The First Lord’s Supper
Notes
Transcript
very important moment; Jesus takes a tradition of passover, uses it to teach about the importance of his death, and institutes a new tradition called the Lord’s Supper
Today, both read and hear about the institution and also participate in it
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.”
How often do you remember what Jesus did for you through his sacrifice?
In December of 1944, during WW2, in a small mountain village in Italy, the US forces were in battle with the Nazi forces. There was a soldier by the name of John Robert Fox, who had joined the 92nd infantry which was a segregated division of African-Americans who serve in the military. Fox, who was an artillery officer, was in the throws of battle when the Nazi forces began to overtake American troops. The American troops were forced to retreat. Fox was tasked to stay behind in the village while the rest of the troops fled away. He made his way up onto the second floor of a house in the village. He saw an opportunity to save his fellow troops.
What Fox did saved all of his fellow troops from the Nazi attack. Fox radioed in for artillery fire to be directed at the village, where he was in hiding, so that his soldiers were able to survive. The gunner who received this message called back to Fox and pointed out that he was in the direction of fire. Fox responded, “Fire it. There are more of them than there are of us”. Fox sacrificed himself for his soldiers.
Although one may argue that this sacrifice was a great one, there is no sacrifice that has saved more people than the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross. There is no other sacrifice that can save someone from the eternal torment of Hell.
Each and every person, when they are born, have a default destination of Hell. Hell is a very real place that Jesus spoke of and we read about in scripture. And I believe that even with the descriptions that we have in scripture of what Hell will be like, that it will be much worse that what our imagination may make of it.
Jesus came to save us from this torment. And he accomplished this work on the cross through his shed blood where he died. They then put his body in a tomb where God raised him from the dead because death has no hold on him.
The Sinless Sacrifice of Jesus Offers You Salvation
The Sinless Sacrifice of Jesus Offers You Salvation
Our text today continues the lead up in the book of Mark of the journey to the cross for Jesus. He will use this time in the upper room to institute what we know as the Lord’s Supper for us to continue to observe as a remembrance of what he did on the cross for us.
This text is bookended by the 2 recordings in the book of Mark of disciples turning on him. Before this, we have Judas going and selling Jesus out to the chief priests to come and arrest him. And after this, we have Peter being told that he would deny Jesus 3 times that night.
Our scene with Jesus and his disciples in the upper room of the house is yet another time when Jesus alludes to his death. He has been preparing them throughout his whole ministry that he must die.
This is the crux of Christianity, it is the centerpiece. God came down, in the form of man, so that he could live a sinless, perfect life to be the spotless sacrifice. 1 John 4:10 “10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Propitiation is when the wrath of God is removed by an offering. Jesus offered himself up for our sins so that we can be reconciled to God. He is sinless and in mere hours, he will hang on the cross and physically die.
His sinless sacrifice is foreshadowed in the institution of the Lord’s Supper in this moment. They are already gathered and are celebrating Passover. We looked a little into what passover was in last weeks text. But Passover is a celebration of God saving the people of Israel out of the bondage of slavery in Egypt and delivering them into the promised land. Much like Passover, the Lord’s Supper was instituted as a celebration of God saving both Jews and Gentiles from the bondage of slavery to sin and delivering them from death in our sin to life in Christ. Let’s look at this celebration.
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.”
So they were already partaking in the passover meal. Jesus took bread and broke it and gave it to them. In the church I grew up in, my grandma was the one who was tasked with preparing the bread for communion. Now, I know there is a debate about what type of bread to use for communion, but she baked sour dough bread. I benefited personally from this because when it came time to clean up, she let me “clean up”.
Jesus takes this bread and uses it to symbolize his body for them. There is this theological idea that has been around for a very long time dealing with the Lord’s Supper called transubstantiation where they believe when someone takes communion, that the bread and juice actually become the blood and body of Jesus when taken. They say that it is because when Jesus instituted it, he says that it is his body and his blood. We do not believe that. We believe it is a celebration of what Jesus did on the cross. Yes, Jesus did say that it was his body. He also said that he is a door, a light, a vine, and a shepherd. And we all know that he was not in actuality any of those things.
23 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it.
He blesses the bread and the cup. They all partake of it. He uses these as object lessons. The bread being his body and the wine being his blood. Like I said, they are not literally those things. But we know that they symbolize things about Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection. The bread symbolizes his body. And often, you may hear it said, and I may be guilty of saying, that it was broken to symbolize the body of Jesus being broken.
It was prophesied that the Messiah would not be broken.
20 He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.
When we get to the book of John and read about the crucifixion, we see that the soldiers went to break the legs of the men who were hanging on the cross. This was to aid in the process of the men hanging on the cross to die. While they were on the cross, they would push themselves up by their feet to help themselves breathe because they were being asphyxiated. They broke the first two mens legs. But when they got to Jesus, there was no need to break his legs because he had already died.
