Sermon 1: The Last Supper
82 Hours: Countdown to the Resurrection
Chuck Sligh
Preaching March 22, 2019
NOTE: PowerPoint or ProPresenter presentations are available for this sermon by request at chucksligh@hotmail.com. Please mention the title of the sermon and the Bible text to help me find the sermon in my archives.
TEXT: Please turn in your Bibles to Mark 14.
INTRODUCTION
Illus. – As a child, my dad was stationed at Tainan Air Force Base in Taiwan. There was no AFN or any TV broadcasting for military people in those days, so one day in 1961, my whole school was bussed down to a theatre in central Tainan city to watch a film of the launch of the first American, Alan Shephard, into space. We had never seen a rocket liftoff, so we watched in fascination as the announcer on the film explained the historic significance of the event, followed by the actual liftoff. We listened in suspense as the NASA technician counted down: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-Ignition. Liftoff.
A little over two thousand years ago there began a similar countdown, not of seconds, but of hours, a countdown that would change the course of history. Today is five weeks before Easter, and from now until Easter, we’re going to walk with Jesus the 82 hours from the Last Supper to His Resurrection. By my calculation, I believe that the Last Supper took place 82 hours before Jesus rose from the dead; hence the title of my series: 82 Hours. [https://chasingalion.com/a/21-timing-of-the-last-supper-crucifixion]
Today we’ll look at the Last Supper; next week, the agony in Gethsemane; week three: Jesus’ trial and torture; His death on Palm Sunday, and lastly, the resurrection, of course, on Easter.
Let’s begin by reading our text: Mark 14:12-25 – “And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover, his disciples said to him, Where would you have us go and prepare for you Passover eat the Passover? 13 And he sent…two of his disciples, and said to them, Go…into the city, and there you shall meet…a man bearing a pitcher of water: follow him. 14 And wherever he shall go in, say…to the owner of the house, ‘The Master says, “Where is the guest room, where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples?”’ 15 And he will show you a large upper room furnished and prepared: there make ready for us. 16 And his disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found it as He had said to them: and they prepared the Passover. 17 And in the evening he came with the twelve. 18 And as they reclining and eating, Jesus said, ‘Truly I say to you, ne of you who eats with me shall betray me.’ 19 And they began to be sorrowful, and to say to him one by one, Is it I? and another said, ‘Is it I?’ 20 And he answered and said to them, ‘It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping with me in the dish. 21 The Son of man is going away, 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. 22 And as they ate, Jesus took bread, and blessed and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, ‘Take, eat: this is my body.’ 23 And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank from it. 24 And he said to them, ‘This is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many. 25 Truly I say to you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
One of the most famous paintings in the world is Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” It shows Jesus and the Twelve apparently sitting in chairs on one side of a table as if they’re having their picture taken. But the Greek text says they were reclining and eating, as most modern translations say. As was typical of the day, as you can see in this slide, they would have been arranged in a small circle around a low table reclining on their left elbows, using their right hands to eat with because the left hand was considered unclean.
This was Jesus’ “last supper,” but since this is when He instituted the “Lord’s Supper,” or “communion,” we learn from this text some important things about the Lord’s Supper: Let’s look at them:
I. FIRST, THE LORD’S SUPPER SHOULD INVOLVE PREPARATION.
Jesus sent some of His disciples into Jerusalem and told them to find a room and make preparations for the Passover. Every Spring the Jews commemorated the time when they were slaves in Egypt. God called Moses to tell Pharaoh to set the Hebrew people free from their bondage. But Pharaoh refused. God sent a series of plagues to warn Pharaoh, but Pharaoh still refused, so God sent a final, deadly plague.
God warned the people that on a certain day the Death Angel would arrive in Egypt. The firstborn son in every family would die unless people followed His instructions. He told them to take a young lamb and slay it. Then the blood of the lamb was to be smeared on their house’s doorpost and lintel of the door, the two sides and the top of a door frame, be it wood or stone. After that the lamb would be roasted and the family members would walk in under the blood and have a meal in which they would eat all the roasted lamb. Whenever the Death Angel saw the blood of the lamb applied to the doorpost, He would pass over that family and there would be no death in that home. But when there was no blood applied, death visited the firstborn son in that home. Those who obeyed God, and trusted His word, could rest inside knowing God’s Judgment would pass over them.
Passover was a 24-hour celebration that started at sundown on the 15th of Nisan—the first month of the Jewish calendar—and ended at sundown the next day. The date of Passover this year starts April 19 this year, two days before our Easter. The daylong Passover observance also ushered in a weeklong festival called “the feast of unleavened bread.” For an entire week, the Jews only ate unleavened bread, that is, bread without yeast. This unleavened bread today is called Matzah (or Matzo). When they left Egypt, they left so quickly that they did not have time to leaven their bread, so unleavened bread during Passover is a reminder of that hasty exodus.
