Maunday Thursday

Introduction

Stuffed snails, sweet shrimp, sauced ostrich, pheasants, rabbits, wild sow’s udders, sugar cane, olives, fresh figs, grapes, and goblets and goblets of wine. There would be dancers, musicians, actors present to entertain. Servants waiting waiting in the wings ready to meet your on your every need as you lounged, dined, and were entertained. This would be the typical feast fit for a king during Jesus’s day. While this food all sounds good (or gross), the sweet shrimp from Libya, ostrich from Africa, cane from India, wasn’t about trying exotic foods. It was about showing your guests I can get ostrich from Africa. I can get shrimp from Libya. Sugar cane from India. Feasts put on by kings and emperors were all about showing their power, their wealth, their reach. Why? As one roman historian comments, “as a way to show off, network, reward friends and diss enemies."

Jesus is king. We said so last Sunday on Palm Sunday. He entered his city. His capital, Jerusalem with shouts of “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” So surly he would take advantage of the international pilgrimage to Jersualem for passover to strengthen his reign, flex his power. Surely, he would throw a lavish passover feast, inviting his friends and his enemies to “show off, network, reward his friends and diss his enemies.” But no, he in fact does the opposite. He has an intimate, private, simple passover meal with his 12 disciples. Instead of the display of power and wealth with exotic foods entertainment, he sticks to the traditional passover meal of roasted lamb, unleaven bread, and wine. If lavish is the word to describe the feasts held by the kings of the earth, humble would be the word to describe king Jesus’s feast. Yet humility turns to surprise and suspense as Jesus reveals this will be his last meal on earth. King Jesus will die tomorrow. So he uses this passover meal to show his power, his wealth, his reach to his friends and his enemy, and it couldn’t be any more opposite then the worlds.

Luke 22:19–20 “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

Feast on Jesus’s sacrifice

King Jesus says he himself is the meal for his guests. He likens himself as the bread. His likens his blood as the wine. And unlike kings who give bread for their own glory, Jesus gives himself for his disciples. My body, my blood, represented in this bread and this wine is for you. For us.

He is preparing them for his death tomorrow. Where just like you take a loaf of bread, tear it off and eat it, so Jesus will be taken, his body will be torn, and reason of his death will need to be believed in, ingested, in our soul to nourish us. Just like you pour out wine in your mouth, so Jesus’s blood will be poured out, and the reason of his death believed in, drunk deep in our souls to nourish us.

The reason his flesh will be torn and blood spilled at the cross is wrapped up in: New Covenant. God delivered Israel out of slavery in Egypt and brought them through the desert into the promise land. Yet in between and soon after they escaped Egypt, God formally made Israel his people by establishing a covenant with them through Moses. They would be his people and follow his life giving law, he would be their God, providing and protecting them. Covenants were always sealed with blood, symbolizing if you, people, break this covenant, your blood will be required of you. Why? Because you profaned God’s name and stand guilty before his goodness. Yet, in his mercy, God allowed animals to be offered in Israel’s place that they would be cut off and cut down, and not always the Isrealites themselves. This led to a system though of being weighed down by the law because they could never perfectly keep it, and seemingly offering animals in their place forever. This “old covenant” provided a way for God’s people to be with him and show the world how much better it is to be with him…yet it was a temporary solution.

The new covenant in Jesus the fulfillment of the Old and makes way for a fuller communion with God and his people. Jesus is God’s own Son, in becoming a man is taking on himself the human side of the covenant. Meaning, God’s own son is being counted also as one of God’s people, changed to keep his laws. Jesus does! He lives the life we were created to live. And yet, in great movement of grace, he dies the death we deserve. Instead of the animal, Jesus becomes the sacrifice for his people. Unlike the flesh and blood of a lamb that can only temporarily pardon God’s people, Jesus’s flesh and blood perfectly and eternally pardon’s all of our sin. So that his torn flesh and his shed blood becomes the means by which we can all become sons and daughters of God again, forever. So his flesh, and his blood which was torn and shed on the cross, signified in the broken bread and poured wine become through faith and the Holy Spirit, the ultimate nourishment for our souls.

And the one thing Jesus commands out of this whole passage is this: Remember. “Do this in remembrance of me.” “Do this” is his one command, and what it “this?” it’s “Remember.” Everything else he is explaining, but his one command: Remember my sacrifice for you in this way. Break the bread, drink the cup:

Savor my sacrifice for your salvation. x2.