If everyone would open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 26, this morning we are looking at
Jesus instituting the Lord's Supper.
That's where he says, take eat, this is my body, drink this, this is my blood of the
new covenant.
And what I'm going to show you this morning is that what Jesus is essentially doing is
he is Christifying the Passover.
So if you turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 26, I'm just going to read through 20 through
35 to give you a context that's significant.
When it was evening, Jesus reclined at table with the 12 and as they were eating, he said,
truly I say to you, one of you will betray me.
And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, is it I Lord?
He answered, he who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me.
The son of man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the son of man
is betrayed.
It would have been better for that man if he had never been born.
Judas, who had been, who would betray him answered, is it I Rabbi?
And Jesus said to him, you have said so.
Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to
the disciples and said, take eat, this is my body.
And he took a cup and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them saying, drink of it all
of it all of you.
For this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of
sins.
I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink
it new with you in my father's kingdom.
And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Then Jesus said to them, you will all fall away because of me this night, for it is written,
I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.
But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.
Peter answered him, though they all fall away because of you, I will never fall away.
Jesus said to him, truly, I tell you, this very night before the rooster crows, you will
deny me three times.
Peter said to him, even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.
And all the disciples said the same.
May God bless the reading of his word.
Well, as you came in this morning, you probably saw the table set up.
And you may have been asking yourself if you were here last Sunday, wait, wait, wait, wait,
wait, wait, wait.
Didn't we just do this?
Didn't we just do this last week?
And yes, we did.
Typically, we observe the Lord's Supper, aka communion, on the first Sunday of every month.
But given the passage that I just read to you, that we are actually going to hear Jesus institute
the Lord's Supper this morning, we thought that it would be very appropriate to observe
it again as a response to the sermon.
Now, if you've been around for a while, you know that different churches observe the Lord's
Supper in different ways.
But what is evident is that there's been a regular practice of the Lord's Supper by his
people, the church, ever since Jesus walked the earth.
It's been a practice that's been around for a long time.
And when it comes to practices that have been around for a long time, you just can't assume
everybody knows what it means.
So what's the big deal about communion?
What's the big deal about the Lord's Supper?
Now, I've got some people that will go unnamed, that growing up in the church, they viewed
the Lord's Supper as the quote-unquote snack time during the service.
Personally, I grew up in a church outside of Chicago, and for the bread, our church served
wonder bread, little cubes of wonder bread.
Incredibly malleable.
It's amazing what you can do with a cube of wonder bread.
And so I would sit as a boy during the service, they'd pass out the wonder bread communion bread.
And what I would do is I would go into art mode, sculpt mode, and I would form these little,
very potent Chinese throwing stars and imagine myself doing all sorts of things with them.
And at that point, as all of you have just realized, I am not observing the Lord's Supper.
I am enjoying an art class during the service.
What does this mean?
Is it a snack time?
Is it a little break to have some art fun?
Is it just something we throw in every month to make things interesting?
This morning, I want to convince you of something before we take the supper.
I want to convince you of this.
That the Lord Jesus himself, he has given this to you to savor him.
He wants you to savor his supper.
He wants you to savor his work of salvation that he did on your behalf.
So here's how we're going to proceed this morning.
I'm going to give you a brief history of the Lord's Supper, what's behind it, Passover.
So historical context, that's the first stop.
The second stop we're going to make is a biblical context.
So I want you to see what's going on right before and right after the Lord institutes the Lord's Supper.
It's significant.
And then what we're going to do is I'm going to show you the actual content of the Lord's Supper.
It's a Passover meal.
And according to the first century tradition, there was a lot going on in that Passover meal.
And it will help you understand and savor the supper to have that as a backdrop.
So this morning, by the time we get here, I want you savoring the supper in a new way.
So let's look at the historical context of the Lord's Supper.
We talked about it last week, but let me just remind you a little bit of it.
Jesus, in Matthew 26, is in Jerusalem.
And he's in Jerusalem as the Passover has arrived as well.
And that is no coincidence.
So in verse 20, when it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve.
He reclined at table to celebrate the Passover.
That's what's going on here.
Passover is a Jewish holy feast that started a week-long feast called the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
It was all to recognize God's deliverance of his people Israel out of Egypt.