In time, yeast came to represent the evil influence of the Egyptians the Jews left behind. It came to represent sin. Yeast is a microscopic fungus that is powerless by itself, but when mixed with flour and water, it goes to work and changes the entire shape of the dough. And once the leaven starts working, it fills and affects the whole loaf of bread.
So, the preparation for Passover involved preparing the food and drinks, but it also involved going through a house to make sure there was not a speck of leaven present. To this day, Jewish families conduct a deep cleaning of their home to remove any trace of leaven.
At Grace, we commemorate the Lord’s Supper the last Sunday of every month. Before you take communion the next time, you need do some personal house cleaning. I don’t mean the house where you live, but the house where Jesus lives, your life. The Jewish practice of getting rid of all leaven is a strong reminder to us that we should constantly be getting rid of sin in our lives.
In 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 Paul wrote the Corinthian church: “Clean out therefore the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us: 8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
As you prepare for your next communion, you need to ask the Holy Spirit to shine His searchlight into the deepest, darkest corners of your life. Is there anything there that needs to be swept out? Are there bad habits, anger, bitterness, or lust particles hiding there? Paul said the way we prepare for this meal is by getting rid of the leaven of malice and wickedness and replace it with the bread of sincerity and truth.
II. SECOND, NOTE THAT THE LORD’S SUPPER REQUIRES SELF-EXAMINATION.
Usually the Passover meal was a happy family celebration. But there was a somber mood at the Last Supper. Have you ever been to a family meal, but because of something said, the whole mood was ruined? Jesus’ Last Supper with His disciples was a tension-filled meal. He dampened everyone’s spirits by saying, “Truly I say to you, one of you who eats with me shall betray me.”
All twelve of the disciples looked around the table and asked the same question: “Is it I?” The grammar in the Greek really has them asking, “It isn’t me, is it?” There’s doubt; there’s concern; there’s questioning of their own hearts. Peter, John, James: “It isn’t me, is it?”; Matthew, Nathaniel, Simon: “It isn’t me, is it?”; all of them, including Judas Iscariot: “It isn’t me, is it?”
But of course, Judas knew he was the one. Notice that Jesus didn’t point His finger and say, “Bingo! It’s YOU, Judas.” Instead, after the same question from all twelve disciples, He said, “‘It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping with me in the dish. 21 The Son of man is going away, as it is written of him: but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed!’ I wonder if Jesus was giving Judas a chance to repent and change his plans with this roundabout way of speaking Jesus didn’t call him out by name, but Jesus knew. He even warned Judas there would be tragic consequences to his bad choices.
The last person the disciples would have suspected was Judas. He was the treasurer of the group, the one you trust the most. Each one honestly wondered if THEY could be the one to betray Jesus. They conducted a spiritual inventory and saw that the potential to fail the Lord was there.
In Luke’s account, Peter was the only who spoke and bragged that he would die with Jesus, and he would never leave him. And we know how that boast turned out: COCK-A-DOODLE-DO! That night, one disciple betrayed Jesus, another denied Him three times, and before the night ended, all the other disciples ran into the night, abandoning Jesus.
At the meal, these disciples had to examine their hearts. And before you next take the Lord’s Supper, I hope you do the same thing.
Paul told the Corinthians, discussing the Lord’s Supper, “A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.” (1 Cor. 11:28)
These were the closest followers of Jesus, and on that night, they ALL failed Him. What if I said, “This week, one of you is going to fail the Lord in a huge way.” The wrong response for you is: “Not me! Nope. I could NEVER fail the Lord.”
Be careful; there may be a rooster around somewhere. A humbler response would be, “It’s not me, is it?” Regardless of how close you are to the Lord, there’s the chance you could fail Him. That’s why we all need His grace every minute of every day. So, examine your hearts before you take communion, but also every day.
III. THIRD, THE LORD’S SUPPER SYMBOLIZES A POWERFUL REPRESENTATION.
Our Catholic friends, in what they call the Mass, teach that the communion bread literally becomes the body of Jesus and the wine literally becomes the blood of Jesus. To them, it’s a miracle. Have you ever wondered why magicians often say, “hocus pocus?” It comes directly from the Latin words a priest speaks over the bread, “Hoc est corpus meum.”
We don’t believe that the bread at communion literally becomes the flesh of Jesus, nor that the juice or wine morphs into real blood. Jesus was using symbolic language, a teaching tactic He frequently used. He said, “Take eat; this is my body.” But Jesus frequently used like this that we know He meant only as a metaphor. For instance, when He said, “I am the Good Shephard,” we don’t suppose Jesus turns into a physical shepherd with a staff, nor that we turn into wooly critters. We understand that Jesus was using symbolic language to teach a spiritual truth.
