“The Elements”
[Luke 22:14-23]
January 20, 2013 Second Reformed Church
Lord willing, for the next three
weeks, we will be looking at different aspects of the elements of the Lord’s
Supper. That is, we will be looking at
the bread and the cup in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Today, we are considering what the elements
are and what they are not.
The night that Jesus was betrayed,
He instituted the Lord’s Supper, and we read:
“And when the hour came, he reclined
at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, ‘I have earnestly
desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will
not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.’”
The first thing we ought to notice
in our text is that Jesus and the apostles were celebrating the Feast of the
Passover – the Lord’s Supper is derived – or is a recasting – of the Feast of
Passover. To make sure we remember what
the Passover was, we ought to hear the account of the institution of the
Passover – we will better understand what the Lord’s Supper is by doing so:
“The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in
the land of Egypt, ‘This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It
shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of
Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb
according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household. And if the
household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take
according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall
make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year
old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it
until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the
congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.
“’Then they shall take some of the
blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which
they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with
unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw
or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts.
And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains
until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your
belt fastened your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you
shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD's Passover. For I will pass through the
land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of
Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute
judgments: I am the LORD. 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 no plague
will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
“’This day shall be for you a
memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your
generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you
shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of
your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the
seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you
shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work
shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be
prepared by you. And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on
this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you
shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. In
the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat
unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven
days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened,
that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a
sojourner or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your
dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread’”
(Exodus
12:1-20, ESV).
The Passover Feast was instituted
the night that God delivered the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt – and
God instructed them to keep the Feast every year so they would not forget how
God saved them.
We notice four food elements in the Feast
of the Passover: first, a lamb, which
was killed and its blood spread over the doorposts of the homes of the
believers in Egypt. This was to be a
sign that the angel of death should not kill the first born in that house
because God had provided those who believe with a blood sacrifice. The author of Hebrews reminds us: “Indeed, under the law almost everything is
purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness
of sins” (Hebrews 9:22, ESV). Those
believers in Egypt who spread the blood of the lamb God provided them on their
doorposts were saved through that blood.
The unbelievers, who did not receive the lamb and its shed blood,
suffered the loss of their own firstborn – the shedding of his blood, which did
not forgive their sins.
The second element of the Passover
was unleavened bread. God called for
them to eat unleavened bread because there was not time to make leavened
bread. It was a sign that God’s
salvation was coming to them quickly and that they would have to be on the run
at a moment’s notice.
The third element of the Passover
was the bitter herbs, which was to remind them of the suffering and the slavery
which God delivered them from.
The fourth element, which is not
mentioned in this text, was the glass of wine, which symbolized God’s Favor and
Faithfulness to the Covenant that He made with Abraham.
And we notice that God tells Israel
that the elements of the Passover were to be for them an eternal memorial for
what God did for them. There is nothing
in the text to suggest that the lamb, the unleavened bread, the herbs, and the
wine, though symbolic, were anything more than actual lamb, unleavened bread,
herbs, and wine. They did not turn into
anything, but symbolized something that God did for them.
The traditional Passover meal begins
with a prayer of thanksgiving to God and the drinking of the first cup of wine
(Hendrikson, Luke, 959-960); and so
we read:
“And
he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, ‘Take this, and divide it
among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit
of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’
They
shared the first cup of wine as Jesus told them, yet again, that this was the
last Passover He would eat with them – that He would not join them in drinking
the wine of God’s favor until His Work was completed, and, ultimately, until the
Kingdom came in all its fullness on earth.
As John foresaw: “ Let us rejoice and exult and give
him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made
herself ready;” (Revelation 19:7, ESV).
In the Kingdom, the Lord’s Supper will become the Marriage Feast of the
Lamb – the celebration of the full unity and salvation of the Church – given to
her Husband, Jesus.
