The Meal
Notes
Transcript
Good morning!
If we haven’t met...
Potluck after service - for those who haven’t brought anything...
Scripture
Intro - Joke about lamb at potluck.
This worked out too well, I didn’t even plan that our potluck would fall on a sermon about a meal. God knew and I didn’t, as is usually the case.
You could argue there are few moments in life more important than meals.
If you needed, you could take a month off work.
You could even be away from your family for a month.
I don’t dare try but I imagine I might be able to survive a month without my phone.
But good luck taking a month off from eating. You shouldn’t fast from water. Meals are life. We can’t live without food and drink.
But meals are also important because of what they symbolize.
There’s a reason eating alone at a restaurant isn’t fun. Meals are richer when shared with others.
Some of you got connected at Gateway because someone invited you over for a meal. Our Community Groups gather around a meal. Likely one of the first things you did when you started dating your future spouse was to share a meal together.
There is no substitute for sharing meals together in your home as a family. At dinnertime, we reconnect.
At the Lumsden household at dinner we often play a game called High, Low, Buffalo. You share a high from your day, a low from your day, and a buffalo as Isabelle will tell you is anything funny or random or just something you want to say.
When I was in sales, we worked really hard to get around a table with a client. If you could share a meal with a prospect, you felt like you were “in.”
You don’t have to be a Christian to use the phrase, “We’re going to break bread together.” Different cultures do meals differently, but we all do meals together.
You could trace the entire story of the Bible from beginning to end with the image of meals. The whole world went bad because the first humans chose the wrong fruit for dinner. And in the end we’re all going to share a restored meal with wine that would put anything in Napa Valley to shame.
Is it any wonder that Jesus loved to share meals with people?
He was eating with people all the time. He was called a glutton and a drunkard.
“I heard Jesus was in town. Where is he?” “Eating and drinking at Peter’s house.” “Figures!”
It’s been said that when you read the gospels you can trace Jesus either leaving a meal, eating a meal, or going to another meal.
And so today in Matthew 26:17-30 we get to the most highly symbolic meal in Jesus’ life: the Passover meal.
Why was the Passover so important to the Jewish people? Why does Jesus instruct his disciples with the cannibalistic demands to eat his body and drink his blood?
What does Jesus mean as he instructs his disciples to eat the Passover meal in this way?
This morning we’ll be connecting this passage with the meal we take every week at Gateway called Communion.
Maybe you grew up calling it the Lord’s Supper, or possibly the Eucharist.
Whatever you call it, if you’ve been in church for a while you’re familiar with this meal. Yet sometimes familiarity keeps us from seeing what’s right in front of us.
The Passover meal was the way the Jews told retold the story of how God took them from bondage to freedom. And today we’ll see how Jesus remakes this meal about himself as the one who takes the people of God from all nations from bondage to freedom.
So in our passage we’ll see the Meal Prepared, the Meal Predicted, and the Meal Prescribed.
Context
We’re in Matthew in 2023…we want to eat Jesus up and drink in all that we can to learn about him and learn to love him.
We take time on Sunday mornings not to listen to someone give a speech but to be fed by God’s Word. The Word of God is more important to our survival than food itself. Without the word of God there would be nothing in all creation - and we believe God’s Word came in the flesh as Jesus to live and die for us and give us his very life.
And we’ve digested a lot in Matthew so far...
I have so many food puns coming it’s not even funny.
We’ve seen that Jesus is the promised Messiah from the line of David. Matthew has proven that to us with Jesus’ teaching, his miracles, and shown us the many ways people respond to Jesus including Peter’s famous confession of faith - You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
Last week we saw how Jesus correctly predicted the fall of the temple in Jerusalem and how his instructions to the disciples to stay calm, stay faithful, and preach on are applicable to us today as we interact with tumultuous world events.
And now in Matthew 26-27 we see the final moments before Jesus’ death.
Jesus knew his death was coming.
1 When Jesus had finished all these words, He said to His disciples,
2 “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is to be handed over for crucifixion.”
But how would this come about?
The religious leaders want him dead but they know they can’t do it during the upcoming festival because Jesus is so popular and they don’t want to incite a riot.
Enter Judas.
14 Then one of the twelve, named Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests
15 and said, “What are you willing to give me to betray Him to you?” And they weighed out thirty pieces of silver to him.
16 From then on he began looking for a good opportunity to betray Jesus.
The execution of the Messiah is set in motion. And what does Jesus do in his final hours? He shares a meal with his friends.
The Meal Prepared
17 Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do You want us to prepare for You to eat the Passover?”
18 And He said, “Go into the city to a certain man, and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, “My time is near; I am to keep the Passover at your house with My disciples.” ’ ”
19 The disciples did as Jesus had directed them; and they prepared the Passover.
In these verses we see the meal prepared.
Jesus, in his final hours directs his disciples to prepare the Passover meal.
What is the first day of Unleavened Bread and what is the Passover?
Both of these are symbols of how God took the Jewish people from bondage and gave them freedom.
Bible overview.
Out of response to the devastating sin of the world, God chose to bless a man named Abraham and through his family promised to bless the whole world. Abraham has a grandson named Jacob who’s name gets changed to Israel, and Israel has twelve sons, on of whom is named Joseph.
Joseph becomes the second most powerful man in Egypt and, during a huge famine, Joseph’s family moves to Egypt. Joseph’s family and descendants grow until they are a huge nation and the Pharoah of the day is afraid of them so he make them his slaves. The family of Israel is enslaved in Egypt for 400 years, longer than the United States has existed, forced to make bricks to build Pharaoh’s tombs.
