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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on
which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John,
saying, “Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover.”
“Where do you want us to prepare for it?”
they asked.
He replied, “As you enter the city, a man
carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters, and
say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is the guest room,
where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large room
upstairs, all furnished. Make preparations there.”
They left and found things just as Jesus
had told them. So they prepared the Passover.
When the hour came, Jesus and his
apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to
eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it
again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.”
After taking the cup, He gave thanks and
said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again
from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”
And He took bread, gave thanks and broke
it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in
remembrance of Me.”
In the same way, after the supper He took
the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out
for you.”
Luke 22:7-20
This ends today’s reading
from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
It was the last full day Jesus would have on earth, the
fifth day in what is known as Passion Week. The Gospel of Matthew tells us that
it was the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, a seven day period to
commemorate the deliverance of the Israelites from the clutches of Egypt (Matthew
26:17). Because the people of God left Egypt in haste they had no time to make
the bread in a way that it would rise so it was made without yeast, also known
as leaven thus the unleavened part of the festival title.
This day on the Christian calendar is also typically
referred to as Maundy Thursday, the day that Jesus shared the Passover meal
with His disciples, His last time doing so and thus the reason the event is
called The Last Supper.
So we have the timeframe of the events taking place in our
scripture passage today. It is Thursday, the fifth day of Passion Week, the
first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, and the day that the Passover
meal was to be partaken.
With this, let’s look at what transpired on that day, a day
that Jesus would use to call His followers to remember Him.
Then
came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be
sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and make preparations for us
to eat the Passover.”
“Where
do you want us to prepare for it?” they asked.
He
replied, “As you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you.
Follow him to the house that he enters, and say to the owner of the house, ‘The
Teacher asks: Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my
disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs, all furnished. Make
preparations there.”
They
left and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the
Passover.
When
the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to
them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For
I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom
of God.”
After
taking the cup, He gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For
I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom
of God comes.”
And
He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is
my body given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”
In
the same way, after the supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new
covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.” Luke
22:7-20
Since it was the day the Passover meal was to be eaten, we
find Jesus’ disciples, Peter and John, asking their Lord where they should go to make
preparations for the meal, preparations that would require the sacrifice of a
Passover Lamb. Ironically, the next day, Jesus, the Lamb of God who came to
take away the sins of the world, would be sacrificed Himself on Calvary’s cross
so anyone who would believe in Him would have the opportunity for death to pass
over them as well, not perishing but rather living eternally.
In response to His disciples’ question, we find Jesus giving
very specific instructions to Peter and John, two of Jesus’ most trusted
followers who obeyed Jesus’ direction perfectly and found everything just as He
said they would. They met the owner of the house where the meal would occur and
were led to a furnished upper room where Peter and John made all Passover preparations.
In the evening, Jesus arrived with the rest of the disciples
and they sat down to eat the Passover meal together. The disciples had no idea
of what was going to transpire across the next 24 hours but Jesus knew all too
well what was ahead. He would be dead before evening would fall the next day
and the event that would propel Him down the spiral to crucifixion would be the
betrayal He would suffer at the hands of one of the twelve closest to Him.
This isn’t something that Jesus kept secret because when we
study the other Gospels we find that Jesus identified Judas as His betrayer
(John 13:26) and despite that Judas still went ahead and did what He did,
selling out His Master for thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:14-16). It’s a
sad testimony as to just how far he had fallen into sin, taken there by none
other than Satan himself (John 13:27).
With the disclosure of His coming betrayal out of the way,
Jesus got down to what The Last Supper has been known best for, Jesus sharing
the bread and the cup with His disciples while giving them a call to
remembrance.
First, Jesus took the bread and after He gave thanks, He
broke the bread and told His disciples that it symbolized His body which would
be given up for them, broken the next day as He endured severe beating at the
hands of Roman soldiers before being nailed by His hands and feet to a wooden
cross. Jesus would suffer greatly to save His people, bearing all the judgment
for sin upon Himself, paying the price that every person deserved instead of
Him.
It was this suffering and brokenness that Jesus did not want
His disciples to forget. Rather, every time that they would break bread
together they were to remember Him and the great sacrifice He made, suffering
in their place to atone for their sins, dying so that they (and all of us
today) might live.
After breaking the bread, Jesus took the
cup and told His disciples of the significance it would bring every time they
would drink from it thereafter. For the crimson wine within would be
representative of the blood Jesus would pour out for them on the cross, the shed
blood that would wash them white as snow from sin, the blood that marked the
new covenant of salvation for all people, Jew or Gentile. After Jesus’
sacrifice, no other sacrifice would ever be needed again and all that would be
required for everlasting life would be for one to accept Jesus as their
personal Savior.
Friends, as the classic hymn reminds us,
Jesus Paid It All, allowing His body to be broken in place of ours and shedding
His blood to atone for our sins. Whenever you participate in the Lord’s Supper
(or Communion), answer the call of Jesus to do it in remembrance of Him. It’s
the least we can do to honor Him for all that He went through to save us.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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