32 So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him.
33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
This fulfilled scripture that his body would not be broken. So he did not break the bread to symbolize his body being broken. He broke the bread to symbolize his distributing himself to his people. We are offered Christ’s sacrifice through him giving himself both for us and to us. But it wasn’t just his body that was symbolized.
24 And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.
Blood is the symbol of life. My grandfather when I was growing up, operated a butchering business for deer hunters. This is not me attempting to gross anyone out, so I will leave out the details that may be too much. But we would never have someone kill a deer and them immediately cut it up and package the meat. This is because there is still blood in it. With any animal, you want to give it time to let the blood drain out. Blood is the symbol of life.
All throughout the OT we read about blood being life. Noah was instructed in Genesis 9 not to eat anything with the blood still in it. Leviticus 17, Deut. 12. It is forbidden by God to both Jews and Gentiles not to consume blood. It is because blood is the life of man. Just as Jesus is giving them wine representing his blood, he has shed his blood for us to give us life. He gave up his life for ours.
But, there will be some who never get to experience the life of Christ through his shed blood. Even here, Jesus doesn’t say that his blood is poured out for all. He says it is poured out for many. This is where some people may get uncomfortable, but all throughout scripture, people are saved by faith. Faith in the Old Testament was faith in God shown through obedience to his commands. Commands such as the one given when the 10th plague was going to happen in Egypt. The command to take blood, another parallel, and spread it over the doors of the homes. Was the blood that was put on the doors for everyone? No, it was for many, but not everyone because there were some who died.
Jesus shed his blood for those who would believe. We must know what his blood has done. His blood has forgiven our sins. If he shed his blood for all, then that means his blood has forgiven the sins of those who do not believe through faith. And this is not possible. Our sins are forgiven through the blood of Jesus and made evident by our faith in his work on the cross.
This is the covenant that he is talking about. In the OT, there were several covenants that were made by God to people. The similarity between all of these covenants was the looking towards the messiah who was to come. They were saved just as we are saved. By grace through faith in the redeeming work of the messiah. The difference in the old covenant and the new covenant is that Christ has now accomplished that work on the cross.
This new covenant that Jesus is telling his disciples about is not a covenant that is sealed by the blood of sacrificial lambs that you would need to take to the priest yearly to have your sins forgiven. No, it is sealed by the blood of the lamb Jesus who went willingly to the cross to die for your sins for all of eternity. And this covenant is not restrictive for just Jews but is available for both Jews and Gentiles. It is offered to all.
This meal that Jesus instituted with his disciples should be striking to us as well. The book of Mark does not record it like this for us to see it as how it is to be done, but we see that it says that ALL of the disciples partook of the meal, even Judas. One could argue that none of them were truly Christians at the time, but I believe that to be incorrect. We see desire and love from them towards Jesus. And yes, they would all flee when persecution against them arises in the coming hours.
But only one of them had the intent before the action. Judas himself was sitting among them and partaking of the Lord’s Supper. When we read this and then go over to 1 Cor. 11 when Paul is teaching the Corinthian church about the Lord’s Supper, we see that our hearts are a big part of this meal.
The Corinthian church had a lot of issues going on and one of them was how they were taking the Lord’s Supper. They were divided as a church and had factions among them. Then they would abuse the Lord’s Supper. Some would go hungry and others would get drunk. He was correcting them in their actions and telling them that how they were acting is not how you should be treating the church. But then he gives a warning to them, not about anything outward they were doing, but for their inward posture.
27 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.
28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
It is all about our hearts. What happens outwardly is an overflow of what is going on inwardly. We come together around the Lord’s table to remember what Jesus did for us. He shed his blood for us so that we may have eternal life with God. Is this evident both inwardly and outwardly?
How often do you remember the sacrifice Jesus made because of your sin?
This is where we are going to leave this today. We are going to spend some time remembering what Jesus did for us on the cross. And maybe you are here and this is the first time that you can admit that Jesus went to the cross for you and your sin. You now believe. Praise God. We want to know about that so afterwards, pull me aside. Right now, we are going to spend time remembering the work of Jesus on the cross. But also, checking our hearts. Examining ourselves to see if there are things that we need to confess to God or to someone else. Spending time repenting of anything that would make us come to the table in an unworthy manner.
So we are just going to sit here and spend some time in prayer preparing ourselves to partake in the Lord’s Supper.
24 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.”
25 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.”
This week, spend time meditating on what Jesus has done for you through the shedding of his blood. Share with someone the changed life that is offered through faith in Christ. And remember what Jesus did for you on the cross.
