Sunday Sermon

"The Lord's Supper"
[Mark 14:12-25]
October 29, 2006 Second Reformed Church

When God instituted the Passover, He told Moses, "You shall tell your son on that day, 'It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.' And it shall be to you as a memorial between your eyes, that the law of the Lord may be in your mouth. For with a strong hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt. You shall therefore keep the statue at its appointed time from year to year" (Exodus 13:9-10).

This morning, we will briefly consider the Lord's Supper and what it means. And as we look at its institution, I pray that our hunger will increase -- that we would look forward with great expectation, as we plan, if the Lord is willing, to celebrate the Lord's Supper next week.

If we remember the institution of the Passover, we will remember that it involved a meal -- a lamb that was slain, bread and wine, as well as other elements. And modern followers of Judaism celebrate the Passover to this day.

Christians understand that the Lord's Supper is the fulfillment of the Passover, but let us ask a few questions about the Passover, before we move on to its fulfillment: How did the elements of the Passover -- the bread and wine and lamb -- cause the Israelites to be freed from their four hundred year slavery to the Egyptians? They didn't. The Exodus occurred some 3,500 or so years ago; how many of those people are still physically alive on earth? None. Then why today do they confess in the Passover that they were delivered from Egypt? In this way: "Egypt" becomes symbolic of all sinful bondage -- all separation from God by sin and bondage to sin.

Jesus told the disciples in that Upper Room that He would not celebrate the sacrament again until His Return. Yet they, and we, are to continue to celebrate the sacrament. As Paul tells us, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes" (I Corinthians 11:26).

If this sacrament is something that we are to continue to celebrate until Jesus returns, we ought to understand it, to the extent that God allows us understanding. Jesus "took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, and he said, 'Take; this is my body.' And he took the cup, [gave] thanks, gave it to them, and they drank all of it. And he said to them, 'This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many.'"

We live in a time and place when to ask the question of "what is the meaning of 'is'?" is sure to raise snickers. And we live in a time a place where we are being told that there is no Absolute Truth; there is no True Truth. There are volumes of books dedicated to arguing that words don't have any meaning in and of themselves, but only in a particular context. (I hope you see the irony.)

Words have meaning, and yet, we admit that context helps to determine what words mean because words can mean different things depending on the context. For example, if I said that Artie was wearing a "bad" suit, we would have to know the context to determine if I was saying that Artie's suit is bad, in the sense that it is not good, less than it could be, etc., or if I was using popular slang to indicate that his suit was top of the line.

When we interpret the Scripture, we must understand it in its historical context, and, more importantly, since the Bible is the Word of God and cannot err, we must understand it in the context of all of the rest of Scripture. That way we can look at a difficult passage and bring it in line with passages that are easier to understand.

So what was Jesus saying when He said that the bread "is" His Body and the wine "is" His Blood? And what happens when believers eat and drink Him in faith?

First, we need to understand that the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is not a sacrifice. The Roman Catholic Church teaches that each time the bread and wine are offered up, Jesus is re-sacrificed. And they teach that Jesus must be re-sacrificed over and over until His Return. But the author of Hebrews tells us, "And just as it was appointed for man to die once, and after that comes the judgement, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him" (Hebrews 9:27-28). Jesus was sacrificed once, for many. Jesus is not re-sacrificed in the Lord's Supper.

Second, we need to understand that Jesus is not physically present in the bread and the wine. Jesus ascended in His Physical Body and sat down at the Right Hand of God the Father -- as Luke tells us in Acts. In order for Jesus to physically be at the Right Hand of the Father, and at the same time, physically present on our communion plates and in the bread and cups of every one celebrating the sacrament, it would mean that Jesus' Physical Body is Divine, because only the Divine has the ability to be in more than one place at once.

Let us understand that Jesus is a real, complete, wholly human being, with a real human nature, but without sin, and, at the same time, in the same person, He is Completely, Truly, the One, Holy God, with His Divine Nature. This is what the Bible teaches, this is what the Church throughout the ages has confessed.

