THE FIRST SUPPER

THE FIRST SUPPER Matthew 26:17-30 March 2, 2008 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] The Seder Meal The Lord’s Supper Before sermons were ever invented, before clergy were ordained and churches were organized, before Christian church music was created, even before the New Testament was written, Christians gathered often and regularly for a simple meal they referred to as their “Love Feast”—a meal during which they did exactly what the Lord Jesus asked them to do – to share the bread and the cup in remembrance of Him. We know it as “The Lord’s Supper.” From these earliest days believers drew spiritual (and even physical) strength from the sharing of these sacred emblems symbolic of the body and blood of the Lord. This morning I wish to emphasize the centrality of this God-ordained memorial, given by Jesus Himself and grounded in unbroken apostolic tradition. Elizabeth Gomes wrote about her cousin's daughter Kathy who usually stays in children's church on Sunday mornings, but one Sunday she went with her parents to the regular adult service. When Communion was served, she turned to her mother and whispered loudly, "The snack in children's church is much better. And we get a lot more juice." It shouldn’t surprise us that the Lord would arrange for a meal to be the centerpiece of the faith life of His church; after all, the Gospel stories are filled with occasions of Jesus sharing a meal with His followers. Jesus truly focused on meals as a time of ministry. But He delighted in table fellowship with people—sometimes the most unlikely characters would join Him: Tax collectors and traitors, prostitutes and politicians, the outcast and the downcast. And at this institutional supper Jesus invited a betrayer, a denier and 10 cowards who would abandon Him. The Last Supper The night before He died, He shared the Passover meal with His disciples, and we call it the Last Supper. We probably owe that title more to Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting than to any historical church term. The Passover Seder meal, which Jesus and His disciples were celebrating that night, was a sacred feast for the people of Israel, but Jesus transformed it into a holy meal for his new people, the church. Reminder of the Seder Meal Thursday, March 20. Let’s read the text – Matthew 26:17-20 On the First Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?” He replied, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, “The Teacher says: My appointed time is near. I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house.’” So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover. When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve. To refer to this occasion as the Last Supper is to acknowledge that it was the final dinner, and a very special one at that, He shared with His disciples before His crucifixion and death. He did, of course share meals with them following the resurrection, and the scripture records several of these occasions. I have the sense that the post-resurrection communion meals with Jesus held a far deeper meaning for the disciples, because Jesus had already given His body and shed His blood. A 5-year-old son was waiting for his father to come home and when he was later than usual he asked his mother where he was. “Oh,” she said, “he said he would be just a little late this evening, because he was stopping by the hospital to give blood for the Red Cross. Five year olds know everything, of course, so he wisely said, ”But we know it’s really grape juice, don’t we, Mom?” The First Supper But there is good reason to think of this meal as more than the “last supper.” It is also the “first supper, inasmuch as He commanded them to continue this tradition after He ascended to the Father, until He comes again. The early church did continue the tradition. They called it the Lord’s Supper, or Communion. For 2,000 years the followers of Christ have broken bread and shared the cup, doing it in remembrance of Him. Acts 2 says that the earliest believers met often and regularly for the “breaking of bread”—shorthand for Communion. Toward the end of Paul’s ministry he gathered the church at Ephesus together to say good-bye, and Acts 20:7 says that it was the first day of the week and they “broke bread.” 1 Corinthians 11:26 says: …whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Why do we remember and proclaim His death? It is a tangible reminder to us of the sacrifice of the sinless Son of God on our behalf. Like the Passover Meal, the Lord’s Supper was a sacramental meal in which the deliverance of the Lord was remembered. God gave the Lord’s Supper to His Church, and through it He binds us to Christ and to one another in “com”-union. But this meal not only binds us to history; it also binds us to eternity as we look forward to Christ’s second coming and our being with Him in heaven forever. Do you remember how the book of Revelation pictures that union with Christ, that blessed hope? Revelation 19:9 calls it the “wedding supper of the Lamb!” How appropriate that we would regularly meet together around a simple table, like other Christians the world over, and all through history to REMEMBER what He has done for us and what He means to us. We have our slogans, “Remember the Alamo” and “Remember 9/11”. This morning, let’s remember the Lamb! It is also an opportunity to confess our sins and reclaim the forgive- ness Christ paid for with His sacrificed body and shed blood. There is much to be said for this refreshing and renewal. Henri Nouwen tells the story of a family he knew in Paraguay. The father was a doctor who spoke out against the oppressive government there and its human rights abuses. The local police took revenge on him by arresting