The Last Supper
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Every week we partake of Communion and every week, I give a sermonette before it, as if I didn’t speak long enough during the actual sermon. Often it is in regards in our having close communion versus closed communion or open communion. Sometimes I elaborate on being a baptized believer or being in good standing with your home church. And so forth. And I do it for a reason—more than just segueing into the Lord’s Supper. I do it because I want everyone always to remember that the bread and cup that we eat and drink are for every believer in Jesus—not just for the “good” ones or the ones who have their lives together. The only people who ought to refrain from taking the Lord’s Supper are those who have no claim to a relationship with Christ. That includes those under ultimate church discipline. In other words, exCOMMUNication, those who are disallowed access to communion because they have shown no communion with God through Jesus in the first place.
Otherwise, we who struggle with doubts, struggle with lust, struggle with anger, struggle with depression, struggle with past pains, struggle with escapism, struggle with lying, struggle with identity in Christ, and whatever else, would miss the joy of partaking of the bread and cup. To struggle with these things and things like it, was not what Paul implied when he mentioned taking communion in an unworthy manner. And as we open up Luke this morning, I want us to see four components of Communion that we often miss or take for granted:
The Preparation of Communion
The Place of Communion
The People of Communion
The Power of Communion
Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.
So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.”
They said to him, “Where will you have us prepare it?”
He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house that he enters
and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’
And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there.”
And they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.
And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him.
And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves.
For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
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.
But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table.
For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!”
And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this.
The Preparation of Communion
The Preparation of Communion
The first component that I want us to see is that Jesus sent Peter and John to prepare for the Passover.
Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.
So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.”
This of course, led to the question as to location, which we will talk about soon enough. But Cyril pointed out that Jesus’s response was cryptic. Rather than tell them where, he told them that they’d find a man holding a jar of water. That would be have been weird because that would be something a woman would be doing. It would be like Jesus telling the two to look for a man holding a purse today. But Cyril believed that Jesus intentionally was cryptic so that Judas would not know where they were to meet until the Passover had begun.
But what I want us to think about is this: there was a preparation that had to be done in order for the disciples to participate in the Passover together. The lamb had to be found, slaughtered, skinned, and roasted. The herbs had to be gathered and the salt water made. The bread needed to be mixed and then baked. The table had to be set. Some even believe that since Luke stresses the Unleavened Bread that the disciples would then need to have swept out the house of any leaven, and that’s possible.
The Passover was not just something that could be thrown together in half an hour. Peter and John were tasked with an important job. Without their preparation, no one would partake of the Passover Lamb.
Brothers and sisters, many of us have grown up and have spent much of our adult lives hearing the need to prepare ourselves for Communion, the meal that took the place of Passover. But the reality is that it has already been prepared—we have been prepared. Now certainly there is the preparation of the bread and cup. The deacons take care of baking the bread and cutting it and pouring the juice in the cup. That doesn’t miraculously happen. But the preparation that we most often think about has already been done. And it was done by Jesus himself.
Jesus was and is our Passover Lamb who prepared himself to die in a particular place: the cross. He is the one who frees us and cleanses from all our sin. He is the one who prepares a table for us in the midst of our enemies that we may commune with him. Jesus is the one who has prepared it all for us. All we need to is show up and participate and enjoy the time that we have with him.
The Place of Communion
The Place of Communion
But it is not just the preparation of communion that I want us to see, but the place of communion as well. That’s the second component. While Jesus didn’t express where the Passover meal was going to take place, there was a specific place he had in mind. He told them the man with the water jar would show them, but he also said that it would be a large upper room. And it came about just as Jesus said it would.
Originally, we find that the Passover took place in the home. It was meant to be a family meal. Remember each family would kill their own lamb and spread the blood on the door posts and lentils. Only if there was a family that was too small to eat the lamb in its entirety, would that family join another family. More about this later.
Just before entering into the Promised Land, God revealed that the Passover was to be celebrated where he had chosen to dwell. Thus, initially Shechem and then finally Jerusalem, but it was still to be taken within the family. The lamb would be slaughtered at the tabernacle and then finally the temple and taken back to the family.
Beloved, there is a place for communion. On the one hand, we could spiritualize this and say that the place is in the heart of every believer and that would be true. After all,
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.
is written to believers, not unbelievers. Jesus is always interested in communing with those who follow him, even when they are not always acting like it. We are after all, individually temples of the Holy Spirit, the place that God has chosen for his name to dwell.
