Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross
    The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross
    The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross
    Ebook155 pages5 hours

    The Fourth Cup: Unveiling the Mystery of the Last Supper and the Cross

    By Scott Hahn

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    From the bestselling author of The Lamb's Supper comes an illuminating work on the Catholic Eucharist and its link to the Jewish Passover meal.
     
    “Read this book. And don’t just read it. Pray about it. Reflect on it. And share it with others.”—Brant Pitre, author of The Case for Jesus

    In this brilliant book—part memoir, part detective story, and part biblical study—Scott Hahn opens up new vistas on ancient landscapes while shedding light on his own enduring faith journey. The Fourth Cup not only tracks the author’s gradual conversion along the path of Evangelicalism to the doorsteps of the Catholic faith, but also explores the often obscure and misunderstood rituals of Passover and their importance in foreshadowing salvation in Jesus Christ. 

    Revealing the story of his formative years as an often hot-headed student and earnest seeker in search of answers to great biblical mysteries, Hahn shows how his ardent exploration of the Bible’s Old Testament turned up intriguing clues connecting the Last Supper and Christ’s death on Calvary. As Hahn tells the story of his discovery of the supreme importance of the Passover in God’s plan of salvation, we too experience often-overlooked relationships between Abel, Abraham, and the Hebrews’ liberation from slavery in Egypt. Along the way, Hahn reveals how the traditional fourth cup of wine used in the concluding celebration of Passover explains in astonishing ways Christ’s paschal sacrifice.

    Rooted in Scripture and ingrained with lively history, The Fourth Cup delivers a fascinating view of the bridges that span old and new covenants, and celebrates the importance of the Jewish faith in understanding more fully Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateFeb 20, 2018
    ISBN9781524758806
    Author

    Scott Hahn

    Scott Hahn is Professor of Theology and Scripture at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, in Steubenville, Ohio. He also holds the Chair of Biblical Theology and Liturgical Proclamation at St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He is author of The Lamb's Supper, Lord Have Mercy; Swear to God: The Promise and Power of Sacraments; and Letter and Spirit: From Written Text of Living Word in the Liturgy.

    Read more from Scott Hahn

    Related to The Fourth Cup

    Related ebooks

    Christianity For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Pray And Wash: Finding Church In Unexpected Places

      Mar 7, 2019

      When Julie Butcher goes to church, she looks forward to giving thanks to God, lending a supportive hand, breaking bread with friends – and helping people wash a tub of clothes.  “The laundromat is my church,” says Ms. Butcher, an Episcopal Church dea

      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Monday, January 24

      Dec 15, 2021

      I LOOKED AT THE HUGE box outside my front door and knew I’d made the same dumb mistake again. When shopping online, I often forget to check the measurements of items. In this case, the piece of wall art I’d ordered turned out to be forty-four inches

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Hearing God’s Voice

      Sep 26, 2021

      Hearing God’s Voice
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Keeping The Faith

      Apr 2, 2021

      Keeping The Faith
      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      When a Christian Revival Goes Viral

      Feb 23, 2023

      At Asbury University, in Kentucky, a student chapel service turned into a revival that has captivated TikTok.

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Good With The Bad

      Jan 8, 2021

      The Good With The Bad
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Wednesday, January 5

      Dec 15, 2021

      NEVER MIND BAD HAIR DAYS, I have issues with my eyebrows: flying off in different directions, acting bushy and bold when I need them to lay flat, and even—horrors—turning gray. How dare they! Having a lifelong aversion to pain, I’m not one to pluck r

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Discernmentof Faith

      Oct 6, 2020

      Discernmentof Faith
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Wrapping Our Prayers Around The Immigration Crisis

      Oct 22, 2019

      Strongly held convictions about immigration crises around the world can polarize and divide people. But prayer that seeks God’s answers brings less stridency and more listening, opens the door to wise and balanced solutions, and lifts thoughts from f

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Tuesday, January 11

      Dec 15, 2021

      I HAD TO LAUGH WHEN my daughter, Holly, texted a conversation she’d just had with her four-year-old daughter Lilah: We were listening to VeggieTales in the car and Lilah was singing along, and then she stopped and said, “I think I just heard God spea

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Illinois Bishop Decrees No Communion, Funeral Rites For Same-Sex Spouses

      Jun 23, 2017

      Bishop Thomas Paprocki is telling priests in his diocese not to offer sacraments to people in same-sex marriages. A Catholic LGBT group calls the decree "mean-spirited and unchristian in the extreme."

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      WHO’S In The NEWS?

