The Last Supper & The Dark Garden: The Meaning of Christ's Death
Pastor Tan Thai · Mar 21, 2018
Two sermons from the 'Saint Matthew's Passion' series explore the meaning of Christ's death through the Last Supper (Matthew 26:19–29) and the Garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36–46). The first shows that Jesus' death is the climax of redemptive history, a substitutionary sacrifice appropriated through the Lord's Supper. The second explains Jesus' overwhelming agony in the garden as the beginning of bearing God's wrath for sin, and the perfectly obedient act of both active and passive obedience on our behalf.
The first sermon opens by contrasting Christ's death — premature, shameful, and abandoned — with the peaceful, honored deaths of Moses, Buddha, Confucius, and Muhammad. The preacher poses the great historical question: why would the early Christians adopt the cross, a symbol of shame, defeat, and humiliation, as their emblem? Drawing on John Stott, the answer given is that the centrality of the cross originated in Jesus' own explanation of its meaning, most clearly expressed at the Last Supper.
In examining the Last Supper, three dimensions of Christ's death are presented: its centrality, its purpose, and how it is personally appropriated. Jesus takes the role of the Passover presider and declares himself to be the Lamb — the true substitutionary sacrifice that all previous Passover lambs foreshadowed. The phrase 'blood of the covenant poured out for many' is interpreted as the language of sacrificial self-substitution: he died instead of us, not merely on our behalf in a general sense. This exclusivity means Christianity is either the only way to God or it is meaningless — Jesus' death cannot be placed alongside other religious paths.
The third section of the first sermon addresses appropriation through the Lord's Supper. Jesus does not merely say 'this is my body' but commands 'eat it' and 'drink it,' emphasizing that the benefits of the cross must be personally received. Citing John 6, the preacher concludes that when believers partake of the bread and cup in faith and reflection, the Holy Spirit performs a deep work — making the truth of the cross a living consciousness that produces confidence, humility, peace, and healing.
The second sermon focuses on why Jesus' agony in Gethsemane was so overwhelming — greater than that of the many martyrs who followed him. The preacher argues that Jesus was not merely fearing physical death; he was beginning to drink 'the cup,' the judicial wrath of God against all human sin (Ezekiel 23; Isaiah 51). As he walked toward the place of prayer and turned toward the Father in his soul, he experienced for the first time the forsakenness and darkness of hell — separation from the presence of God. This explains both the magnitude and the immediacy of his agony: God allowed him to taste the furnace before entering it, so that his act of obedience and love would be fully knowing, fully voluntary, and therefore infinitely more glorious.
The sermon concludes with two major theological implications. First, the agony in Gethsemane confirms the reality of divine wrath and hell — removing these does not make God more loving but less so, since it trivializes the cost of his love. Second, Jesus is not only a dying Savior (passive obedience: bearing our punishment) but a doing Savior (active obedience: living the perfect life we should have lived). His righteousness is credited to believers' accounts, meaning the Christian life is to be lived with head held high, rooted not in self-effort but in the complete and double imputation of Christ's work.