But, physically, there is a place to partake of communion as well; it is to be in the home of the family. By that, I do believe that communion is to be in the place where the church family meets. Paul wrote in
For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part,
for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized.
When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat.
Notice in verse 18, Paul mentions that when you come together as a church. His point in bringing this up is that when they come together in one central location, they are taking what they would call “The Lord’s Supper,” but because they are not waiting for everyone to show up, they really aren’t taking Communion at all. He brings up the point of “coming together” multiple times in the text. The place of Communion, physically speaking, is the place where the church family comes together.
Those in Corinth refused to wait for everyone to show up. And, I think common sense would say that Paul didn’t mean every single person—those who are sick, those out of town, those who were home bound—would not show up. But the Corinthians problem is that the rich just weren’t waiting for the poor to show up—which strips communion of its community. Paul certainly taught there was a place for communion—where the church calls home. Incidentally, have you ever thought about why we wait to eat the bread and drink the cup at the same time? It represents our communion together. We wait for everyone to have the elements.
I’m not trying to sound pharisaical here, but I do believe that we ought not partake of communion in places where the church is not; in other words, when the church is separated. Thus, we ought not partake of it on mission trips or on our own as families. I think delivering it to the homebound is fine as they are unable to be here and we still want to show they are part of our community. The place matters because the place is home for the church family.
The People of Communion
The People of Communion
Which takes me to the third component: the people of communion.
And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him.
And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
Now, we need to be careful at this point in Luke. Matthew and Mark put Judas’s leaving the Passover Meal before the Lord’s Supper is instituted. Luke seems to put it after it. Most likely though, Luke is lumping all the wrongdoings by the disciples together. Judas’s betrayal, arguments over who is the greatest, and Peter’s predicted denial. In this case, he isn’t going in order of occurence, but making a show of how wrong they all had gotten Jesus and this meal.
That being said, I want us to notice the people of the communion. Luke calls them the apostles. They’re the sent-out ones. They are the very ones that Jesus would commission with the Great Commission. They were the ones that would take his message throughout the known world. They were the ones to carry on what he had started. Keep that in mind and put that with what Luke then tells us about these apostles: one betrayed, they all argued, one would deny. And yet, we see the second saying I want us to notice.
Jesus said, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you!” Those words “earnestly desired” are not to be overlooked. They aren’t to be minimized. The Greek word for this is epithumia. As Philip Ryken pointed out in his commentary that this word “expresses intense longing. …Here we see his ardent affection for his disciples. There is no one Jesus would rather have been with on this last night than his closest friends. As he looked into the faces of the men gathered around the table that night, his heart was full because his intense longing to share this meal with them was satisfied.”
Here is what I think is true for so many Christians around the world and probably in this worship center: I think many do not believe that Jesus longs to have this meal with you. I think many do not believe that Jesus has much affection for them at all. He tolerates them, but is not passionate about them. He receives them as his own, but at arms length, not affectionately. But what is true for the original apostles, is true for us as well.
Jesus willing came to earth as a baby and grew up into manhood. He willingly walked among the sinners as holy God in the flesh. He willingly sought after and ate with tax-collectors and sinners. But in this instance, he earnestly desired to eat this meal with his spiritual brethren. Nothing has ever changed in that regard.
Remember the Passover was to be eaten just with the family. There were minor exceptions; the rule was family only. Now, we may not always want to eat with our families. There’s the crazy uncle or the cousin who can’t stop talking politics, but that’s not Jesus. Jesus always loves eating with his family. Always has and always will, no matter their foibles and failures. Here before Jesus was a betrayer, a hard-headed, speak before thinking, soon-to-be denier, two brothers called the sons of thunder because they were so argumentative, a former zealot that was planning to overthrow the government, a tax collector who had betrayed his own people, and all of them never actually understood Jesus for who he was, assuming certain things, disbelieving other things. But, now they were family. Jesus made them such.
Remember Peter’s complaint to Jesus when the rich, young ruler went away? Do you remember Jesus’s response?
And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.”
And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God,
who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life.”
You’ve left family for me, but you will have a family bigger than you could imagine in this time and the age to come. Beloved, behold your family. We’re a bunch of misfits with different temperaments and hobbies and experiences, but we are family. We each have our own levels of understandings, some have strong faith some have weak faith. Some cut against the grain and some are unwilling to cut at all.