      Apr 5, 2024

      Last month, Bieber shared a powerful guided prayer on his social media, encouraging his 293 million followers to turn to Christ and download the Churchome app, which shares daily prayer prompts. Churchome, the impactful ministry led by Judah Smith, s

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Sunday, December 26

      Oct 15, 2021

      “For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob, little Israel, do not fear, for I myself will help you,” declares the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      We've Gone Mainstream

      Mar 4, 2024

      Marie Arana’s sprawling portrait of Latinos in the United States is rich and nuanced in its depiction of the diversity of “the least understood minority.” Yet LatinoLand is regrettably old-fashioned and out-of-date. For starters, Hispanics aren’t rea

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Essence of True Living

      Jan 16, 2021

      The Essence of True Living
      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Pope Francis Replaces Conservative Top Theologian

      Jul 1, 2017

      Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller was ousted as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Saturday. Days earlier another top official left to face charges of sexual abuse.

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Three English Graces

      Oct 20, 2021

      The English cathedral is one religious institution in rude good health. Parish churches die by the week. Congregations shrink. The young are vanishing. But, lockdowns apart, most cathedrals are booming. Their worshippers have increased by a third ove

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Fourth Cup

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Fourth Cup - Scott Hahn

      Preface

      In 1989 at Marytown in Chicago I first gave a talk titled The Fourth Cup. It was about some of the studies that had led to my conversion to Catholicism just three years before. I was, at the time, an assistant professor of religious studies at the College of St. Francis in Joliet, Illinois. I wasn’t earning much. I had no tenure or publications. But I was a happy man because I was Catholic, and I wanted to tell the world. Now I had an opportunity.

      It pleased me that I could tell my story to a small assembly of interested folks. It pleased me more that they responded so fervidly to my talk. Word spread, and other groups invited me to tell the tale of my Hunt for the Fourth Cup, which I cast as a detective story, starring myself as the hapless investigator, which I am. (Peter Falk’s Columbo was my model.)

      That was, of course, millions of words ago, dozens of books ago, thousands of lectures ago. I have long since lost count of the number of times I spoke on The Fourth Cup. It’s definitely in the high hundreds. I’ve delivered this talk on several continents—almost on site at the upper room in Jerusalem—and I’ve even told the tale at sea!

      Last year I was talking with an old friend who’s heard me give the talk on several occasions over the years. He pointed out that I never give The Fourth Cup the same way twice. I always cover the same time period, but I draw from different events and different ancient sources.

      I acknowledged that he was right. I underwent that great adventure from 1982 to 1986, when I was a young husband, a new father, a recently ordained pastor, and a neophyte scholar. I was encountering so much of life for the first time—and then God introduced tumult and turmoil that threatened everything I was just beginning to love. I stood to lose everything that had given me comfort and confidence. My pastorate, my academic position, my friendships, even my marriage seemed capable of collapse.

      How could I distill all those experiences into a single talk?

      I couldn’t, of course. So each time I would just tell my story, using the Passover as my theme—and I’d keep a close eye on my watch. I filled the time with whatever stories and sources surfaced in my memory.

      My friend suggested that I gather those stories and sources into a single book that conveys the full sense of adventure and sleuthing.

      And so I have. And here it is.

      I’ve tried to avoid repeating tales I’ve already told in other books, such as Rome Sweet Home (coauthored with my wife, Kimberly) and The Lamb’s Supper. The stories here are meant to supplement my earlier accounts.

      When I was studying in a Protestant seminary, some of us liked to sing old-time hymns. One of them went like this:

      I love to tell the story,

      ’twill be my theme in glory,

      To tell the old, old story

      of Jesus and his love.

      I sang it true, all those years ago, and it’s still true. After thirty years, I’m still unspeakably happy to be Catholic, but I still want to tell the world.

      A NOTE ON SOURCES: The events you’ll read about in this book took place a long time ago. I have, to the best of my ability, supplemented my recollections by drawing from books I was actually reading at the time. Sometimes, when memory failed, I had to draw from more recent sources, which are more familiar to me.

      CHAPTER 1

      What Is Finished?

      I was living the dream—my dream, anyway. I had finished my bachelor’s degree at the school of my choice, married the ideal woman, and I was now pursuing studies for ministry in the Presbyterian Church.

      Once again, I was at the school I had carefully chosen: Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. My wife, Kimberly, and I had grand expectations, and the school lived up to them. We were living in a community where ordinary conversation centered on Scripture. I had classmates who shared my interests and my fervor. On the faculty were scholars of the first rank, and many were outstanding preachers as well.

      My Christianity was evangelical in style, Calvinist in substance. I was aware of the religious marketplace in the Protestant world, and I chose my denomination as carefully as I chose my college and seminary. At Gordon-Conwell—unlike most other places on earth—I found myself among people I could call like-minded. Together we started a weekly breakfast group and called it the Geneva Academy, after the school founded by our Reformation hero, John Calvin, back in the sixteenth century.

      I was on a roll with the choices I’d made. I could not have designed an environment better suited to the development of the intellectual life I wanted. Don’t get me wrong: there were students and faculty who disagreed with my friends and me, but we genuinely welcomed their best arguments. Iron sharpens iron (Proverbs 27:17).

