The Covenant Feast

Intro

Brothers and sisters... we come together in the gathering dark, and as we do so, we are about to do something holy.

You see, in just a few moments we are going to gather around this table set before us and do what Christians have done for thousands of years together. We are going to have a meal.

But let us note that this is no ordinary meal! It is a holy meal... a meal in which we recall the night we just read about, when Jesus said: "Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover" (Lk. 22:8). That night Jesus gathered his apostles around himself in a small guest room and celebrated Passover.

And what was the Passover? It is that meal we read about in Exodus 12 that God commanded his people thousands of years earlier to gather and eat once every year in remembrance of their being saved by him from out of Egypt.

As God says in Exodus 12:14: "This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord - a lasting ordinance."

That is what Jesus did with his disciples... he gathered them together to celebrate the Passover.

But notice too that Jesus does something new. Yes, he gathers his apostles together and celebrates the traditional Passover, but he reinterprets its meaning. He takes the bread for the meal and he says the traditional blessing and breaks it to serve his apostles.

And then he says: "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me" (Lk. 22:19). He then continues the traditional Passover meal. But again, he inserts something new into the meal, when he takes the cup - which we should note is the third cup of the meal, the cup which is called "the cup of redemption" - and he says: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you" (22:20).

Let us take note of what Jesus has done! And what a wonder this is. The ancient meal of the Jewish people is taken up once again, but now our Lord points out what its deepest meaning always was. He shows that it always pointed to him. He is the one who will once and for all redeem God's people. And the very elements of the meal - a simple loaf of bread and a modest cup of wine - become signs of his work of redemption. Bread for his body which he will give on the Cross. And wine for his blood, which he will pour out in place of a lamb.

And so the meal which God's people had celebrated year after year is transformed as the one who it always pointed to reveals its deepest meaning. This meal points to "the new covenant in [his] blood" (Lk. 22:20).

That is why we see Jesus say to his apostles as he reclines at the Passover table with them: "I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you." He desired this, because in this meal he would bring to an end the need to look back to a covenant which could not truly bring holiness.

"No longer would God's people need to look back to Egypt and Sinai for their redemption. No longer would they need to celebrate a yearly day of atonement. Now - from this moment on they would look to Jesus and his death on the cross as the sole and sufficient means for their atonement."

(Trent C. Butler, Luke, Vol. 3, Holman New Testament Commentary, 369.)

Jesus desired to eat this final Passover, because he knew that he would soon seal the new covenant with his body nailed to a cross and his blood poured out for his people. He longed to complete that work, which would truly feed his people. And in that moment nothing would ever be the same again.

And so too the Passover meal would never need to be celebrated again. Instead, his disciples would take up a new Passover meal - one which looked not back to Egypt and Sinai, but to the Cross and the Lord who hung upon it to redeem a people for himself.

My brothers and sisters, that is the meal we are about to celebrate. This is the meal of the new covenant. And it is not simply a meal... it is a feast!

Consider that as we partake of this meal, Jesus feeds us in a way that should truly astound us. When we take the bread and the wine, and eat it in faith we are united with him in a way that transcends words and should make us marvel!

Yes, this meal is no mere symbol. To quote John Calvin - As we partake of this covenant feast by faith, the Holy Spirit truly and mysteriously unites us with Christ who feeds us and pours his life into us (cf. Institutes, 4.17.10). And our Belgic Confession states that: "Just as truly as we take and hold the sacraments in our hands and eat and drink it in our moths, ...so truly do we receive in our souls, for our spiritual life, the true body and true blood of Christ our only Savior" (Article 35). What a wonderful mystery!

My friends, when God entrusted the Passover meal to his people he commanded them this: "When your children ask you, 'What does this ceremony mean to you?' then tell them, 'It is the passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians" (Ex. 12:26-27).

That should also apply to us and this covenant meal we partake in. When our children, or our loved ones, or the person we witness to ask us what this ceremony means to us - what a joyous response we have to offer! We can say, with voices trembling with awe: "This is the joyful feast of the new covenant. In it we not only remember that our Lord Jesus died on the Cross to save us, but he actually feeds us with his presence as we receive him by faith."

My brothers and sisters, just as Jesus longed to eat that final Passover with his apostles, let us too grow in our longing to eat this covenant meal - the Lord's Supper. Our souls should grow in their desire to receive this meal regularly... because we know that in it our Lord feeds us with himself.

We can never fully comprehend how it is that our Lord accomplishes this. But it is not in comprehending it that we receive God's gift... it is by faith that it is received! So, to quote John Calvin: "Therefore, nothing remains but to break forth in wonder at this mystery, which neither mind is able to conceive nor the tongue to express" (Institutes, 4.17.7).

Let us therefore come to the table this evening - and rejoicing together, partake of the covenant feast our Lord has spread before us - for he longs for us to have this communion of fellowship with him!

⁜ Let us Pray ⁜