The Lord's Supper

The Lord’s Supper

Mark 14:22-31

I hope you enjoyed time with loved ones for the Thanksgiving holiday, and I hope you took time to truly be thankful to the Lord for how good He is to all of us.

Since today is the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I really want us to think about an intimate dinner with family and friends.

Enjoying fellowship and conversation and simply being thankful that we can all be together, sort of like the show Blue Bloods.

We realize there are no perfect family gatherings, there might be political differences or even the strange uncle who was visiting for the holiday, but the meal can still a time to love one another.

Please open your Bibles to Mark 14, as we continue in our line-by-line study of Mark. Last time we were in Mark, before the Thanksgiving message, Judas negotiated a price for Jesus’ life.

In contrast to the Love and worship Mary had shown at a dinner party, as she broke the alabaster jar of perfume open to anoint Jesus, Judas went to the religious leaders to sell out Jesus.

The religious leaders wanted to arrest Jesus, but not during the feast because He still had favor with the people. As Judas was celebrating Passover, Jesus reveals one of them will betray Him.

The Disciples all ask, “Lord is it I”? Then, Judas asks, “Teacher, is it I?” which shows his hypocrisy.

Judas knew he had already sold Jesus out to the religious leaders before the dinner. What an unbelievable betrayal followed by amazing Grace. Jesus loved Judas, even as he betrayed Him.

And now this morning, our passage speaks of how, at the Passover dinner, Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper.

Since we celebrate Communion every week here at LFF, it can become routine, and we can be in danger of forgetting how Biblically important Communion is for believers in Christ.

I. Elements of the Passover.

The Passover dinner in our Mark passage takes place after over 1,500 years of celebrations, where the symbols of unleavened bread, wine, and a slain, unblemished lamb, represented Jesus.

The hour had come for the ultimate Passover Lamb to be slain.

For us today, we celebrate the real Passover with the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.

1 Corinthians 5:7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. NKJV

I would like to discuss some of the symbolism of Christ, shown through Passover dinners, which the Jews before Jesus’ time, as they celebrated, didn’t even realize what it truly meant.

The Seder is the traditional dinner Jews eat at Passover and the word Seder means “order”.

Passover has a specific order for food to be eaten, for prayers to be recited, and songs to be sung.

Each item used for the Passover had a specific meaning related to Jesus and the Exodus for the Jews, as they escaped Egypt.

1. The lamb shank is to remind us of God’s salvation.

During the original Passover, God told the Israelites to sacrifice an unblemished lamb and place some of its blood on their door posts of their homes.

If they would follow the Lord’s instructions, then the Angel of Death would “pass over” their homes and preserve the firstborn.

This whole thing was a picture to show us how Jesus is the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world”.

Jesus’ sacrifice allows us to go from death to life; it delivers us from sin and death into the true Promised Land, our eternal life.

The Lamb shank was important because we are told the lamb’s bones could not be broken, and the same was prophesied about the crucifixion of Jesus.

In one of the many Messianic prophecies, Psalm 34:20 He guards all his bones; not one of them is broken. NKJV

John 19:31 Therefore, because it was the Preparation Day, that the bodies should not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

John 19:32 Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him.

John 19:33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.

John 19:34 But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.

John 19:35 And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe.

John 19:36 For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, "Not one of His bones shall be broken."