his teenage son and torturing him to death. It was a brutal and vicious murder. The father responded with the most powerful protest imaginable. At the funeral, the father did not have the son’s body embalmed and restored to an attractive memory. Rather, he displayed his son’s body as he found it in the jail – naked, scarred and twisted from the electrical shocks, open sores from the beatings, and burns from cigarettes. All the villagers filed past the grotesque corpse, which lay not in a coffin, but on the blood-soaked mattress from the prison. It’s a horrid story, but the reality of evil was not covered up. You and I gather under the bloody cross of a murdered savior. And the evil of it all is not covered up. We drink grape juice, but it represents real blood. We eat bread, but it is symbolic of a ravaged body of an innocent man. And when we are at our best, we shudder in the knowledge that this is God who gave his life in this manner. The holy, almighty and ineffable God. He who made us died to redeem us and make us sinners new. The Seditious Man Matthew’s account of the events of this night, more than the other three gospels, focuses on the sedition of Judas. You will recall from last week’s lesson that Judas has approached the chief priests and elders of the people with an offer to betray Jesus into their hands. At worst, Judas was simply greedy for gain and had an idea on how to cash in on what he thought was the inevitable fate of his Master. At best, some say he was anxious to see the plan of God, as he poorly understood it, move forward, and in his impatience he forced the issue. That is a generous opinion of Judas, I think, because he still deliberately profited $300 or so. Any way you slice it, Judas is a greedy, seditious character, self-centered and shallow, forfeiting loyalty for lucre. Let’s consider a little further the complex issues of the Judas story. Look at verse 21. The scene as we left it is Jesus reclining at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me.” Talk about your awkward moment. All conversation ceased. Slack-jawed, the disciples weighed what Jesus just said. Their hearts sank; they stared at one another in disbelief, then, one by one, they began to wonder who it could be. Can you imagine how they felt? Each one, excluding Judas, would think to himself, “I know I would never do such a thing . . . or would I?” Verse 22: They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, “Surely, not I, Lord?” Jesus replied, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me.” The translation here is tricky and difficult. If only one of them had dipped his bread in the sauce with Jesus, then the culprit would be obvious. But the fact is, they had all dipped their bread in the same bowl. Charlotte and I recently had the pleasure of eating at a very nice Italian restaurant. As part of the meal they provided some delicious sliced bread and a dish of dipping oil, made up of virgin olive oil and a mix of seven fresh spices. Because we were on a date and we are close, we shared that bowl, each of us dipping our bread in it. Had another person whom we knew and loved been with us we would all three have shared that bowl (no double-dipping allowed, of course!). In fact, had twelve of our closest friends been with us, we’d have ordered a bigger bowl of dipping oil and shared it. What Jesus was saying was one of that intimate group of twelve who had shared the common dip was His betrayer. If it had only been Judas, what is the sense of the question he would ask in verse 25? Pick up at verse 24: “The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.” What a serious statement! This is the Son of God, not given to exaggeration, saying “It’s going to be bad!” Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, “Surely not I, Rabbi?” Jesus answered, “Yes, it is you.” (or, in some translations, “You yourself have said it.”) Jesus was going to the cross, as the scriptures foretold; it was the will and plan of the Father, to Whom Jesus was absolutely obedient. But woe to the one who betrayed Him. Judas, in his wickedness and treason played right into the overall plan. Notice, even in his unbelief, Judas served God’s purposes! While serving his own selfish will, while giving in to Satan’s scheme, he nevertheless simultaneously served God’s purposes! Karl Barth reminds us that “Israel, in her unbelief, still served God’s purposes. Joseph’s brothers, with murderous intent toward him, still served God’s purposes. Even Satan, in his ruthless treachery, when he managed to get Jesus crucified, actually served God’s purposes.” This is not to say that Israel, Joseph’s brothers and Satan were positively obedient to God. The fact is God is wise and powerful and turns even our most malicious intents to serve His ultimate will. God is big enough that He often permits what He hates to accomplish what He loves. And, as Augustine said, “God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist.” His purposes are never thwarted by evil. Over 100 years ago, a tornado struck the prairies of Minnesota. Many were killed, hundreds were injured, and one small town was almost demolished. In the midst of the disaster, an elderly British surgeon and his two medically trained sons worked almost around the clock for days aiding the stricken, bandaging wounds, and setting broken limbs. Their heroic work did not go unnoticed. Their excellence as physicians and their selflessness in the service of those in need created a following among the tornado victims. The doctor and his sons were offered financial backing to build a hospital, provided that they took charge. The men agreed and in 1889 founded a clinic that soon attracted nationwide attention. Their little clinic grew. The city was