Drinking in the Kingdom: The Last Supper ‘Vow’ of Jesus and His Death in the Synoptic Gospels

In Matthew and Mark, Jesus’s death on the cross is immediately preceded by the offer of a drink (Mt. 27.48//Mk 15.36). While many have argued that Jesus never receives the drink, this paper makes the case that Matthew and Mark both intend the reader to think that he did. This article demonstrates that Matthew and Mark have deliberately set up the scene of Jesus drinking from the cross with his pledge not to drink until the kingdom (Mt. 26.29//Mk 14.25), as well with as other scenes that link the kingdom to drinking imagery (e.g., Mt. 20.22–23//Mk 10.38–39). Luke’s account of Jesus’s death omits many of these details and relocates Jesus’s pledge not to drink until the kingdom. Matthew and Mark, then, emphasize the cross as a proleptic event of the kingdom, an emphasis muted by Luke.