“The
Lord’s Supper”
[1
Corinthians 11:23-26]
April
18, 2019, Second Reformed Church
March
28, 2024, YouTube, Second Reformed Church
We
turn to a familiar passage this Maundy Thursday – the institution of the Lord’s
Supper – words that we hear every Sunday in this church. Let’s consider for a few moments what the
Lord’s Supper is.
First,
the Lord’s Supper is the fulfillment of the Passover meal.
We
read in the Gospel of Mark:
“And
on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb,
his disciples said to him, ‘Where will you have us go and prepare for you to
eat the Passover?’ And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, ‘Go into
the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, and
wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, “The Teacher says, Where is
my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” And he will
show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.’ And the
disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them,
and they prepared the Passover” (Mark 14:12-16, ESV).
It was that Thursday night before
Easter – the day before the crucifixion – that Jesus and His disciples gather
in the upper room to celebrate the Passover with Him. It was the first day of Unleavened Bread –
the first day of the Passover – in remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt when
Israel prepared bread quickly for her escape – without leaven to make it rise –
that they gathered together – after Jesus gives the disciples instructions not
unlike the instructions that He gave them prior to the Triumphal Entry.
Then Jesus turns to the elements of
the Passover – the lamb, the cup of wine, and the matzo. Jesus does not say anything about the lamb at
this point, but the bread He calls His body and the cup He calls the new
covenant in His blood. And so, Jesus
tells them that, as they celebrate in the future, they do so seeing the
elements of remembrance of their deliverance from Egypt as the elements of
their deliverance by Jesus in the new covenant.
Whereas they understood the bread and the cup as looking back to the
time when they had to move quickly in the escape won by God from the Egyptians,
now they would receive the bread and the cup remembering that the body and
blood of Jesus join us together in the new covenant and delivers us in another
way.
Second, the Passover represents the
reality of our move from darkness into light.
Moses
spoke to Israel about the Passover:
“You
shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. And
when you come to the land that the LORD will give you, as he has promised, you
shall keep this service. And when your
children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is
the sacrifice of the LORD's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the
people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’
And the people bowed their heads and worshiped” (Exodus 12:24-27, ESV).
Notice, God instructs Israel
through Moses that this will be an eternal rite – an eternal sacrament – for
all of Israel. And that when the
children – who did not suffer in Egypt or go through the wilderness, but were
born in the Promised Land, ask what the sacrament means – forever and ever –
Israel shall answer, “It is the sacrifice of the LORD's Passover, for he passed
over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians
but spared our houses.”
The Lord did not just pass over the
houses of those who left Egypt, or the parents of the children born in the
Promised Land, but of everyone of Israel for whom the deliverance is given.
How are we to understand this
deliverance applied to those over three thousand years ago and as a member of
the Israel of God today?
Paul writes, “And so, from the day
we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled
with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord,
fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the
knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious
might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father,
who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He
has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom
of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins”
(Colossians 1:9-14, ESV).
In a parallel way to God delivering
Israel from slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land – which is received by all
true Israel, so God has delivered all those who will ever believe in Jesus from
slavery to sin in the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His Beloved Son,
in Whom we are redeemed to God and forgiven for all of our sins by God.
Third, Jesus is the Passover Lamb.
In the history of the Exodus, we
read:
“Then
Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, ‘Go and select lambs
for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. Take a
bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the
lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you
shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. For the LORD will pass
through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and
on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door and will not allow the
destroyer to enter your houses to strike you’” (Exodus 12:21-23, ESV).
Paul
tells us, “Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really
are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed” (I
Corinthians 5:7, ESV).
Using
the Passover imagery of unleavened bread and the Passover lamb, Paul tells us
that Jesus is, Himself, the Passover Lamb, Who was slaughtered to saved us and
deliver us from our slavery to sin, and from being condemned to eternal
suffering, even as His blood covers us, as the lamb’s blood covered the lintels
and doorposts of Israel in Egypt.
The
author of Hebrews also explains, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in
festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in
heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made
perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled
blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:22-24,
ESV).
So, Jesus takes the place
of the Passover Lamb in being sacrificed for us and it is through the sprinkled
blood – now not just over the door, but over us – that we are cleansed and
delivered.
And
we quickly consider the question, then, if we are eating the bread and drinking
the cup, are we eating and drinking Jesus?
A number of traditions say “yes” based on Jesus saying, “This is my
body.”
Here’s
the problem – and the reason we answer “no” – Jesus has a completely human
body. In order for Jesus’ body to be
literally eaten for two thousand years, His body could not be that of a real
human being, His body would have to be superhuman or divinized, which would
mean we do not have a human representative before God on our behalf. And we must have a real human being
representing us before God, because only a real human being can take the place
of a real human being as Jesus did for us in keeping the Law and paying our
debt for sin.
What,
then, do we understand about the Lord’s Supper?
Paul
explains to the Corinthians, “For I received from the Lord what I also
delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took
bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, ‘This is my body,
which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also he took
the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do
this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ For as often as you eat
this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.”
Paul
tells us that as we receive the Lord’s Supper, three things occur:
We
remember. We remember that God sent His
Son to become a human to live a perfect life under the Law of God and then die
taking on the sins of everyone who will ever believe in Him. We remember that something historical
happened. And it is that historical
event, concerning a historical Person, through Whom we receive salvation.
We
commune. We commune with Jesus
spiritually as those who have become members of the new covenant through
Jesus. He lived for us and lives in us
and sends (with God the Father) God the Holy Spirit to live in us and guide us
and change us, transforming us into to Image of Jesus that we will perfectly
bear when we are glorified and received into the Kingdom.
Therefore,
we hope. We hope as we receive the
elements – proclaiming the Gospel – this historical thing that God the Son did,
Incarnate in the person of Jesus, through Whom we now live and hope for the
coming Kingdom – the banishment of sin and death and the devil, and the
reconciliation of the Creation and each one who ever believes, that we will
assuredly enter a Kingdom far greater than the Garden of Eden because sin is
excluded. We will walk with God in the
world and have joy inexpressible.
And
so, the Lord’s Supper is not an “add-on” to the worship service, but the
fulfillment of the Passover, a visual representation of the Gospel – our moving
from slavery in the kingdom of sin to the Kingdom of God’s Beloved Son, and the
understanding of Jesus as our Passover Lamb.
Let
us remember, and commune, and have hope with all assurance through this
sacrament that Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again.
Let
us pray:
Almighty
God, help us to receive the elements of the Lord’s Supper. Keep us from considering it a snack or an
“add-on” to worship. Help us to see the
importance of its place by the Word and in our worship. Grant us fuller assurance of salvation as we
receive the bread and the cup. For it is
in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
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