      So the next decision that faced me was where to go to church. Well-chosen Sunday worship would round out the experience. At the time I thought of worship as a mostly intellectual exercise, a concentrated Bible study ornamented with hymns and prayers. Any hint of ritual—liturgy—I dismissed as vain repetition, a dead work, and precisely the sort of abomination from which the Reformers had freed Christianity. Liturgy was for the lost: Catholics and Orthodox and their Episcopalian fellow travelers.

      I looked around for a while before I found the ideal church. It was in a little town about a half hour’s ride from where we were living. The pastor was my Hebrew professor. Harvard educated and on his way to an Oxford doctorate, he would become a hero to me, a friend, a model, and a mentor. He later went on to well-deserved fame—but all his great gifts were evident to me the first time I heard him preach.

      The man made Scripture come alive. His erudition was vast. His mastery of the ancient languages was complete. He held degrees in physics, engineering, and divinity. It was evident. Yet he wore it lightly and delivered it with memorable humor. He labored at his sermons and always strove to find the offbeat detail—something that would arrive as a novelty and seize the congregation’s attention. Then, once he had us, he kept us spellbound.

      FINISH LINE

      I vividly remember a sermon he preached on the Sunday preceding Easter Sunday. People who went to liturgical churches were waving fronds and calling it Palm Sunday. We were having none of that. But even in an evangelical church we could not ignore the nearness of Easter, and the time between, so our pastor preached that palmless Sunday about the events of Good Friday.

      He was always good, but he was never so good as at that hour, when he seized our attention and fixed it on the cross by which we had been saved. He was working with the richest material, more precious than gold or silver, and he didn’t waste the opportunity.

      He was a master preacher who calibrated his delivery with precision. But he was also open to the Holy Spirit, and so he would also speak as he was led—even if he might break his spell by doing so.

      He was narrating the Passion for us, synthesizing material from all four Gospels; and as he went along he provided theological commentary between the lines of the sacred text. At every point, his explication arose as part of the drama, part of the narrative—never extraneous, always moving it forward.

      Then he arrived at John 19:30, where Jesus said, It is finished. And all of a sudden he just stopped. I thought it was for dramatic effect. And I’d wager that everyone else thought so, too.

      When he resumed, however, he digressed from the homily he had been delivering. He asked us if we had ever wondered what Jesus meant by it. What indeed was finished?

      Okay, I had been studying homiletics. I saw what he was doing. He was asking a question of the congregation in order to set us up for the answer he would now deliver with a wallop. I was all ready. This was going to be good.

      But the wallop didn’t arrive. He admitted that he didn’t have an answer. It was clear that this digression had not been part of his scripted sermon. It was a thought that had momentarily seized his attention.

      I sat there squirming, thinking: Of course we know what it is! It is our redemption. It is finished. Our redemption is finished.

      As if he could read my mind, however, he continued: If you’re sitting there thinking that what Jesus meant is our redemption, you’d better think again. He pointed out that, in Romans 4:25, Paul said that Jesus was raised for our justification. Thus, the job was finished not on Calvary that Friday but at the garden tomb the following Sunday.

      The pastor admitted that he didn’t know the answer.

      He just moved on.

      But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I don’t think I heard another word of his sermon.

      I was sitting there, turning the pages of my Bible and wondering: Okay, then, what is it? What’s finished?

      Did I sing our closing hymn? I have no idea.

      Kimberly and I exited the church to a bright spring day. The pastor was standing outside, shaking hands as congregants went by.

      I took his hand and said, Don’t do that!

      He was taken aback. So I explained what I meant.

      He said he hadn’t prepared or intended to ask that rhetorical question. He repeated his assurance that he couldn’t answer it—but then he assured me that I would.

      Dive into it, Scott. Research it, and come back with an answer!

      I spent the rest of Sunday afternoon and evening diving into the text and its context. I wasn’t finished by that night. I went on to study it for days, for weeks, several months, in fact. You might say that I’m still researching it today.

      SEARCH AND RESEARCH

      My first round of research was to return to the text and fixate on it—to read the verse in its original Greek and then in different translations, to check the classic commentaries and then the more recent interpretations. I examined the text in context. I considered the small details of the larger passage: the sponge filled with sour wine, the careful notation of the calendar date, the decision not to break the dead man’s legs, and the repeated mention of the fulfillment of Scripture.

      All the footnotes and all the commentators kept directing me back to a single common theme, a story behind—or within, but certainly inseparable from—the story John was telling in his Gospel. The common theme was the Jewish festival of Passover. All the surrounding details were related to the traditional observance of the feast. I had a hunch that the key to the meaning of It is finished was also to be found in Passover. Jesus’ death occurred during Passover, and all the eyewitnesses were eager to find significance in the providential

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1