But again, he said to all of his brothers, those who soon would argue: “I earnestly desire to eat this meal with you.” He said to the one who would deny him in just a matter of hours: “I earnestly desire to eat this meal with you.” Your sin and my sin does not make it any less true. Jesus does not say, “I only eat with those who are worthy to eat with me. Those who haven’t sinned this past week. Much less, this morning!” Jesus is always, “I earnestly desire to eat this meal with you.”
The Power of Communion
The Power of Communion
Which takes us to that last component: the power of communion. So far, we’ve seen the preparation, the place, and the people of communion. Now we get to the power of communion.
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.
The whole point of eating a meal together is to show that one is in communion with those who eat with him. Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples, but then instituted the Lord’s Supper out of it which was just for his disciples to eat together. So let’s step back for a moment.
There were multiple parts to Passover. I’m not going through all of them, but just enough to help us understand Luke’s account.
Four of those parts were four cups of wine. Jesus participated in three of the four cups. There was an initial cup and then after washing hands, they ate the bitter herbs with the salt water. At this time, the leader would uncover three loaves of unleavened bread and pull out the middle one and break it in two. The larger piece he put aside for later, and the smaller piece was returned. The story of the Exodus would be told, the two and a half loaves of bread eaten and the second cup of wine drunk, and the questions from the children would be asked and answered. At the end of the meal, the third cup is drunk. It is called the cup of blessing.
The cup itself is not blessed, but God that is blessed/praised. He is the one who deserves our praises. This is the cup that Luke mentioned in
And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves.
It probably doesn’t sound like it, but Jesus did participate in this cup. He drank part of it as well, but it would be the last time he drank wine.
After everything was done, that last piece of bread, the bigger half of the broken loaf was eaten. This was called the afikomen. Afikomen basically means dessert; it’s the last thing eaten after the meal. Jesus took this large piece of bread and broke it. Traditionally, the host broke it into olive-sized pieces and gave it to each guest. Jesus did not eat this bread. He gave it to his disciples. By them eating it, it was to represent their unity that they had with one another because of Christ. Which is why Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 10:17 that we are the bread. We are the united body of Christ.
The same goes with the last cup of wine. Jesus didn’t drink this one. He gave it to the disciples. This was the cup of the New Covenant, in fact it was called and is called the Hallel cup. Hallel (as in Hallelujah—praise Yahweh) was a song of praise and of asking that God would redeem Israel and the world, which he did through the blood of Jesus.
Bread was and is considered to be the staple for life. It gives nourishment to the weakened body. Wine is given as a sign of joy. This is the power of communion, not that it becomes the body and blood of Christ; it doesn’t. But that it in communion—in the taking of the bread and wine—the elements of bread and wine—nourishment and joy—remind us that Jesus both nourishes our weakened spirits and renews the joy of our salvation. In essence, every time we take of the bread and cup, we are showing our unity with one another that comes only because Jesus has given us life everlasting and never-ending joy!
J. C. Ryle put it this way, “The two elements of bread and wine were intended to preach Christ crucified as our substitute. They were to be a visible sermon, appealing to the believer’s senses, and teaching the old foundation-truth of the Gospel, that Christ’s death on the cross is the life of man’s soul.”
That’s the power! The power is not to make us feel like failures. The power is not to make us nervous. The power is not to make us be ashamed or guilt-ridden. It’s power is life! It’s power is remembrance of forgiveness. We rejoice that even in the midst of our failures and sins, God has not given up on us but is faithful to complete what he has started. We are nourished with the fact that Jesus gave himself for us so that we would eventually be without spot or wrinkle, even though that is not yet accomplished. That’s why theologians have called this a means of grace. It is a way in which God bestows sanctifying grace to us.
Conclusion
Conclusion
I know there is so much more to talk about with Communion, but that will do it for today, except for our weekly partaking of this meal of unity. We do not believe that the elements turn into the body and blood of Jesus. But we don’t believe that it is just a memorial either. We believe that Jesus is spiritually present with us. How that happens, we do not exactly know. It is a mystery that we may understand when he returns. But he is here spiritually just as surely as he was there physically with his disciples. He is enjoying being a part of this time with us. He earnestly desires to share this moment, this supper with his brothers and sisters.
