HG146pt2, 147pt1, 148pt2 Matthew 26:21-35, Mark 14:27-31, John 13:31-38
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21 Now as they were eating, He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me.”
22 And they were exceedingly sorrowful, and each of them began to say to Him, “Lord, is it I?”
23 He answered and said, “He who dipped his hand with Me in the dish will betray Me. 24 The Son of Man indeed goes just as it is written of Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.”
25 Then Judas, who was betraying Him, answered and said, “Rabbi, is it I?”
He said to him, “You have said it.”
26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”
27 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. 29 But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”
30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
31 Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of Me this night, for it is written:
‘I will strike the Shepherd,
And the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’
32 But after I have been raised, I will go before you to Galilee.”
33 Peter answered and said to Him, “Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble.”
34 Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you that this night, before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.”
35 Peter said to Him, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!”
And so said all the disciples.
Jesus and His disciples are still in the upper room, however, we are seeing it from Matthew’s perspective rather than John’s as we did last week. They are in the room that has been prepared for them when Jesus sent two of His disciples ahead of Him to ask the one they met: “Where is the room where I am to eat the Passover with my disciples?” There was an assumption that this would simply be done no questions asked. John speaks of Jesus’ hour having come. This is what He was here to do. This Passover was going to be symbolic of His own sacrifice about to take place when this Passover will be replaced by another feast like it.
This passage starts with Judas just as last week’s ended with him. Jesus gave him chance after chance to step back from the brink but instead he rejected the light to go out into the night. What is our relationship like with Jesus? Would you say you have a personal one? I certainly hope so but let us also note that Judas had a personal relationship with Jesus too. So, our relationship had better be better then his. Judas was never really was on the inside, was he? How much you know Jesus is more about how much are we submitted to Him and what He says. Judas never actually trusted Jesus and herein lies the difference, I hope, for the rest of us. We trust Jesus absolutely for we truly know Who He is, which is Lord of all and the One who came to save us from our sin. We trust completely that the work of the cross is sufficient to cover all our sin and bring us back into a right relationship with God and that as a result we have eternal life. And this was proven by the resurrection of Jesus that we must also trust happened.
So, here we are at what is called the Last Supper or the Last Passover. But what was this celebration and event about in the first place? Well, that’s a good question. Passover is a particular event for the Jews.
In Genesis we come across a man called Joseph who was an Israelite. He was sold by his brothers into slavery but God was with him and eventually he became Prime Minister of Egypt and their saviour during seven years of plenty followed by a seven year famine by which time when he became Egypt’s Prime Minister. Before all this, Abraham, who was the first Hebrew, was told by God that for 400 years his people would be in Egypt but they would come back to the land that God showed him. During the famine Israel and his family moved to Egypt and then about 400 years later Moses came along and God called him to be a mouthpiece to Pharaoh. Moses was to tell Pharaoh to ‘let my people go’.
But Pharaoh refused, for by now the Jews were his slaves, and he had forgotten all the good Joseph had done for them. It is interesting that this is a criticism of Pharaoh seeing Joseph was so far back in history. I think that God does not like it when we forget the history of what He has done through time and especially for our nation. It was God who saved us from the Spanish Armada, it was God who saved us from Hitler, it was God who made sure King James I stayed on the throne during the gunpowder plot, and it was God who has brought revival to our shores on many an occasion. And God does not like it when we forget our own dealings with God. On Wednesday we heard that we all have stories about what God has done for us in Jesus and we heard about some of them in the ways God has dealt with us. We don’t just have one story but many to tell. These also help us when we come to those dispiriting times in our lives where we are just clinging on, we need to remember to cling to God and remember that God has worked in our lives and the lives of others in the past and He will do so again.
Pharaoh had forgotten his Country’s history and refused to hear what the God of Israel had to say. As a result there were nine plagues that were also a judgement upon the gods of Egypt. The plagues devastated the land but there was a tenth plague to come that would cast a shadow over all that went before. By now Pharaoh’s counsellors were telling him to let the people go but he continued to be stubborn and obstinate and though he is warned what will happen, he steadfastly set his heart in stone despite seeing that everything else he had been told had happened.
Could we be so stubborn against God?
Up until now there had been a difference between the land of Goshen, where the Jews lived, and the rest of Egypt in that Goshen did not suffer the plagues, and the Israelites had a way of avoiding the tenth plague too. What was the coming plague and what did the Jews have to do? Well, let’s find out by reading:
4 Then Moses said, “Thus says the Lord: ‘About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt; 5 and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the animals. 6 Then there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as was not like it before, nor shall be like it again. 7 But against none of the children of Israel shall a dog move its tongue, against man or beast, that you may know that the Lord does make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel.’