Next,
they would eat the bitter herbs and remember that “the wages of sin is death” (Romans
6:23a, ESV). They would remember that
they were enemies of God and had suffered for their sin until God stepped in to
save them. Jesus surely ate the herbs
thinking of the suffering that He would shortly endure. And the apostles likely thought back to this
after the Resurrection when they themselves were suffering at the hands of
unbelievers. Yet – then – they would
have had a new hope to look forward to, knowing that just as they had been
delivered from Egypt, the Savior had and was delivering them unto His Kingdom.
The
third part of the meal would be a recitation of the first Passover – as we read
– and a discussion would have ensued about what it told them about the
relationship between humans and God – and that salvation is by God Alone, and
not by anything they did or could have done.
Fourth,
they would have sang Psalm 113 and 114 – psalms of thanksgiving for God’s
deliverance and a call to humble obedience to God in thanksgiving for His
Salvation – and then they would have drunk the second glass of wine – affirming
again the favor of God on His people – on all those who believe in Him and the
salvation that comes from Him Alone.
Fifth,
they would have eaten the lamb – and the lamb would have been eaten throughout
the rest of the meal. As the slaughtered
lamb was brought to them on this somber night when Jesus told them that He was
leaving to be put to death by sinners, what we they thinking? What was Jesus thinking? Was He remembering the day on the mountain
when Abraham followed God’s instruction to sacrifice his son – his only son –
his beloved son – only to be stopped as God answered Abraham’s faith-filled
words to Isaac, “Abraham said, ‘God will provide for himself the lamb for a
burnt offering, my son.’ So they went both of them together”? (Genesis 22:8, ESV). Was He remembering the introduction of John
the Baptist: “The next day [John] saw
Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the
sin of the world!’”? (John 1:29, ESV).
Was He thinking of His Triumph when all the voices of heaven and earth
will break forth: “saying with a loud
voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and
wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!’”? (Revelation 5:12, ESV).
It
was at this point that Jesus changed the Passover meal and instituted the
Lord’s Supper – at the point when they would eat the unleavened bread and drink
the second glass of wine:
“And he took bread, and when he had given
thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is
given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’”
Jesus
instructed them that in eating the unleavened bread – which He broke – they
were no longer to merely remember the haste with which Israel left Egypt, but
the power and swiftness of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection – that His Body – like
the lamb – like the piece of bread would be broken – savaged tortured on their
behalf and on the behalf of all those who would ever believe in Him – for the
forgiveness of sins and the imputation of righteousness to them – that they
would once again be delivered from bondage – not merely from the Egyptians, but
from sin itself. He told them – whenever
they observed the Sacrament – to remember what He had done on their behalf.
While
they ate, they would have drunk a third glass of wine as part of the Passover
meal and continued to eat the bread and the lamb.
Then,
they would have sung Psalms 115-118 – Psalms of deliverance by the Hand of
God. Psalms uplifting the Power and Love
of God for His people. Psalms calling –
not only Israel – but the whole world to give thanks to the Lord for what He
had done.
The
conclusion of the Passover meal is a fourth glass of wine:
“And
likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for
you is the new covenant in my blood.’”
Remembering
that there is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood, Jesus told the
apostles that He would not merely be savagely tortured, but His Blood would be
poured out – He had to shed His Blood and die – just as the lamb they had eaten
shed his blood and died – but now, as a Man for His people – as a Holy and
Perfect Substitute – He was going to die in our place that we might live with
Him eternally – forgiven of our sins and made righteous through His Work.
Quickly,
then, we might still wonder, “Why is this a new covenant?” It is a “new covenant” in two senses: first, rather than having that Law written on
stone; it is written on our hearts and enacted upon by the Holy Spirit, and,
second, rather than the covenant being explicitly with the nation of Israel, it
is now between all believers of every nation, tribe, and tongue.
Luke
concludes this section with Jesus reflecting on Judas: “’But behold, the hand of him who betrays me
is with me on the table. For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but
woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!’ And they began to question one another,
which of them it could be who was going to do this.”
And
so, now that we have looked at the transformation from the Passover meal to the
Lord’s Supper, we address this morning’s question: what are the elements? Specifically, what are the bread and the cup
– the wine?