And in Jesus' day, there would be people, Jews, coming from all around that would make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
It would swell the city from 30 grand to 180,000 people.
It was a huge event in the life of Israel.
It commemorates the night that God delivered his people out of bondage to Egypt.
And just getting back to kind of Exodus chapter 12, the Passover was the night in which God instructed his people to sacrifice an unblemished male lamb and then eat it.
On the night of the Passover in Exodus chapter 12, the blood of that sacrificed lamb was then wiped on the doorposts of God's people living in Egypt.
And that night while they were eating this roasted lamb that had been sacrificed for them.
The angel of the Lord, the tenth and final plague on Egypt, it passed over them because they were under the blood of the lamb.
They were alive because that lamb had died for them.
And those households in Egypt that were not covered by the blood of the lamb, the angel of death visited and took the life of all firstborn males, whether human or animal.
And Pharaoh's oldest son was one of them.
So on Passover night, there was great wailing in Egypt for those not under the blood.
But for those under the blood, great deliverance.
A great deliverance to such a degree that God commanded his people to celebrate a Passover feast every year commemorating it.
He wanted his people to remember what he had done for them.
It was defining for his people.
And so Jews would come to Jerusalem every year to sacrifice an unblemished male lamb at the temple.
And then eat it as part of the Passover Seder.
I'll come back and explain that.
What you need to see is at the center of the Passover is the Passover lamb.
That's what you've got to be paying attention to.
And so it's no coincidence that when Jesus comes on the scene in the book of John,
John the Baptist says,
Behold, the Lamb of God who's come to take away the sins of the world.
What you're going to see here in this passage is that Jesus is going to bring a whole new reality to this Passover.
He is going to Christify it.
He's going to make it about him in a greater deliverance.
Now the majority of us in this room are Gentiles.
We don't have Jewish backgrounds.
And so when we talk about a Passover feast, we're kind of like, oh yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh.
But it's kind of a cross-cultural experience for us.
But I want to help you understand it so that you can get the full sense of what's going on in Matthew chapter 26.
Jesus makes the Passover a whole new deliverance.
A new deliverance with a new Passover lamb, him, and that is really good news for you.
So we've looked at the historical context.
Now let's talk about the immediate biblical context.
You may have heard this when I read through it.
What happens with Judas before the institution of the Lord's Supper, and then what happens with his disciples.
Let me just read both of them for you.
When it was evening, that's verse 20, he reclined at table with the 12.
And as they were eating, he said, truly I say to you, one of you will betray me.
He's making an announcement.
It amounts to a prediction.
Something that's going to happen.
What's going to happen?
One of the 12 is going to betray him that night.
Now would you look up in verse 31.
Then Jesus said to them, his disciples, probably 11 at this point, probably Judas is gone.
You will all fall away because of me this night.
It's another prediction.
It's another announcement.
Judas is going to betray him, and all of his followers are going to desert him.
So already you have a sense that surrounding the Lord's Supper is major human failure.
Let's go on.
The immediate response of the disciples in verse 22 when they hear about a betrayer, they're very sorrowful, and began to say to Jesus, one after the other, is it I, Lord?
Is it me?
Surely it's not me.
And so their immediate response is, oh, no, could I be the one?
Notice what they don't do.
They don't get words of the betrayer, and they're like, Judas.
They don't know who the betrayer is.
It's not obvious to them.
It's Judas.
They don't know.
But the response is one of looking inward.
In verse 23, Jesus says, he who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me.
We're going to come back to what that dish actually is in a minute.
But what you need to realize, here are these men sharing a meal together.
They've all been eating from table together and dipping in a bowl together.
And what Jesus is saying, one of you who's dipped your hands in with me will betray me.
It gets even more personal.
And you know what the response would have been?
Wait, we've all done that.
We've all dipped our hands into the bowl with you.
And then Jesus says in verse 23, he who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me.
And then Jesus in verse 24, he makes this prediction promise.
It's going to happen.
Because he backs it.
He grounds it in the scriptures.
Look what he says.
The Son of Man goes as it is written of him.
Reference to Isaiah 53, the suffering servant.
But woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.
It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.
Jesus is saying it's going to happen.
I'm going to be betrayed.