9 But the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh will not heed you, so that My wonders may be multiplied in the land of Egypt.”
Then Moses was told to
3 Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying: ‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household.
5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
7 And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it.
11 And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover.
12 ‘For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. 13 Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
14 ‘So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.
So, Pharaoh was told that if he refused to let the Jews go then all the firstborn of human and animal life would die. But the Jews were to be saved from the coming judgement in the killing of a lamb and putting its blood on the lintels and doorposts of their homes so that when the Destroying Angel came he would pass over them. Hence why it is called the ‘Passover’. And we read at the end of that passage that the Jews should keep this feast of the Passover every year. And indeed, that is what we find Jesus and His disciples doing for they are Jews.
Notice it was not about how worthy you were whether you lived or died but whether you believed the Word of God. Any Israelite that did not put blood on their door frames would suffer the same fate as the Egyptians but if you believed the Word of God by Moses that the firstborn were going to die and that you had to eat the lamb and put its blood on the door then, no matter whether you were good or bad, you were saved. And we know that the plague was devastating and killed all the firstborn including Pharaoh’s own son.
And here at this Passover meal which is compulsory for Jews Jesus institutes a new meal not to remember the Passover but to remember what Jesus was about to do: Let’s remind ourselves of what the passage we read said:
26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”
27 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
These words are very familiar to us as at communion. Just as the Passover is a memorial so is what we call Communion. And at the Passover meal Jesus took some of the unleavened bread present on the table, for there would not have been any yeast, for those of you who know about or have experienced Passover. Why? For yeast is representative of evil. And we see this from its main usage even in the New Testament:
6 Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little leaven leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new unleavened batch, as indeed you are. For Christ our Passover lamb has been sacrificed.
Christ, who was sacrificed for us, was without yeast, without evil; He was sinless. And just as the lamb at Passover was to be without blemish so was our Lord. And this new institution that Jesus established here was for us to partake in His sufferings, to be united with Him in His death and burial, to be united with His crucifixion, which is the symbolic nature of taking bread representing His body and wine representing His blood. We partake of the bread and wine and in so doing we are partaking in the crucifixion of Jesus:
20 I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
I have been crucified with Christ. Whenever we take communion we are reaffirming that this is the truth of the matter. The ‘I’ that was me and you was crucified upon the cross, all that was sinful, all that was unholy, all that was self:
21 For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Jesus took on our very sinful nature and the sinless, pure and holy one became sin itself so that it could be judged by a Holy God in righteousness and the wrath of God was poured out on Him instead of upon us.
Jesus said that this is a New Covenant in His blood. The Old Covenant was made between God and Israel based upon the law of Moses. Covenant or Testament simply means ‘agreement’. Here was a new agreement between God and people written in blood, the blood of Jesus.
Come to Jesus and look upon Him and trust Him and you can partake in the new agreement of having forgiveness of sins and eternal life. No longer do we need to make sacrifices to God in the form of animals, which were never effective anyway, but pointed to the One who was to come to be the sacrifice on our behalf. The Old Agreement could only work if we lived a sinless life and no one until Jesus had managed that. The only way to God is through faith and that has always been the way. Even before the old agreement was put in place Abraham pleased God. Why? Because he put his trust in Him. Faith in God has always been a personal choice; one that everyone has to make.
For those who trust in Jesus’ blood, that it is sufficient, will escape the judgement coming upon everyone else just as those who trusted in the blood on their door frames during Moses’ time trusted they would not be judged when the rest of the firstborn died. We have also have our Passover in Jesus.
The concluding words we most often hear at communion is from Paul where he says:
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.
We continue this feast until Jesus returns. In the Gospel passage we read at the beginning Jesus makes it clear He will not partake of this meal again until the New Kingdom is established. We can read into that that what Jesus did on the cross was enough:
10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
Once for all. He partook of communion once for all by laying down His body and shedding His blood and the next time He drinks wine will be to celebrate the Wedding Supper of the Lamb where all those He saved through His sacrifice will be present…Isaiah 53:11 Scripture says:
The New King James Version Chapter 53
He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
And what joy shall fill our hearts.
Let us trust our Passover lamb and thank Him for what He did for us. His blood covers us and we have passed from judgement to life forevermore.
And in the same way, after that first communion, just before they were to go out, what do we read? They sung a hymn. So, let us also do the same:
Benediction
Benediction
20 Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 21 make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
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