Sentenced to Drink

In an oracle against Edom, Jeremiah warns that the guilty will be sentenced to drink: “Behold, those who were not sentenced to drink the cup will certainly drink, and are you the one who will be completely acquitted? You will not be acquitted, but you will certainly drink it” (Jeremiah 49:12).

The cup in question is the cup of wrath that the Lord is serving out to the nations (Jeremiah 25:15-29). Yahweh tells Jeremiah to announce to the nations, “Drink, be drunk, vomit, fall, and rise no more because of the sword I will send among you” (25:27).

To drink is a sign of guilt. Drinking the cup is a sign that one has not been acquitted.

And yet Christians drink the cup regularly, Christians who believe that we are among the acquitted, the forgiven and justified. 

We might say that the symbolism of the cup has been inverted in the new covenant: What used to be a punishment has become a sign of acquittal; because Jesus drank the cup for us, we drink it purely as a cup of joy.

That is most certainly true. Yet, I suspect we can make a more straight-line connection between Jeremiah’s cup and the cup of blessing which we bless. Jesus did drink the cup for us, but we drink the cup too; we drink the cup in Him. He drank the cup of judgment, and we join Him in drinking the cup of judgment. 

Drinking the Eucharistic cup is not simply a sign that we have been delivered, but a sign that we, in Christ and by His Spirit, absorb the judgment of God into ourselves. Judgment begins at the house of the Lord, and judgment occurs each time the cup is poured out and drunk. The cup is a jealousy test (Numbers 5); it is not merely a celebration for those who have passed the jealousy test.

Drinking the cup is thus a sign of our commitment to share in the burden-bearing of Jesus. It’s a sign that the church, in union with Christ, bears the judgment of the world on behalf of the world.