Quickly, see that Jesus is a real human being: in John's Gospel, "Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour" (John 4:6). Jesus grew tired, just like any other human being. Also, Jesus, like you and I, in our humanity, don't know when Jesus will return: "But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mark 13:32). Jesus is a real human being. However, Titus also identifies Jesus as the One True God: "[We are] waiting for our blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13). So Jesus is both a real human being and the One True God in a single person. And His Human Body and Nature are not divine, and His Divine Nature did not become human. Jesus is one person with two complete, distinct natures. So, if Jesus is truly human, He cannot be in more than one place at a time, so the bread and the wine are not the literal body and blood of Jesus; we are not cannibals.

Thirdly, we must not regard the sacrament as merely bread and wine, as though the sacrament is nothing more than a snack table. The Corinthian Church was treating the sacrament as though it was merely a place to get free food, and Paul condemns their actions, "But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear there are divisions among you. And I believe this in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No. I will not" (I Corinthians 11:17-22). The sacrament is more than a memorial with food.

Hear these words of Jesus: "I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And this bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. ... Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, not as our fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever" (John 6:48-51, 53b-58).

Jesus tells us here that the bread and the wine, like the elements of the Passover, do nothing -- they cause nothing -- by themselves. So, the non-believer gets no benefit out of eating and drinking the elements. In this passage, Jesus is not teaching that cannibalism leads to eternal life; He is not teaching that the Lord's Supper leads to eternal life; He is teaching that eternal life is in Christ -- it is through being in-grafted into Him, becoming a member of His Body. And just as bread and wine sustain us for a time on earth, Christ, in His Sacrificial Death, He secures for us life in this world and life everlasting.

So what is the Lord's Supper about? What benefit is it? What happens?

John Calvin wrote, "if any good is conferred upon us by the sacraments, it is not owing to any proper virtue in them, even though in this you should include the promise by which they are distinguished. For it is God alone who acts by his Spirit. When he uses the instrumentality of the sacraments, he neither infuses his own virtue into them nor derogates in any respect from the effectual workings of his Spirit, but, in adaptation to our weakness, uses them as helps; in such manner, however, that the whole power of acting remains with him alone" (A Short Treatise on the Lord's Supper, 203).

In other words, the Lord's Supper is a means by which God has chosen to meet us and strengthen us and assure us and deliver His Grace to us. Jesus is not physically present in the sacrament. Jesus is not re-sacrificed in the sacrament. The bread and the cup don't, themselves, do anything. But God has chosen them as physical signs to remind us of what Jesus has done, of the promises He has made to us, and to truly, spiritually, meet with us and minister to us as we celebrate the sacrament. Jesus is really, truly, spiritually present in the sacrament, just as He is in the reading and preaching of His Word, and He ministers to all those who have received Him by faith and confess Him as Lord and Savior.

If Jesus meets us and ministers to us in the sacrament, through faith, how should we come to the Lord's Supper? What should our opinion of the Lord's Supper be? Again, Calvin said this, "Hence, if we would worthily communicate in the Lord's Supper, we must with firm heart-felt reliance regard the Lord Jesus as our only righteousness, life, and salvation, receiving and accepting the promises which are given us by him as sure and certain, and renouncing all other confidence, so that destructing ourselves and all creatures, we may rest fully in him, and be content with his grace alone. Now as that cannot be until we know how by necessity it is that he come to our aid, it is of importance to have a deep-seated conviction of our own misery, which will make us hunger and thirst after him. And, in fact, what mockery would it be to go in search of food when we have no appetite? Now to have a good appetite it is not enough that the stomach be empty, it must also be in good order and capable of receiving its food. Hence it follows that our soul must be pressed with famine and have a desire and ardent longing to be fed, in order to find their proper nourishment in the Lord's Supper" (Ibid., 166).

In other words, as men and women who believe and confess Christ and understand that we are still sinners, we ought to long and be famished for forgiveness and complete relief from our sinful nature. So, we who come to the Lord's Supper ought to find ourselves chomping at the bid, hardly restrainable, longing to meet with Christ and to be ministered to by Him through faith and through the instrument of the Lord's Supper. May it be true of us.

Let us pray:
Almighty God, we ask that You would rid our minds of crass and common and profane understandings of the Lord's Supper. Help us to understand that the Lord's Supper is given to us as a means of receiving Your Grace. Increasing our longing, both to meet You in the Supper and for Your Soon Coming Return. In Jesus' Name, Amen.