Sermon Tone Analysis

“As they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.’”[1]

It is unusual when people recognise the full implication of transitional periods at the time they are occurring.

After a transition, we may recognise the magnitude of the change that has occurred, and with the passage of time the differences will become obvious; but seldom do we realise what is occurring during the time of transition.

It seems obvious that the disciples gathered with the Master around a table to observe the Passover did not understand the significance of all that was happening.

I am confident that you and I would have been no more competent at discerning what was happening had we been there.

It is not as if the disciples had not been taught.

Throughout the days the Master walked with them, He was constantly telling them of all that was to take place.

However, they simply could not grasp the import of His words.

Then, as He hosted the Pascal Meal on that final even He would be with them, He changed everything.

Again, the disciples missed the implication of what He did.

All their lives those first disciples had been trained to observe the rituals associated with the practise of the Jewish religion.

It is probably correct to say that they performed the various rites required by each ceremony without thinking of what they were doing.

In this, they were not terribly different from modern Christians attending almost any evangelical church.

Luther was distressed when, upon visiting Rome, he heard the Italian priests mocking the ritual of the Mass through reciting in Latin, “Bread you are and bread you will remain; wine you are and wine you will remain.”

Evangelical Christians are rightly shocked at the thought that liturgical Christians could degenerate into such nonchalance before the rituals they hold dear.

Frankly, it is easy for many evangelicals to believe that liturgical churches could slide into casual nonchalance when observing the rituals of the Faith.

However, are we really that different from our liturgical brothers?

Do we recall the significance of what we are doing as we participate in the ordinances of the Faith?

Are we holding sacred the truths we profess?

Do we realise the implications of what we profess and permit the confession to transform us as we worship?

Our meditations this morning are meant to confront us with our own error, calling us to pause to reflect on what we are doing through reviewing what Jesus did on the night He instituted the Meal we now call “The Lord’s Supper.”

Join me by reviewing the familiar passage recorded in Matthew’s Gospel.

*What the Disciples Knew* — The world of the first disciples was different from our world.

I’m not referring to the technological differences, or even to the cultural differences.

I’m asking us to focus on the religious observances with which they were familiar and to focus on the manner in which they worshipped.

To be certain, there were aspects of worship that were identical, but many things differed greatly from what we would find familiar.

The religious world from which the first disciples were drawn was undoubtedly more restrictive than that with which most evangelicals are familiar.

Though the Old Testament encourages honesty in those who approach to worship, religion for the disciples can best be described as rigid.

Before the Babylonian captivity, the people of God had begun to treat religion as a necessary evil.

The rites and rituals of the Faith they had received were treated as talismans—a means of private protection or of personal blessing.

Consequently, God, through His prophets, condemned the religious practise without underlying faith, and sent the nation into captivity.

Following the Babylonian captivity, the Jews embraced the religion of the fathers.

They carefully observed the law, but with the addition of the synagogue system and the institution of rabbis to interpret the Law of Moses.

With time, however, the rituals became increasingly codified and deviation from community norms was severely censured.

At last, maintaining the interpretation of the rabbis was more important than worshipping God.

By the time the Master arrived on the scene, religion in Israel was mainly a series of prescribed acts with severe censure from any deviation.

Let me demonstrate what I mean by referring you to several incidents when the Master clashed with religious leaders in Judea.

On one occasion, Jesus and His disciples were walking through a grain field on the Sabbath.

Since the disciples were hungry, “they began to pluck heads of grain and … eat.”

The Pharisees, seemingly ever present and apparently always ready to make certain that no rule was violated, exclaimed to the Master, “Look, you disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath” [*Matthew** 12:1 ff.*].

The tenet that the disciples violated was not one that is found in Scripture; rather, it arose as an interpretation of the proscription against doing any work on the Sabbath.

Hence, an interpretation became a law.

On another occasion, Jesus entered the synagogue.

The account Mark provides seems to suggest that the religious leaders planted a man with a withered hand in an attempt to get the Master to violate the Sabbath by healing.

Turn to the account provided in *Mark 3:2-5*.

The religious leaders “watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.

And he said to the man with the withered hand, ‘Come here.’

And he said to them, ‘Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?’

But they were silent.

And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’

He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.”

On yet another occasion, we read that the “Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem” to complain.

They complained, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?

For they do not wash their hands when they eat.”

The Lord answered their complaint by charging them with violating the very Word they claimed to uphold.

“Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?

For God commanded, ‘Honour your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’

But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honour his father.’

So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.

You hypocrites!

Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:

 

“‘This people honours me with their lips,

but their heart is far from me;

in vain do they worship me,

teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

[*Matthew 15:1-9*]

 

On yet another occasion, Peter was confronted with a demand to pay the temple tax.

It will help our understanding if we read the account as Matthew recorded it.

The collectors of the two-drachma tax asked Peter, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?”

Peter responded, “Of course.”

I get the impression that he simply wanted to get rid of the tax collectors, and hadn’t really given any thought to the issue.

Thus, we read that later, when he came into the house, “Jesus spoke to him first, saying, ‘What do you think, Simon?

From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax?

From their sons or from others?’

And when he said, chagrined, I suspect, ‘From others,’ Jesus said to him, ‘Then the sons are free.

However, not to give offence to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel.

Take that and give it to them for Me and for yourself’” [*Matthew 17:24-27*].

We see, then, a religion that wrapped adherents in a straitjacket of rules and regulations that were manipulated to make worshippers feel good about themselves, even though the careful efforts of the people attending worship would not—indeed, could not—bring them any closer to God.

Those who scrupulously attempted to follow the system of ritual set out by the Pharisees and the scribes would be so focused on their own performance that they would not likely ever draw near to God.

They would become like the Pharisee whom Jesus described in one parable.

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’

But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” [*Luke 18:10-14*].

The religious leaders had reduced religion to a set of rules, which if followed permitted the adherents to congratulate themselves on their piety.

However, the efforts exerted were of no value in worship, nor did the labours of those who followed the regulations honour God.

Listen to the Master as He excoriated the religious leaders before the people near the end of His ministry in Israel.

The passage is rather long, but it will assist us to understand the condition of religion in the days in which the disciples walked with Jesus.

Focus in particular on the obvious anger Jesus displayed as He confronted the scribes and the Pharisees in *Matthew 23:1-36*.

“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat, so practice and observe whatever they tell you—but not what they do.

For they preach, but do not practice.

They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.

They do all their deeds to be seen by others.

For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honour at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.

But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.

And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.