Communion

Mark 14:22-25

22 And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” 23 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. 24 And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. 25 Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

Pray

I have been excited to cover this topic since I became the pastor here and maybe even before. Here we do communion every Sunday and if you are wondering why we haven’t done it yet, I promise the time is coming that many of us will partake together.

There are not a lot of commands that Jesus gives us to do. The great commission is probably the most recognizable. That is in Matthew 28 where Jesus says to go out and make disciples of all the nations, that is tell people about the work of Christ and their need for a Savior. Doing this, the hope is that the person hearing about Jesus will want to follow Jesus. When they do, we are to baptize those people in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and we are to teach them to obey all that Jesus commanded. That is to teach them how to be a Christian, what that life looks like. Within that is love the Lord, your God, with all of your heart, mind and strength and love you neighbor as yourself. Following those two, Jesus says that we fulfill all of the law, but there is one thing that not every believer really takes seriously and that is the Lord’s Supper.

The Lord’s Supper is one of the few institutions that Jesus actually tells us to do. In Luke’s account of this event, Jesus says, Do this in remembrance of me.” There are specific instructions and a reverence we are to have when we partake in the Supper. There are actually quite a few passages from the New Testament that speak of how this is to be done and what heart that you are coming to the table with.

Let’s look at the text and see what the Lord has for us.

22 And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.”

I really want us to be in this room with Jesus. It is at night in an upper room that would have been rented out or gifted to Jesus and his disciples to have the Passover. The tables are low to the ground and they are laying on the ground propped up by their elbows very close to one another. There are probably a few oil lamps on the table and in the room for light. The smell of cooked lamb is in the air, there are probably quite a few people in the room because this is a celebration feast, so you can imagine children running around, people talking at other tables. The disciples are at the table with Jesus and there are no distractions from people trying to get Jesus’ attention. He is solely focused on his friends. They are eating together, probably enjoying a great evening and there is wine and food and fellowship. During the meal, Jesus changes the direction of the conversation.

The text says that “as they were eating”, Jesus takes the bread. It is during passover so it would be unleavened bread which is bread without yeast. This is part of the passover meal because the Jews, who were the initial recipients of the Passover, had to eat quickly because they were about to flee Egypt. They had no time for the bread to rise. Jesus takes this unleavened bread and He thanks God for it. He blesses the bread and then He breaks it.

(The breaking, I have heard has been symbolized as the breaking of Jesus’ body, but none of his bones were broken in the process of His death. This was prophesied in Exodus 12:46 about the Passover lamb that none of its bones shall be broken.)

He is breaking the bread to give it to the disciples. There was enough of his portion to go around. Then he says to them, “Take; this is my body.”

This line has been a division throughout church history. Here at Community we say that the bread is the figurative body of Christ, while some denominations see it as the literal body of Christ. The Roman Catholic church and some others believe that the bread and the wine become the actual body and and the actual blood of Christ once they are prayed over by the priest in a process called transubstantiation. I don’t think that the text is pointing to a literal interpretation. In John 10:7, “Jesus says, “I am the door of the sheep.” No one reading that text would say that Jesus is a door, but he is the representation of the way that you have to enter in to have life abundantly. Just like the celebration of the Passover, the Jews did not have to relive the final plague of the killing of the first born son, they simply just had the feast and that was to remember the goodness of God and His making a way of salvation for His people.

Like the bread, Jesus,

took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it.

Jesus give thanks to God for the contents of the cup. He passes the cup around as he did with the bread and they all drank from it. They are all sharing in the portion of Christ. We see throughout the New Testament that Jesus takes care of his disciples. When he fed the 5000 and the 4000 there was always enough for the crowds and enough left overs for the disciples. When Peter has to pay taxes, Jesus makes the coin appear in the mouth of a fish. When Peter’s mother-in-law is sick, Jesus heals her. He is always providing for his followers. Even Judas had enough the whole time he was walking with Christ.

Then Jesus tells them what is really going to happen with his death.

This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.

Luke’s Gospel calls it the “new covenant”. This is not language that we use today. What is this “covenant”? A covenant is an agreement between two parties. Both parties are liable for their part. Each covenant established the basis of a relationship, conditions for that relationship, promises and conditions of the relationship and consequences if those conditions were unmet. One of the most familiar examples of a covenant for us is marriage. We make wedding vows, to have and to hold in sickness and in health, etc. It is understood that each person will hold up their end of the marriage. Where that breaks down is that you can’t know if the other person is going to keep their end of the covenant. We fall short, but God never does.

