Christ's Final Week: Communion

CHRIST’S FINAL WEEK: COMMUNION

LUKE 22:1-23

Introduction: In the final hours of Christ’s earthly ministry, Christ sent his disciples to set up a place where He might be able to observe the Seder or Passover Supper with them. He expressed this desire in the strongest terms. “With desire have I desired to eat this Passover with you.” – That is, I have earnestly desired it. Why did Christ lay such emphasis on this Passover? Why would this Passover be different than any other Passover? I believe that Christ desired it, both for the sake of his disciples, with whom he had spent the last three and a half years from whom He would soon part: and for the sake of his whole Church, that he might institute a lasting memorial of his work which He was about to complete. He desired to eat this Passover with His disciples because;

I. This would be His last fellowship of this kind with the disciples until His Millennial Reign.

A. With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;

B. Jesus had spent three and a half years with the twelve. They had been almost inseparable throughout His earthly ministry. The Word of God says that "Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end."

C. John 13:1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

D. In one sense of the word, it is like Christ saying that He wanted to savor every moment of these last hours with His disciples; to prepare them for what lay ahead and to assure them that everything was going to be alright and that victory was at hand.

E. How often do we look at the final moments of one’s life and allow grief and sorrow to permeate every fiber of our being, when we should seek to redeem what time is left to leave a legacy of love.

F. Christ was going to leave them. There would be the sadness of the separation; but there would also be the joyous hope of a grand reunion that will occur when He returns.

G. During the evening of the Passover Supper, Christ told His disciples as recorded in John 14:1 – 3, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

H. 1 Thessalonians 4:13 - 17 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

I. A few days before his death, Dr. F. B. Meyer wrote a very dear friend these words: "I have just heard, to my great surprise, that I have but a few days to live. It may be that before this reaches you, I shall have entered the palace. Don’t trouble to write. We shall meet in the morning."

J. Around the corner I have a friend,

In this great city that has no end.

Yet days go by and weeks rush on,

And before I know it a year is gone,

And I never see my old friend’s face;

For life is a swift and terrible race.

He knows I like him just as well

As in the days when I rang his bell

And he rang mine. We were younger then--

And now we are busy, tired men--

Tired with playing a foolish game;

Tired with trying to make a name.

"Tomorrow," I say, "I will call on Jim,

Just to show that I’m thinking of him."

But tomorrow comes--and tomorrow goes;