And that is the fulfillment of Psalm 41.9.
Not only would he die, but he's going to be betrayed to his death.
It all fulfills the scriptures.
Now let's look at back in verse 31.
Jesus has announced to the disciples after the institution of the Lord's Supper.
He says, you all follow me because of me this night.
So it's another prediction.
And then he grounds it again in the Bible.
For it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will scatter.
That's Zechariah 13.
Not only is it prophesied that Judas is going to betray him unto death.
But it's prophesied that his disciples are going to desert him.
So we have this huge moral lapse.
These failures on either side of the institution of the Lord's Supper.
And it's all by the will of God.
It's all under his sovereign oversight and direction.
And so all of a sudden, here we are talking about the Lord's Supper.
And we have this snapshot of what we're going on.
But we enter into a great mystery, don't we?
Because here is God's sovereignty as well as human responsibility.
Because Judas isn't left off the hook.
Jesus tells him, he says, woe to the man that betrays me.
It would be better for him if he had not died.
And comes that pronouncement.
Jesus says, it would have been better for that man if he had not been born.
He says, this betrayer, he is going to be cast away from God's presence for eternity.
The son of perdition.
But look up in verse 32.
When he's talking to the disciples, he says,
but after I'm raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.
That's a different kind of tone.
To the betrayer, he says, woe to you.
To his disciples who will desert him, he says, but we're going to be reunited.
We're going to come together.
I'm going to meet you in Galilee.
I'll see you there.
One is a word of a pronouncement of judgment and hopelessness for the son of perdition.
And the other, to his disciples who are going to desert him, he speaks a word of hope.
I'm going to see you in Galilee.
I'm going to be betrayed.
I'm going to be denied.
I'm going to be crucified.
I will be raised.
And I will meet you, go before you to Galilee.
I'll see you there.
On either side of the Lord's Supper is tremendous human failure.
Betrayal.
Desertion.
Denial.
And it's all surrounded by God's sovereignty.
It is written.
God has made, he's purposed this to happen.
It makes you start asking, well, what's the difference between, what's the difference between
Judas and the rest of the disciples?
What accounts for that?
Why is one the son of perdition?
And why are the other 11, why are they going to meet Jesus up in Galilee?
Why the hope?
And why the hopelessness?
What's going on?
Let me give you a subtle clue.
In verse 20, when it was evening, he reclined at table with the 12.
And in verse 21, truly I say to you, one of you will betray me.
And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after the other, is it I?
What's the next word?
Lord.
Now look down to Judas' response in verse 25.
Judas, who would betray him, answered, is it I, Rabbi?
Is it I, Lord?
Is it I, Rabbi?
At this point, Judas has already cut the deal.
He's already given Jesus up.
He's already agreed on the price.
30 silver pieces.
It was the cost of a common slave.
The priests and the elders didn't think much of Jesus.
Judas already knows.
And he's trying to skate by Jesus right here.
And so when he says to Jesus, is it I, Rabbi?
He's not calling him Lord.
Lord.
Nowhere in your Bible is it recorded of Judas calling Jesus his Lord.
Nowhere.
And Jesus says to him, you have said so.
It was a Semitic way of turning it back on the one speaking.
It's kind of like our somewhat sarcastic expression of saying, whatever you say.
Whatever you say.
It's your decision.
You're responsible.
That's what Jesus is doing.
I'm reading right through you, Judas.
Whatever you say, buddy.
It's quite a difference.
The difference is between one who betrayed him, who doesn't consider Jesus his Lord,
despite being with him for three years.
And the difference is with the other 11 who called Jesus their Lord.
That's the difference.
And maybe you're in this room this morning and you're like, man, I have deserted Jesus.
I have denied him to people's faces.
I mean, Peter was the one who denied Jesus to the face of three people.
And denial is worse than desertion.
It's actually saying, I don't know him.
And he didn't just do it once, but three times.
What I'm taking so much time to show you is that what's surrounding Jesus in the institution
of the Lord's Supper is dramatic human betrayal, desertion, and denial.
It's going to happen.
And it's all according to God's will.
We're all betrayers.
We're all deserters.
We're all deniers.
That's the very reason Jesus came.
In the midst of this darkness, Jesus sets out a new covenant.