We see several covenants in the bible. The first we see is in Genesis 9, God makes a covenant with every living creature that God will not destroy them with a flood again. God makes a covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15 that He will make a nation out of Abraham’s offspring and God will give him land and a blessing. God makes a covenant with Moses in Exodus 19 and 24 to give them laws and to set them apart. In this particular covenant, God establishes a rule,

“if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

God will hold up His end if the Israelites hold up their end. He will not fail on His part.

Then God makes a covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7 that will establish his kingdom forever. In all of these instances, God makes a promise and He holds up his end. With this “New Covenant” this is God fulfilling all of the previous covenants. These covenants are fulfilled by Jesus, Jesus is the ark, all who abide in him are saved. He is the promised of Israel. He is the one that was able to live the perfect Mosaic law and He is the promised High Priest and King from the line of David.

This new covenant is exactly that, a new thing God has done. I think this is an interesting thing that Jesus does and it shows His deity. You can’t just change the order of the feasts and you can’t just add things to them. The feast have their rituals and if you have ever been a part of a passover feast it is very structured. There is no adding to or taking away. Jesus, being God, changes this feast. He does this because He is the one that all of the feast are pointing to. Jesus says that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.

He was putting away the ceremonies and the sacrifices because He is the one that all of those things pointed to. He will be the final sacrifice to God. He offers himself. He would be the one killed for the sins of the world, he would be the scapegoat that all of the sins would be put on his shoulders. Jesus gives us a “new covenant”.

This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.

This new covenant is that all who submit to Jesus and accept his act of love, will be saved from God’s holy wrath.

The entirety of the bible is God redeeming. Sin happens and from Genesis 3 on, God is making a way for His people to come back. In this new covenant, God has made a final way back to a right relationship with Him.

In this new covenant happening during the time of the Passover, God is showing us through the sacrifice of Jesus that it is a greater escape than that of the Jews from Egypt. It is a greater salvation than to not just be slaves anymore. It is a greater future than just a land that is fertile and good for living in. We are not being led out from captivity by human oppressors but from the oppression of sin. When we were slaves to sin, we had no choice but to serve that master, with the sacrifice of the Christ, we have freedom to not serve sin any longer. We have a greater future in that place where Jesus is. Jesus continues,

25 Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

This is the victory of the cross! The kingdom of God! This place where we will finally be at home with our King. No longer separated by sin, but face to face with our creator. Because this is our future, because we no longer have to carry the burdens of our past slavery, so that we do not look back and long for the food that is in Egypt as the Israelites did, Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Remember who Jesus is and what he has done for you.

The Apostle Paul reiterates this point in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Paul goes on to say that we should have an examined heart before we take communion.

1 Corinthians 11:27–29

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

We should not take the supper flippantly, we should not do it in a careless fashion. It means something. The use of the unleavened bread has meaning. Leaven is yeast that ferments the bread and causes it to rise. If there is a little yeast in your bread recipe it will go throughout and make the whole thing rise, maybe a little, but it rises all the same. Leaven is used as a word for sin. Jesus says, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” God wants the leaven out of his people. The unleavened bread is used to symbolize righteousness. Since we are no longer slaves to sin, righteousness can abound in our lives through Christ. That means that anger, bitterness, jealousy, unforgiveness, envy, lust, greed, selfishness and you can name the rest, no longer have to have reign in our lives. When we come to the table we have to examine our hearts.

If we have been forgiven how much more should we forgive. If we know how awful we can be, how much more can we extend grace to others. Paul helps us here with an explanation of how we should approach the supper in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8

Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

You don’t have to be perfect but you do have to be sincere and truthful to the Lord. With this I want to share communion with you.

We say this every Sunday, but if you are not a believer in Jesus, there is no judgement, people will not look at you funny, but please do not partake in this with us. I am not saying this because I want to point you out, I am doing this out of love. If you do not believe that you are a sinner in need of a savior then this means nothing to you. Taking it without a recognition of what it is that you are doing is actually mocking God, so please don’t do that to yourself. If you have come to know Him today and want to surrender your life to Him, welcome to the family and please take this with us, but come speak to me or one of the elders after the service.

There should be a communion cup in front of you in the pew. Please take one, if you do not have one, raise you hand and we will get you one.

Pray with me. I want my heart to be at one with your heart. I am giving you the unforgiveness that I carry, the sin that keeps me angry, the slavery that I keep holding onto is yours. I am unable to carry it any longer. Let me live in this unleavened life that you have given me. Let me rejoice in your salvation and your infinite love for me. Thank you for rescuing me from my bondage.

Peal off the top layer of the cup……