Sermon Tone Analysis

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:

Then Moses was told to

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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:

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

Bibliography

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