In the midst of all this human unfaithfulness, Jesus is faithful to his mission to save his people from their sins.
Do you see the context?
It's going to make the Lord's Supper pop.
Because Jesus, despite human unfaithfulness and disobedience, he remains faithful.
He dies for the very ones who deserted him and denied him.
Let's turn now to talking about the content of the Lord's Supper.
We looked at a little bit of the historical backdrop, the context.
We've seen the biblical context, what comes before and after.
Now let's look at the words of institution themselves.
In verses 26 through 29, let me read them for you.
Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to the disciples,
and said, take, eat, this is my body.
And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, drink of it, all of you,
for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.
What we are stepping into right now is we're stepping into Jesus and his disciples observing the Passover meal.
And so what I want to help you understand is where in the meal they are, and what is this meal?
What were the stages of it?
Because as you understand the stages of the Passover meal, you're going to fully appreciate what Jesus is actually saying.
So the Passover meal was a meal designed to instruct God's people, to teach them what these different foods represented in the life of God's faithfulness to his people.
And the goal of the Passover meal was to transport the participants from there into Egypt to experience what that first night would have been like.
And so the point of the Seder is to get God's people thinking and experiencing the Passover.
And throughout the Passover meal, the head of the family, in this case Jesus, the head of his household, the disciples, would instruct those participating with God's word.
And of course, what I want to reiterate again is central to the Passover meal is the Passover lamb.
The meal itself consisted of drinking four cups of wine that served as markers that progressed the Passover meal.
And so what I'm going to do for you right now is we're going to walk you through the four cups.
Robin Rutledge wrote an article on the Lord's Supper in 2002, and I have leaned on him heavily to help us understand what was actually happening.
First century, first century, first century, in Jerusalem, with the observance of the Passover.
Now these four cups that I'm going to show you correspond to four promises that God made his people.
And they're pulled out of Exodus chapter 6, verses 6 through 7.
There are four promises there.
Each cup is representative of one of those promises.
The first cup was called the cup of sanctification.
And it was tied to Exodus 6, 6.
I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from the burdens of the Egyptians.
Now the head of the household would take this first cup and speak a word of blessing to begin the Passover meal.
This is where it started.
So after taking a sip, he would pass that around for everybody else participating to take a sip.
Now following the drinking from this first cup, there was a ritual washing of hands before participating in touching the food.
It would have been at this point something very unusual happened.
Matthew doesn't record it.
But John does.
Where everyone would normally wash their hands, Jesus does something surprising.
Do you remember what happens in John 13?
Jesus disrobes.
He grabs a bowl and a towel.
And he proceeds to wash the feet of all of his disciples.
It happened in the context of the Passover meal.
He's getting, helping his disciples think about the kind of cleansing they really need.
Not to mention it was a very effective lesson on servant leadership by the Passover lamb himself.
So here we are at the very beginning of the Passover, and Jesus is already Christifying it.
He's making it about him.
He's washing his disciples' feet.
So at this point, there would be a dipping of green herbs and vegetables into bowls of salt water.
Intentionally make them bitter to recall the tears of slavery.
And it was most likely this dipping in the bowl of salt water that Jesus is referring to when he says to his disciples that one of them would betray me.
He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me.
And don't miss the irony.
Sharing in the bitterness of betrayal.
Following the dipping into these bowls of salt water, three loaves of unleavened bread called matzah would be uncovered.
The unleavened bread was used to remind God's people that the meal was made and eaten in haste the first time around.
It wasn't enough time for the bread to rise.
They also symbolized God's unity of God's people.
So it was at this point in the Seder, which literally means order.
So a Passover Seder means Passover order, design purpose.
At this point, with the bread, with the bitter herbs, the roasted Passover lamb that had been sacrificed would be brought out to the table.
Jesus would have been sitting in the middle of a U-shaped table with his disciples.
There were no chairs.
They would have been reclining.
Heads towards the table.
Feet away from the table.
But mind you, there's no mention of a roasted Passover lamb here in Matthew 26.
Nor is there any mention of a roasted Passover lamb in any of the other Gospels.
Apparently, the roasted Passover lamb is missing at this Passover meal.
At this point, the second cup was poured.
