Scripture:
1 Corinthians 11:26 “ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.”
This is the Fourth of July weekend when we celebrate the anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. And in all humility we should do that and pray that this nation may endure in its libert under God. My fear is that we have come to think of ourselves more as a nation living in liberty FROM God.
We are here to declare something else. We DECLARE the death of Jesus each time we gather at this communion table.
I want to talk about declaring (proclaiming) the Lord’s death until He comes.
In a few minutes, just before we come to this communion table we will read several selected passages of Scripture.
One is from 1 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 26 and here is what that verse says; “ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.”
That is to say in coming to this table to celebrate the Eucharist “…you are representing and signifying and proclaiming the fact of the Lord's death until He comes [again].” (AMP)
Why would we do that over and over again, take the bread and say See this bread? This is the body of Christ.
See this cup? This is the blood of Christ.
To understand this it helps to be familiar with the whole Bible. So I am going to explain the the entire Bible to you this morning in 6 steps. (Stop laughing!)
1. Creation
2. Sin
3. Nakedness and covering
4. Substitute Sacrifice
5. Passover Sacrifice
6. Behold the Lamb of God
Step 1 - Creation
It begins when God created heaven and earth and all that is in, on and above them in 5 days.
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ESV
On the sixth day He formed from the dust of the earth Adam, and then from Adam formed Eve, These are the first two humans created by God. He made them man and woman, husband and wife.
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27 So God created man in his own image, ESV
Adam and Eve lived in the perfection of a garden called Eden. They were God’s servants. They were divinely appointed care takers.
Step 2 – Sin
Chapter 3 begins telling us how sin entered into the heart of man when a rebellious spirit named Satan came to Eve and contradicted what God said and presented the contradiction to them as a higher form of wisdom than what God was letting them in on. This spirit’s name was Satan. His very name means “adversary: Here is how the narrative goes in Genesis 3:1-5
Satan appeared to Eve and said “Did God tell you that you must not eat the fruit of THAT tree because if you do you will die? Yes?
Well let me tell why He doesn’t want you to eat it, because here is what He knows; (paraphrase)… 4 "You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.“ (Genesis 3)
Step 3 – Nakedness and Covering
No sooner had they sinned than their minds were awakened to a new reality; they were naked. For the first time in their existence they felt exposed and vulnerable in God’s creation. They were nervous. They hid from God.
The Bible says that they tried making clothes out of leaves in order to cover themselves, but this effort to cover themselves did not work.
Genesis 3:7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. ESV
God took pity upon them and acted on their behalf. He put innocent animals to death and made clothes of their skins in order to cloth and protect and cover Adam and Eve.
That is the very first clue in the Bible that in order for man to be saved from his exposure to death the innocent must die for the guilty. The leaves of self-effort will not do.
Genesis 3:21 And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. ESV
The difference that God sees between leaves and plant sap, and flesh and blood shows up again in the account of the first two sons of Adam and Eve when they came before God to offer up sacrifices.
Cain brought produce (leaves and plant sap) from his garden while Abel brought animals (flesh and blood) from his herds. Once again God declares the leaves and sap to be an insufficient covering—an unacceptable offering, and once again He declared the flesh and blood offering of the innocent as sufficient and acceptable.
Genesis 4:2 Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. ESV
Step 4 Substitute Sacrifice
I am covering this subject in great huge leaps, leaving out a world of important information, but leap with me now to the story of Abraham and Sarah and their only precious son whose name was Isaac. He was the only child they had ever had, and the only child they ever would have. And the great promise that God had made to them rested on the life of Isaac.
When it looked as though Isaac was going to die as a sacrifice before God, God intervened and showed Abraham a ram caught in the thicket, and the ram died in Isaac’s place so that Isaac might live. The blood of the innocent shed in the place of the blood of the one appointed to die and life is returned to the victim as a gift of God’s grace.
Genesis 22:13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called the name of that place, "The Lord will provide"; ESV
Step 5 Passover Sacrifice
You can see this same theme of covering and substitution very clearly in the story of the Passover when an angel of the Lord brings death to the first born of every household in Egypt, except when he sees homes where the blood of a spotless and innocent lamb has been daubed on the door posts and the lintel.