So, we believe the bread and the juice symbolize the body and blood of Jesus.Jesus left us a powerful symbolic teaching tool to remind us of His sacrifice.
Again, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:23b-25 – “…the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of me.’ After the same manner he also took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’”
Illus. – A pastor’s wife was trying to explain communion to her five-year-old son. She whispered, “This bread isn’t Jesus’ body, it just reminds of His body.”
Then when they took the cup, she said, “This grape juice isn’t really blood. It’s just to remind us of the blood of Jesus.” Her son nodded as if she understood.
A few days later the mother told her son that his dad would be late coming home that night because he had stopped at the local blood bank to donate blood so that sick people could use it. The boy thought for a moment and said, “But we know that he’s really just giving them grape juice, right?”
The bread and cup are symbols, but what they represent is very real.
At the meal, Jesus took BREAD, blessed it, broke it and gave it to the disciples. In the same way, Jesus’ body was broken. To fulfill scripture, not a bone of His body was broken, but the soldiers broke Him down through torture and abuse. The whip shredded the flesh on His back; His brow was broken open by the crown of thorns and His hands and feet were broken open by the nails.
His precious BLOOD was poured out that day to make atonement for our sins. Once a year the High Priest observed Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, by taking the blood of a lamb without spot or blemish. He moved aside the thick curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the world. He entered the Holy of Holies and sprinkled the blood on the Mercy Seat. But when Jesus died on the cross, the curtain of the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom. It was God’s way of saying, “A new way has been opened to my Presence. It is through the blood of Jesus.”
Illus. – I read the story of a woman who was hired as the music leader of a church. One Sunday, she led them to sing several great hymns about the blood of Jesus. The pastor was upset and warned her that if she wanted to keep her job, she would never lead another song about the blood of Christ. He said that they had moved beyond that crude symbolism. The woman left that church and found one that sang songs about the precious blood of Jesus.
I thank God that we haven’t moved beyond that symbolism!
IV. FOURTH, THE LORD’S SUPPER PRODUCES JOYFUL ANTICIPATION.
We call this the “Last” Supper, but that’s not really true.
In verse 25, Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Jesus looked forward to a time in the future when He would be alive, and He would celebrate a feast in the heavenly Kingdom. This will be a future time of reunion, refreshment and rejoicing.
Those who know and love Jesus will be invited to a great Wedding Feast in heaven just before Jesus returns to win the final battle on earth.
We read these words in Revelation 10:7b and 9a: “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give Him the glory: for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready.…Then the angel said to me, ‘Write, Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”
Listen, you are invited. The question is: Will you accept the invitation? Have you given Jesus your RSVP by turning your live over to Him as your Savior? But let me warn you: there’s a deadline to accepting your invitation. If you die or Jesus returns before you accept this invitation, it will be null and void. So, if you haven’t made your reservations to this banquet, you can make them today. Your confirmation number is is still valid for now: It’s JN316 “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten [His unique, one-an-only] Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
And for you believer, communion isn’t meant to be gloom and doom about your sin. No, just the opposite. It’s a celebration that though you and I still sin, Jesus made propitiation for our sins.
And it is just a little foretaste of the joyful celebration to come in heaven with Jesus.
CONCLUSION
I enjoyed studying about the Passover meal because it symbolizes many blessings for us. And as I was studying this again, I found this little tidbit: Today, with the exception of some Sephardic Jews in Spain, Jewish families no longer eat a lamb at Passover. Since there is no longer a Temple, a lamb doesn’t have to be slain. Most Jews eat turkey, chicken or beef, but they do have a lamb shank bone at the meal as a reminder of the Passover Lamb.
Instead of eating the lamb, the Jews instituted a custom called Yachatz [pron. Yáhchetz]. Early in the meal, they take three pieces of Matzah bread (that is, unleavened bread). They take the piece of the matzahs on the Sedar Plate and break it into two pieces. They leave the smaller half between the two complete matzaha, and then break the larger piece into five pieces. Then they wrap the pieces in a napkin or cloth and set it aside.
While the children close their eyes, they hide it. It’s called afikomen [pron. ahfikómen], which literally means “dessert.” At the end of the meal, usually three hours later, a child is allowed to find it. There’s great rejoicing when the child finds the hidden bread. Then they unwrap it from the napkin and give a piece of it to everyone at the dinner. It’s the last thing that is eaten, just as we normally reserve dessert for last. It’s to symbolize that they are satisfied and want nothing more to eat.
This practice goes back to 400 years before Jesus. But to US, it says something about JESUS. Just as there are three matzahs, we serve a Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son came and His body was broken for us. They took Him from the cross and buried him, wrapped in a burial cloth. He was hidden for three days, but when they found He was alive, it was cause for great rejoicing! And when you receive Jesus, who referred to Himself as “the Bread of Life,” you are satisfied—nothing else quenches your hunger besides Jesus.
