Testament Jewish faith. So the hour is a liturgical designation and in the temple and in the synagogue, you hear the law and the prophets. You pass from darkness to light, from error to truth. Only now it's not just the word of the Lord, the law and the prophets, since the word has become flesh to dwell among us, Jesus says the hour is coming when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and they're gonna pass not from darkness to light, but from death into new life. So hearing the word of the Lord at the hour is hearing the word made flesh. The fourth and final time that Jesus speaks of the hour in John's gospel. And by the way, the reason I'm doing this is because what is coming in just a few minutes? A holy hour. Guess where it starts in the heart of Jesus? The fourth and final time he speaks of the hour is in John 12, when he comes to the Passover for the last time. And so among those who went up to worship of the feast were some Greeks and they came to Philip who was from Bethsaida in Galilee and they said to him, we wish to see Jesus. So Philip went and told Andrew, Andrew went with Philip and they told Jesus. Why Philip and Andrew? Because they're from Bethsaida where everybody speaks Greek. So the Greeks approached Philip and Andrew, we wanna see Jesus. Philip and Andrew approached Jesus and say, there are some Greeks here in Jerusalem for the Passover and they wanna see you. And Jesus answered them, the hour has come. Now if that's all he said and if he had stopped there, I think Philip and Andrew would have said, hey, he's ready, come on in. But he continues, he says, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly I said to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Why? For he who loves his life loses it. And he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. And if anyone serves me, he must follow me and where I am, there shall my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. And I can just picture Philip and Andrew looking at each other like, did he understand what we said? There are some Greeks and they wanna see you. The hour has come for the Son of Man to glorify. For unless a grain of wheat falls in the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, then it bears much fruit. And then Jesus concludes, now is my soul troubled, what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father glorify thy name. Jesus meant what he said. He said what he meant. He knew what he was talking about. Not just Jews and Samaritans, but Greeks. Here at the Passover. But it is a rather strange answer. It's a strange image. Unless a grain of wheat falls in the earth and dies, it remains alone. Oh, pity that poor grain, he's just so lonely. What a odd metaphor. But if the grain of wheat falls in the earth and dies, it bears much fruit. What is the edible form of fruit that a grain of wheat bears when it falls in the earth and dies? What do you call a grain of wheat when it becomes edible? Bread. So what does Jesus associate with the arrival of the hour? Providing bread, as well as wine. And a whole new way of worshiping God as fathered together as a family that will unite Jews and Samaritans and Gentiles, Greeks. And in the process of hearing the word of the Lord and passing out of darkness in the light and even more out of spiritual death into divine life. Now, where do we ever experience an hour where we hear the word of the Lord fulfilled by the Son of God, the Word made flesh? Where do we ever gather to worship together with all ethnic groups in spirit and in truth? And then at the climax, we receive the Son of Man glorified in the bread of life and in the best wine at this marriage supper of the Lamb. I wanna propose to you that the Gospel of John, when it's read from the heart of the church, shows us that the hour is what Jesus had on his mind from the beginning. Where do you have bread and wine, a new way of worship, a new way of hearing the word of the Lord? What do we call it today? The mass. And what is it? Holy Thursday. Good Friday and Easter Sunday all rolled into one. So why call it an hour if it takes hours? If it took two or three days? Because what took place in the first century over three days takes place today in about one hour. The mass is not plan B. It isn't an afterthought. It's what Jesus had on his heart and his mind at the very beginning of the debut of his public ministry. His incarnational debut, his very first sign and everything else that he is doing is showing us that in the Eucharist, we have the resurrected Lord of Lords. We have the King of Kings. It might look like bread, but that's because we walk by sight, not by faith. We've got to walk by faith and not by sight. And in this hour of adoration, we are going to commemorate the sacrifice of Jesus and prepare once again to make it so that when we come to the hour of death, when we drink the fourth cup in the first four or five centuries of the church, I describe in my book, the fourth cup, numerous examples from the martyrs that whenever they came to the time of their martyrdom, their prayer would be an echo of the Eucharistic prayer of the mass. And then they understood that this was the hour when they got to drink the cup, but it wasn't the third cup for them. It was the fourth cup. And whether we're martyred in public or whether we die in private, we will experience the transforming power of the spirit. The new covenant will make it so that the hour of death is not the loss of life, but the culmination of Christ giving his life to us so that we can give our lives back to him. Brothers and sisters, the hour has come in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Almighty God, our Father in heaven, once again, we wish to express our gratitude for a goodness that knows no limits, for grace that is boundless, for the gift that goes beyond this creation to the uncreated life of your beloved Son who became our servant, so that we as disobedient servants might be transformed, so that our suffering could become sacrifice, our pain could become passion, that we could become a little Christ's, your children. I pray for these beloved sons and daughters of yours that you would pour out the breath of Christ, the Spirit of God, that as we continually renew this covenant and drink from the third cup of the per take of the lamb, we would be prepared to allow you to transform our life and our death into the most glorious exodus, into the fulfillment of the Pentecost as we enter into the cloud of your glory. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil on them. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now the hour of our death. Amen, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen, thank you so much. God bless you.