Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Sacrament: word + thing + action = sacrament

Two sacraments: Baptism and the Lords Supper

Baptism:

forms the covenant community

It unites us to the new creation by uniting us to the resurrection of Jesus

and its calls us to right living: we are to live according to our baptism

The Table:

We feast with the king as men and women, boys and girls, who have been brought into his presence by his work on the cross.

At Exodus we practice Communion every week.

And the reason we do so is because we believe that the table is that important.

However, practicing communion every week is not a popular thing to do.

And because of that as a culture we do not have a good understanding of the supper, for if we did, we would do as often as we could.

The early church practiced communion together at least once a week.

Every time the church gathered they would take communion.

However for us, its not that big of a deal.

We have failed to realize the power of communion

We have failed to realize how important communion is for the church.

We have failed to understand communion in its biblical context.

And because of all of this, we have become unimpressed by communion.

Have you ever thought?

“communion really doesn’t do anything for me”

“communion is odd, and i don’t really know whats going on”

“God is looking at me with a magnified glass during communion, so I better confess as many sins as I can before I take it”

“communion is important, which is why we should not do it every week.

Its more important and has more emphasis if we do it once a month, or once a quarter”

Lets apply that logic to other important things in your life

Eating with your family is important, should you do that only once a month so it won’t lose its significance?

how about brushing your teeth?

“I value my teeth so much I will only brush them once a month”

I would hate to lose the importance of kissing my wife, so I only kiss her once a quarter.

so she knows how important i think she is.

Same with my kids, I only hug them once a month so they never forget how important i think they are.

To do something less does not make it more important - very few things in life actually function that way.

What we find when we study communion is that it is so important, so meaningful, so powerful, that we should partake in it as often as we gather together - once a week.

The OT anticipates communion in some powerful ways

The NT people are formed by communion

communion is in fact one of the chief ways we are able to understand the gospel.

Think about that, when Jesus was in the upper room with his disciples before his death, and he wants to tell them about what was about to happen, he does not give them a theory, he does not sing them a song, he does not preach them a sermon, he gives them a meal.

The greatest theme in all the bible is food.

We see that the bible begins and ends with God giving his people food.

When God calls people into his presence he eats with them

And in some mysterious way Jesus pulls into the bread and the wine the greatest stories of the OT, the greatest saving act of God in Israel’s history, and all the realties of our future glory of feasting with Christ, and presents that for us in the sacrament of communion.

So as we work through this sermon I pray that there will be a trajectory set for you in your life to come to the table each week in awe of who God is.

So what sets the stage for communion in the OT?

All the feasts of the OT find their fulfillment in communion

and the greatest feast in the OT is the Passover feast.

When you read the gospels leading up to the death of Christ and the institution of communion you’ll see that the passover is mentioned multiple times in the context.

So we will begin by looking at the passover

Passover

Tell the story of the passover

The passover was the feast that Israel celebrated as a memorial to God for his redeeming them out of Egypt.

The night of the passover marked the 10th plague in Egypt.

Where God would send his angel of death to destroy the first males of both man and beast.

Imagine being a family during this time.

Mother and father who after years of trying to have kids finally has a baby boy.

You have been watching the plagues God has been raining down on Egypt for sometime.

The nile turning to blood was awe inspiring

The frogs were annoying, but kind of humorous

The gnats and the flies were terrifying

when the livestock died it really started to get real

Then, the boils came.

The boils were horrific and the pain of the Egyptians was sickening

The hail and fire from heaven devastatedEgypt

The Locusts looked like something from a nightmare

And the darkness only added to the nightmarish reality of the plagues.

But when you heard about the 10th plague, all of a sudden, what was a nightmare in Egypt became fear induced nightmare for you.

Moses tells the people of Israel God’s plan.

That he is going to send a destroyer to kill the firstborn males of every house.

Both men and beast will be struck down.

Yet, for God’s people he has made a way of escape.

Then Moses explains what Israel is to do.

You are to take a lamb into your home for four days (treat it like a pet)

It needs to be a one year old spotless male lamb

After four days you are to kill the lamb at twilight

take some of the blood from the lamb and put on the doorposts and the lintel of your house

then roast the lamb and eat it.

Don’t let any of the lamb remain until the morning.

If there is some food left over you are to burn it.

Also, as you eat it, be ready to go.

This is going to be the night that God deals the death blow on Egypt.

and rescues his people from slavery.

Exodus 12:12

Could you imagine the fear.

The fear of losing their son

What if God forgets what he said and he come in and takes away our child.

The fear that they may end up just like the Egyptians.

You see, the safety of your son was not in the quality of your faith to remember what God had said, but it was in the quality of the blood and God remembering his promise.

The fear

God says, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you”

When God sees the blood he is reminded of the promise he made.

And sure enough, no matter how anxious or fearful you might have been on that night, your safety was wrapped up in a God who remembers.

This night, the Passover, would then turn out to be one of the most formative events in Israel’s history

And God wanted it that way.

And as we see Israel’s history unfold we see that the passover was a celebration that lasted a week long, and the people of God were to reenact the passover.

The other Feasts in the OT find their origins in the exodus story as well.

But the greatest feast was the passover feast.

It was a celebration that formed the people of God.

It was not a somber experience where God called his people to ponder their sins, rather it was a celebration that lasted a whole week.

There would be lots a food to eat, wine to drink, games, music and so on.