As
we looked at the Passover meal, we saw that the unleavened bread was symbolic
of the need for Israel to be ready to quickly leave Egypt and the wine was
symbolic of God’s Favor and Faithfulness to the Covenant that God made with Abraham. Was the bread itself the ability to leave
Egypt quickly? No. Was the wine itself God’s Favor and
Faithfulness? No. They were symbols by which the people
remembered what God had done for them in saving them from bondage in Egypt.
As
we look at the Lord’s Supper, there are four major interpretations of what the
bread and the wine are – or become, but they can be stated even more generally
for our purposes this morning as two interpretations: first, there are those who believe the bread
and the wine – in some way – are transformed into the real flesh and the real
blood of Jesus of Nazareth, Who died on the cross two thousand years ago. Second, there are those that believe that the
bread and the wine remain bread and wine and are symbolic of what Jesus did in
saving His people.
The
Reformed view – in which tradition this church is – holds to the second
understanding – the bread and the cup – the wine – remain bread and wine and
are symbolic of the Work that Jesus did in saving His people. Why do we say that? It largely hinges on the discussion of what
the meaning of “is” is in the text.
First,
as we look at the Passover meal that Jesus shared with His apostles, with Jesus
there, in His real human body, prior to the crucifixion, He said that the bread
“is” His body and the cup “is” the new covenant in His blood. Is there any reason for us to believe that
Jesus cut off pieces of flesh or bled into the cup at the Last Supper? And if He did, what would it mean, since He
had not yet died and risen? No, at the
Last Supper, Jesus was telling the apostles that when then celebrated the
Sacrament in the future and broke the bread, they should understand it
symbolically and remember that His body was broken for the sake of our sins,
and, as they drank the cup, they ought to remember that His blood was shed for
the sake of our sins, and, because He suffered and died in the flesh and under
the Wrath of God and rose from the dead, we are forgiven and credited with His
Righteousness – we are saved.
Secondly,
we note that it was not unusual for Jesus to use symbolic language: He called Himself “the door” (John 10:7), yet
we do not believe that Jesus was made of wood and had hinges. He called Himself “the Good Shepherd” (John
10:11), but we know Jesus was a carpenter and then a rabbi, not a
shepherd. He called Himself “the vine”
(John 15:1), yet we do not believe that He was a plant or had leaves. And so forth.
So, it was not be out of character for Jesus to use symbols to refer to
Himself and His Work.
Third,
if, after the Ascension, Jesus body became divine, so He could be everywhere,
and the bread and the cup could literally become His real human flesh and
blood, then we would no longer have a human to intercede on our behalf before
the Father (John 17:24).
Also,
fourth, if Jesus body became divine, then we would also have to become gods in
the Kingdom. As Paul writes, “For if we
have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united
with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5, ESV).
Finally,
there is a linguistic problem, Jesus does say that the bread is His body, but
He says the cup is the new covenant in His blood – not His blood itself.
So,
what shall we understand?
First,
the bread does not in any way become the real body of Jesus. And the wine in no way becomes the real blood
of Jesus.
Second,
the bread and the cup are given to us in the Sacrament – not that we would eat
real human flesh and drink real human blood, but that we would remember that
Jesus died for the sins of everyone who would ever believe, that He is here
with us now – in the reading and preaching of the Word and as we receive the
elements of the Sacrament – through which He gives us His Grace (which we will
talk more about next week, Lord willing), and that we remember and hold fast
with great hope in the Promise that He made that He is returning to restore the
Creation and banish sin and death and evil and raise everyone who believes in
Him Alone for salvation in their real, physical, human, perfect, glorified
bodies – just like His is now, seated at the Right Hand of the Father in Glory.
So,
let us pray:
Almighty
God, we thank You for these symbols that You have given us in the Sacrament of
the Lord’s Supper – that as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we remember
what Jesus did for us on earth that we might be saved from Your Wrath and
welcomed as Your sons and daughters, that we would spiritually commune with
Jesus right now and be made able to do all that You have set before us, and
that we would be stirred up with great confidence and hope in Your soon coming
again to bring us into the fullness of the Kingdom. Come, Lord Jesus! For it is in His Name we pray, Amen.
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