The second cup was called the cup of freedom.
It's tied to the second promise in Ezekiel 6, Exodus 6.
I will deliver you from slavery to them.
And what would happen before the second cup was drank,
the head of the household would provide an exposition of Deuteronomy 26, 5 through 10.
It's a little history of God's faithfulness to his people from Abraham to Exodus.
Now, I don't know about you, but I would have loved to have been in the upper room to hear Jesus himself give an exposition of Deuteronomy 26
of his faithfulness to his people from Abraham to Exodus.
I think that would be really interesting.
But following that exposition, all those participating in the Seder would sing Psalm 113 and sing Psalm 114.
And then they would drink the second cup, the cup of freedom, all the participants.
It was after the second cup that the actual meal began, the meal proper.
And it started with the breaking of the bread and the passing it to its participants.
The breaking of the matzah, the unleavened bread.
And that's what you see happening in chapter 26, verse 26.
Now, as they were eating, Jesus took bread.
It's the three loaves.
It's on the table.
And after blessing it, broke it and gave it to the disciples.
And here's where Jesus goes off script.
He starts bringing something in more so.
I mean, these disciples, how many Seders have they been to year after year?
And this was going to be the first time they've heard anybody reference the bread to themselves.
It was completely surprising to them.
Jesus says of the bread, take, eat.
This is my body.
Luke 22 records that.
This is my body given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
This is my body.
Do this in remembrance of me.
Do you see what Jesus is doing?
He is Christophying the Passover.
He's making it about him.
And there's a reason for that.
When Jesus breaks the bread, it's a dramatic symbol of his death.
Jesus is saying that his death gives this bread a whole new meaning.
He's going to die in 12 hours.
He's Christophying this.
It represents him now.
One could say that the Passover bread finds its fulfillment in Christ.
What God set in motion centuries before with his Passover feast, it was designed to remind them of his great deliverance from Egypt.
But it was pregnant.
God always intended it to ultimately point to the great Passover lamb, Jesus, and the giving of his body.
So when Jesus says, take, eat, we're to participate in it.
We're to partake of Christ's death on our behalf by faith.
If bread represents Christ's body, the eating of the bread represents personal faith in Christ.
That's how we consume it.
We take Christ's substitutionary death onto ourselves by believing it.
By trusting in it.
So at this point in the Passover meal, traditionally, the main dish would have been served.
The bread has been broken.
It's been passed around.
Jesus said, this is my body.
Broken.
Do this in remembrance of me.
Distributes it.
And at this point in a classic Passover meal, they would begin to eat the Passover lamb.
But there was no Passover lamb present.
Not a roasted one.
Why not?
Why isn't there a roasted Passover lamb on the table in front of Jesus?
Jesus, the Passover lamb at this table is not on the table.
He's reclining at table.
Jesus is the Passover lamb.
And he has inaugurating the greatest of all Passover meals.
And he calls it the Lord's Supper.
It was his sacrifice.
The lamb of God that would take away the sins of the world.
He, at this moment, was surrounded by would-be deserters and a would-be denier.
They proved themselves terribly unfaithful.
But this Passover lamb, he would voluntarily, faithfully lay down his life in less than 12 hours.
Not only for the deserters and the denier, but for all others who would eventually come
and respond in faith to Christ.
In 33 AD, that April, in this upper room,
the traditional Passover lamb was indeed missing.
But there was a far better Passover lamb.
There, reclining and willing to be offered for the forgiveness of sins of all who would believe.
It's all after the second cup.
Following the traditional eating of the Passover lamb,
it was then that the third cup was poured.
It's called the cup of redemption.
It's tied to Exodus 6, 6b.
I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment.
It's widely believed that it was this third cup, the cup of redemption,
that Jesus took in verse 27 and 28.
And he goes off script.
He takes the cup and when he gave thanks, he gave it to his disciples saying,
Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant,
which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
Jesus here is claiming that the wine in the cup represents his blood, my blood.
Blood that would establish a covenant, a new covenant between God and man.
Behind this is a prophecy.
Jeremiah 31.
Where Jeremiah prophesies of a time where God would establish a new covenant with his people.
A wonderful covenant.
A covenant that would bring forgiveness of sins.
