For the Last Supper Tells Me So

Read John 16:1-11

Let’s Pray

Things look a little different this evening don’t they? I know we did things a little out of order tonight and that most of us – myself included – are used to communion being at the end of service. Heck, even in the bulletin I had it at the end of the service, but after I started really thinking about tonight’s message I wanted to help us get into the mindset and understanding of what tonight was like for the disciples.

Tonight’s passage isn’t a typical Maundy Thursday scripture – one that is entirely focused on the last supper of communion in Matthew or Jesus washing the feet of his disciples in John. But, it does come to us on Maundy Thursday nonetheless. In fact, a lot of Jesus’s teaching comes to us on Maundy Thursday following the Last Supper. This is part of one of the longest sermon’s we see from Jesus aside from the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount. And a lot of this gets ignored far more than it should because Jesus was explaining the importance of what was happening on that night and what was about to happen in the days to come. He was explaining a lot of what he eluded to during the Last Supper.

So, having just had communion in an unorthodox place and way, I want you to put yourselves in the same mindset they must have been in. Confused, afraid, unsure… Now, often, we approach communion with reverence, but we know what it’s about and why we do it. Or… do we? Do we really understand why this was the last supper and what it means for us?

Jesus sat his disciples down and did these things to help prepare them. He anointed them through the washing of their feet and serving them in the basest way possible, and then he nourished them and told them to continue to do it so they would find connection with him by means of the grace offered during communion. It was a new covenant made through the blood and body of Jesus Christ. But, why did he do all of this? Does it make any difference in what Jesus was ultimately about to do? Everything he needed to do for the cross had been done. He was the perfect lamb and he went to the cross as the perfect sacrifice for the atonement of our sins, so why is the last supper so crucial to our identity as Christians? This wasn’t something that Jesus was doing to fulfill prophecy like he did in so many other places throughout his ministry. This was a new thing that He was adding to the typical procession of a Passover meal. So why did he do it and why is it so important in our faith today?

It’s important because Jesus was using it to prepare his disciples for what was to come. Sure, he had warned them before about how the world would treat them when he sent out the 12 and the 72, but he was also always there for them when they got back. His presence was still in place and no matter how much derision or hatred they encountered on their small missions away from Christ in his work, Jesus was still available to take the brunt of it. Now he was going to be gone and they were going to be on their own so he says to them at the beginning of this teaching; “’All this I have told you so that you will not fall away.” Which is a direct call back to what we read in the book of Mark. In Mark, when Jesus was talking to Peter about his denial, he starts of the entire conversation with, “You will all fall away for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.’”

So he was telling them that they were going to fall away and he was doing these things to help them NOT fall away. He was telling them that life was about to get rough. Really rough. He was going to be betrayed, he was going to be put to death, and the rest of the world weren’t just going to be satisfied with his death, but were going to call for the deaths of those that followed him as well. He told them this not to scare them but to give them a real picture of the future of his followers, but he was also telling them that he knew this was coming and he’s already planned for it. He was reinforcing them and giving them connections to him and anointing through him so that they would be ready for the trials the world was going to throw at them.

Have you ever approached the last supper that way? As a way of connecting to Christ as a bastion of calm before going back out into the storm of the world? It was something new for me as I was reading this teaching that Jesus was giving the disciples on the walk from the Upper Room to the Garden. The last supper was as much a means of reinforcing your faith to weather the storm as it is now a means of receiving grace and remembering our sins. I’ve always approached it from the ritualistic place that we receive communion and the liturgy that follows it. I’m not saying that what we’re doing is wrong because I think it is a beautiful way for us to constantly be reminded of what Jesus did and turn our hearts towards repentance and obedience in light of that sacrifice. But, this idea that Jesus was doing it to prepare them for the difficulties they were about to face is new for me. And I like it. I like knowing that when I’m having the bread and juice here in church that I am sitting at the table of Jesus, receiving nourishment and connection. Connection to him through the ritual of communion and connection to my fellow Christians. The people that are at that table with me. We – all of us here tonight – are a unit coming in to share a meal before we go back out into enemy territory. We are here, feasting with our Lord who is here to nourish and give strength to fight against sin in this world. That is a powerful thing to embrace.