Exodus 12:7 "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.
Exodus 12:13 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. ESV
Later under the law of Moses the original Genesis promise of death as a result of sin was clearly declared as an ongoing truth.
Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sins shall die.
If all have sinned, as the Bible says, then how can anyone live?
Here is how it worked; the sinner brings a sin offering, not of leaves, but a pure, spotless and flawless innocent animal to serve as his substitute.
The sinner lays his hands and sometimes presses his head against the animal’s head in order to transfer his sin guilt and iniquities over to the innocent animal. And the innocent animal dies in the place of the guilty person.
Leviticus 4:3 ….he shall offer for the sin that he has committed a bull from the herd without blemish to the Lord for a sin offering. 4 He shall bring the bull to the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord and lay his hand on the head of the bull and kill the bull before the Lord. ESV
Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. ESV
You can follow this pattern through all the books of the Bible and over and over again we see that self effort, self righteousness (leaves) saves no one. We can only be saved when someone takes away our sin and dies in our stead.
When you leave the Old Testament and turn the last page of Malachi and cross over into the Gospels of the New Testament there you find out immediately that God Himself came to earth, took up residence among us as a human embryo in the womb of a virgin, was born in Bethlehem, and then grew up into a sinless man in the flesh and blood of a man whom Mary and Joseph were instructed to name Jesus. That name means Savior.
6. Behold the Lamb
And if you follow the story from beginning to end you will totally understand what the great prophet John the Baptist meant when he first saw Jesus and proclaimed and declared
John 1:29 [John] … "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! ESV
The covering that God gave to Adam and Eve, the acceptable sacrifice of Able, the lamb that saved Isaac’s life, the slain Passover lamb, rams and bullocks brought by sinners who transferred their guilt to the innocent animal—all were pointing forward to the one last and final sacrifice that was capable of taking away the sin of the world.
That’s what John said when he saw Jesus—the pure, spotless and sinless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
This is why we keep talking and proclaiming and showing the death of Jesus, because by His death we live. Not by good works, but by the shear grace (gift) of God. Christ appeared and died and through him we have our lives back as a pure gift from God.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We take up the bread and say, See this? This is His body which was broken and bruised so that I might be healed.
We take up the cup and say, See this cup? This His blood and it has covered my guilt and forgiven my sins.
When the prophet Isaiah looked forward to the Savior that God promised to the world this is what He saw;
Isaiah 53:3-6
3 He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
5 But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God's paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all. (NLT)
Looking back at what Jesus did upon the cross the Apostle Paul said; 2 Corinthians 5:21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. ESV
We are saved, not by trusting in the leaves of our good works, or our good intentions, or our goodness, or our own strength, but as we trust in the saving grace of Jesus Christ who died in our place and then rose up from death on the third day. We bring only sin and helplessness and death to the table, but God brings grace and salvation unto all who put their trust in Jesus.
What does it mean every time believers gather to eat the bread and drink the cup they are proclaiming the death of Jesus Christ?
It means we remember and speak of what Jesus did for us.
We take the bread and the cup and declare that in putting himself in our place he has saved us and given us eternal life.
Here is what God says through His servant the Apostle John;
1 John 5:11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. ESV
Do you have the Son?
Have you opened up your mind and heart, your whole life, and said something like “I’m done with leaves and self effort and self-discovery. I am going to take God at His word. I believe that Christ died in my place and I trust Him to give me life both now and for all eternity.
Our message to all who have not yet believed?
2 Corinthians 5:20 … We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. ESV
You simply stop trusting money, relationships, career, achievements, sex, drugs and rock and roll, and you invest all your trust in the resurrected and living Jesus who is coming again and will receive unto Himself all those in whom He finds His own life.
You say, I am trusting Jesus, and when you make that proclamation all heaven celebrates as the presence of Christ enters your life, and you become a new creature, a new, born again person.