The Mosaic covenant was graciously established between God and Israel.
And it required loyalty.
And it resulted in blessing and curse.
And Israel failed miserably.
And so now a new covenant offered to all people in Christ is being established.
Through the blood of Jesus.
He would shed his blood in just less than 12 hours.
So that any sinner from any place at any time could come into a life-giving relationship with God.
The blood of the Passover lamb was shed to cover over the sins of many.
And in this case, to satisfy the wrath of God.
Jesus is the Passover lamb.
And he fulfills Exodus chapter 12.
And he's the one who fulfills Exodus chapter 12.
Is also the suffering servant of Isaiah 53.
By his stripes you were healed.
Now I don't know about you.
But when I start hearing about the significance of what goes into the bread and the cup.
I start looking at these a little differently.
It makes me savor it more.
It makes me delight in it more.
It brings me to the supper.
That night in 33 AD.
It makes me think about what Jesus has done for me.
The great redemption he accomplished through his blood.
After the third cup had been drunk, the fourth cup was filled.
This fourth cup was called the cup of praise.
It's tied to the last promise in Exodus 6.
It says, I will take you to be my people and I will be your God.
You are mine.
This was tied to God's victory over his enemies.
The final vindication and blessing of his people.
It had everything to do with future promise.
And it's this cup, this fourth cup, that Jesus abstains from at the supper.
He doesn't drink of it.
Look at verse 29.
I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.
It's a powerful promise of the messianic banquet awaiting us in glory.
Here's what Jesus is saying.
He's going to come back and when he comes back, he's going to establish a new heavens and a new earth.
And there's going to be a messianic banquet for all of us to come together and enjoy together in his presence.
And on that table will be the fourth cup with new earth wine in it.
And he's going to drink it deep with us.
Jesus Christifies the fourth cup by abstaining from it.
He aims us at what's to come.
There's a better feast coming.
Instead of the fourth cup, Jesus will drink another cup in 12 hours.
A cup that you were meant to drink.
A cup that I was meant to drink.
And we hear, we see him speaking of it, actually praying about it in verse 39.
Gethsemane, we'll look at this next week.
My father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.
What cup is this?
It's the cup of God's wrath.
You see, for those of us who claim Jesus as Lord and partake in his death,
we drink from the cup of redemption.
Christ's blood shed for the forgiveness of our sin.
God has passed over us.
His wrath has passed over us.
Satisfied in Christ's blood.
But here, Jesus will drink of the cup of God's wrath that was meant for us.
He took it to himself instead of it being poured out on you.
The fourth cup that Jesus abstains from reminds us of a future feast of the messianic banquet.
And following the fourth cup, the disciples sing a hymn.
You see that in verse 30.
It would have been Psalms 115 through 118.
And they depart for the Mount of Olives.
This morning, we've covered a lot of ground.
A little history.
We've gotten some biblical framework to see that this institution of the Lord's Supper is surrounded by human failure.
It's under the sovereignty of God, though.
And now we've just walked through the Seder.
And it's all about Jesus.
He is the Passover Lamb.
Where is the Passover Lamb of Matthew 26?
It's Jesus.
Savor the Supper.
Jesus is Christifying the Passover.
It's about Him.
Christ provides a greater deliverance from a greater slavery by a greater sacrifice.
And He offers it to all.
This Supper points back to Christ's death.
And it points forward to the messianic banquet.
We live in between.
This Supper is for all who call upon Jesus as their Lord and partake in their death.
It's the difference between Judas and the disciples.
So if you're a deserter in the room, if you're a denier, and I would add myself to that.
I've denied Jesus.
His blood covers me still.
And it covers you still.
That is good news.
So we savor the Supper by calling on Jesus our Lord.
Even though we're deserters and deniers.
It's for you because of that.
He's not looking for perfection.
He is.
The Lord's Supper defines us.
It defined Israel as God's delivered people.
It defines us as God's new delivered people by the blood of Jesus.
And the Supper unites us.
In just a second, we're going to take this together.
And we're saying simultaneously, Jesus is our Lord.
And we participate with him in his death.
And we are so grateful for it.
The Lord's Supper is not about a snack time.
It's definitely not a craft time.
It's a time to savor our Lord Jesus Christ together.