But, like the disciples, we have to ask ourselves tonight, “Why did this have to be the last supper?” Why couldn’t it be like my son Cullen asked, and we could watch a bodily form of Jesus walking down the street, teaching and preaching to his followers and drawing the world nearer to him as a fellow man? We can look at it in hindsight now, and think that’s a sweet but childish sentiment, but that was exactly the question that the disciples were asking Jesus over and over again. Why? When? How? Why again? There is almost a sense of them thinking, “A week ago we watched you triumph into Jerusalem. Why are you talking about the end and not being with us when we know that the prophecy of the new Kingdom is about to be fulfilled? We are here with you, you don’t have to go anywhere. Now is our time. Your time! So, why are you talking about us being without you? Why are you telling us about how impossibly difficult this world is going to be? We thought you were going to conquer it and subdue it?” We thought that this was where it all started to get easier. Following you…

How often do we want to believe that? How often do we wish that the world would just get easier because we follow Christ. It would be wonderful if that was the case, but just like it was then, in order to follow Christ, we have to be willing to pick up our own cross and bare the hate of this world knowing the hope, joy, and salvation we have in Him.

But still…. But still… the question remains: why?

So Jesus tells them that He is conquering this world, but it will not look the way that they expect it to look, but that he is doing all of these things not to make it easier, but to make it “better” for them. Can you imagine hearing that? You are walking alongside Jesus. A man that you have followed for the better part of 3 years. You’ve watched him love outwardly, live faithfully, and serve unconditionally and now he’s telling you that he’s going to leave you and it’s going to be for the better!

How absurd does that sound? I mean, personally I study the Bible pretty regularly and I understand the theology around all of this, but it still hits me in a profound way when I think about what Jesus says in verses 7-9. He says that what they’re about to see and get isn’t a consolation prize that we all get because this world rejected Jesus. But that him leaving them - leaving their physical presence – is BETTER than if he stayed.

It’s better because they are about to receive the final piece of the puzzle. The Holy Spirit. That by going to the cross and leaving this world of his bodily form, Jesus was going to increase the amount of connection we have with God to be threefold. The revelation of the complete trinity through Jesus’s sacrifice and the gift of the Holy Spirit. That because of this act we would not just have a Father and our perfect advocate in the Son, but a third advocate on behalf of our soul in the Holy Spirit.

Y’all, as impossible as it is for us to imagine sometimes, Jesus leaving this earth to go back to the Father and advocate on our behalf at the throne is better for us than his physical presence walking alongside us. He states in verse 8 what the Holy Spirit will do and what we can testify to it doing in our own lives. The Holy Spirit is going to reveal to the world that it is wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement. Not just to those that are in the physical part of the world that Jesus is in, but to the entire world. And, as much as this world continues to actively ignore the call of the Holy Spirit, we know that they feel what we feel. That we know the impact and weight of sin and that the more we try to carry it on our own or ignore its existence the heavier the weight around our neck. We know that by adhering to the law of love set forth in Jesus ministry that we aren’t bound by the law but set free for joy through it. This world values freedom to do and believe and say whatever we want and that this freedom is what makes us happy, but as Christians, we can see and attest to what the Holy Spirit has shown us. That there is joy in the law of Christ. There is love at it’s center and that by having a Father that is love, by having a Lord that is our greatest servant, sacrifice, and advocate to the Father in heaven, and by having a Holy Spirit that helps us orient our lives around that law of love, we are set freer than any doctrine that could ever be written by man.

We are set free because He left us and we are empowered by the Holy Spirit living within us. And each and every time we feel like this world is overwhelming and that we are falling away from him, we should be reminded of the Last Supper. That Jesus did these things out of a parental love for us. To give us strength to endure. To give us reverence to who we serve. And to remind us that those that sit at the table with us are not foreigners or enemies, but fellow disciples sharing a meal. Looking into each other’s eyes and saying, “This is the body of Christ broken for you. This is the blood of Christ shed for you.” Connecting through the memory of this last meal with our Heavenly Lord in his earthly body. Because he may have had to leave us here in a hostile world, but he didn’t leave us alone. He gave us an entirely new set of gifts in the Holy Spirit, in communion with our brothers and sisters, and in our salvation through his sacrifice.

Jesus love me, this I know, for the Last Supper tells me so…

Let’s Pray