Rochester, Minnesota. The elderly doctor’s name: William W. Mayo. His sons: William J. and Charles Mayo. Their clinic is called simply “The Mayo Clinic.” It now consists of over 500 physicians treating more than 200,000 people a year. It is known worldwide as one of the premier places of health, healing and excellence in medicine. I’m sure if you asked the citizens of Minnesota about the Rochester tornado at the time, they would have said it was all about death and destruction, an unqualified disaster. But, put in the perspective of better than a century, and in the hands of a creative God, the tornado was really about life, help, and healing. Consider the awesome love and power of a God who can take our vilest and most evil actions, and then use them for His purposes. Romans 11:33 – Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Journalist David Hajdu recently told a memorable story about Wynton Marsalis, one of the premier jazz trumpeters of all time. One night, Marsalis was playing with a small, little-known combo in a New York club. A few songs into their set, he walked to the front of the bandstand and began an unaccompanied solo of the 1930s ballad, "I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You." Hajdu records that the audience became rapt as Marsalis's trumpet virtually wept in despair, almost gasping at times with the pain in the music. Stretching the mood taut, Marsalis came to the final phrase, with each note coming slower and slower, with longer and longer pauses between each one: " I don't stand a ghost of a chance " Just then someone's cell phone went off. It began to chirp an absurd little tune. The audience broke up into titters, the man with the phone jumped up and ran into the hallway to take his call, and the spell was broken. The journalist scratched into his notepad: "MAGIC RUINED" But then Marsalis began playing the cell phone melody note for note, working it seamlessly into his own number. He played it again, with different accents. He began to play with it, spinning out a rhapsody on the silly little tune, even changing keys several times. The audience settled down, slowly realizing that they were hearing something extraordinary. Around and around Marsalis played for several minutes, weaving glory out of goofiness. Finally, masterfully, he wound down, coming back to the last two notes of his previous song: " with you . " The audience exploded with applause. In the same way, our brilliant, adaptable God is at work throughout this sin-sick world, bringing beauty out of baseness, heroism out of holocaust, love out of loss—even salvation out of sacrifice. In your own life—the mistakes you’ve made, the wrong choices you decided on, the sins you have willingly fallen into—when you turn to Him and repent, He not only receives you and saves you. He redeems all of your life and miraculously works good out of all of it, and makes it all serve His purposes! Listen, even Judas could have repented! We should learn something else from the treachery of Judas. We can learn that there is a point of no return when it comes to sin. Notice how Jesus gave Judas three increasingly clear cautions or caveats. First, He said, “One of you will betray me…” General, vague; while others wondered and worried, Judas knew it was he. Second, “…the one who has dipped with me…” or “…one of the ones who have dipped with me…” More specific, but not isolating Judas quite yet. Then the third, the clearest warning, “Yes, it is you.” There was no more wiggle room. Judas knew in his heart, but now he had it straight from the Lord. Last chance to change. We are fond of saying, “It’s never too late to repent and return to the Lord.” But that is not actually true. There is a point of no return. One of two things can occur, either one of which renders you incapable of repenting. One is death. “It is appointed to men once to die, and after that the judgment.” Scripture gives us absolutely no reason to believe there is a second chance to receive Christ after you die. And actually the Bible is quite clear that your opportunity is gone when you draw you last breath. The second is extreme stubbornness. When you encounter the increasingly clearer conviction from God’s Spirit, it means you are drawing closer to the time when, because of your consistent rejection of His grace, you are training yourself to never respond. Be assured, the longer you put God off the easier it is for you to ignore His offer of salvation. The clearer the warning, the more urgent your situation. At one point God’s warnings and conviction will no longer attract your attention, will no longer affect you or convince you toward repentance. At that point the warnings of God’s Spirit actually drive you farther away from Him. Judas was there the moment Jesus said, “Yes, it is you.” In that precipitous moment Judas had one last chance to stop resisting God, to repent and return to Him. But he resisted one more time, to his damnation. How can you tell when a person is at that point? You can’t—unless the person is you. No matter what stage you find yourself in hearing God’s warning and His invitation to forgiveness, healing and a new start, one thing is always the right and godly thing to do: REPENT. Built into repentance is all you need: faith, because if you don’t believe in Him you will not repent before Him; humility, because if you will never truly repent unless you admit your sinfulness and guilt before Him. We believers know that sin wraps its grimy claws around us on a regular basis. We need a regular and consistent time to bring our repentance before the Lord and to renew our vows of commitment to Him. Communion is your perfect opportunity. Instructions for closing communion service… Read Matthew 26:26-30     [Back to Top]