At this point, it seems like God has abandoned his people. But he hasn’t. He hears the cries of his people and sends a deliverer named Moses. God sends Moses to tell Pharoah, “Let my people go!” And God gives Pharoah 10 chances or plagues to change his mind, but Pharoah refuses. The 10th and final plague is the most convincing. This plague would kill the firstborn son of everyone in Egypt, human and animal. This was God’s way to execute judgment not on people but on the gods of Egypt who worked through Pharoah to enslave God’s people.
But God in his mercy promises to provide salvation for Israel from his wrath.
Here’s what you’re to do. Take a young unblemished male lamb and at twilight, kill it. Turn that lamb into a meal. Eat the lamb that same night along with unleavened bread (like matzah or saltines) and bitter herbs.
The unleavened bread is a symbol that I’m going to get you out of Egypt in haste and you don’t have time to let the bread rise.
The bitter herbs are a symbol of how Pharoah made your life bitter through slavery.
And take the blood of the lamb and put it on the four sides of your doorpost (in the shape of a cross).
And when my destroying angel comes I will see the blood and I will pass over you. The blood of the lamb will save you from my wrath.
And then in Exodus 12 God instructs them to keep this feast of Unleavened Bread.
Every year the Jewish people are to remove all leavened bread from their houses and only eat unleavened bread for seven days as a reminder of how God swiftly brought them out of bondage and into freedom.
And the Passover meal was shared every year by the Jewish people as a reminder of what God did that night to pass over them and how the blood of the lamb saved them from the wrath of God which came against the gods that enslaved them.
This meal was highly symbolic and highly ordered.
How many of you have done a seder dinner? Same as the Passover meal. It involved the eating of the lamb, the eating of unleavened bread or matzah, several cups of wine, singing of Psalms, asking questions of children to invite them into the story and all to retell the story of God taking his people from bondage to freedom.
Even to this day, sharing this meal is the way the Jewish people act out the reality that God set them free.
It’s a freedom meal.
Do you see all the connections?
This was the story of God’s people then, and it’s our story now.
Do you see it? We get enslaved to spiritual powers that tie us up in bondage to sin. Things like sexual sin, lies, shame, addictions tie us up and keep us from being free to love God and others. Maybe you’re there today.
And the reminder is that through the blood of the lamb we can be free to save us from the wrath of God against the powers that hold us captive. Israel needed God’s rescue and we need Jesus.
We’ve seen the meal prepared, now we’ll see the meal predicted.
20 Now when evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the twelve disciples.
21 As they were eating, He said, “Truly I say to you that one of you will betray Me.”
22 Being deeply grieved, they each one began to say to Him, “Surely not I, Lord?”
23 And He answered, “He who dipped his hand with Me in the bowl is the one who will betray Me.
24 “The Son of Man is to go, just as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born.”
25 And Judas, who was betraying Him, said, “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?” Jesus said to him, “You have said it yourself.”
Scripture predicted the last meal of the Messiah.
Jesus was to be the true Passover lamb who would be killed so God’s people could be set free. And his death would come through betrayal by a close friend and this was predicted in the Old Testament.
Where?
9 Even my close friend in whom I trusted,
Who ate my bread,
Has lifted up his heel against me.
There are other examples, as well but this one maps on.
There are many famous depictions of the last supper, but this one provides a unique representation.
As the disciples are sharing the Passover meal - the freedom meal - Jesus tells them that one of them will betray them.
Their astonishment is extreme. Imagine the devastation of when you get that phone call, the diagnosis or the news, and you are deeply grieved. It’s that.
One commentary I read said they are so shaken they begin to doubt their own minds and ask him, “Jesus you can’t be talking about me, can you?”
But Judas is the one.
In the great mystery of the cross we see that this was planned by God and yet it involves human responsibility. God’s divine plan is tied up in the deliberate sin of humans.
I think we’re to see that even in the midst of unthinkable evil - God is still in the driver’s seat.
Like in the story of Joseph - what people meant for evil, God meant for good.
Like Pharaoh meant evil for God’s people yet God meant it for good, so Judas’ evil betrayal of Jesus would be turned into the greatest rescue the world had ever seen.
In situations in our own life where sin has wrecked us, or things look out of control, God is still at work.
We’ve seen the meal prepared, the meal predicted, and now we’ll see the meal prescribed.
26 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”
27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you;
28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.
29 “But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”
30 After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Here, Jesus prescribes that his disciples still act out the Passover meal, but now with entirely new meaning.
First he says Take, eat, this is my body.
Again, we’re not cannibals. What does Jesus mean?
Catholics believe when you take the Eucharist it literally becomes Christ’s body. I don’t understand the full implications of that but at one level Jesus must be speaking metaphorically because he’s giving the disciples bread and he’s not giving them pieces of his flesh. So when we take communion we are saying the bread symbolizes Jesus’ body.
Another way to think about it is we’ll say, “I binged a show this weekend.” Well you didn’t actually drink the show but you’re saying you engrossed yourself in the show because you so enjoyed it.
Similarly I think Jesus is saying we are to be so taken by him that we want him to be more a part of our lives and we symbolize that through eating the bread.
Picture of Matzah
They were eating matzah or unleavened bread and if you look close you can see it has holes it in it, it has stripes, and it’s broken in pieces.
Is. 53 connection
5 But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.
Bread used to symbolize Israel’s swift exit from slavery in Egypt.
Now it symbolizes Jesus’ body sacrificed on the cross as our exit from slavery to sin to freedom in Christ.
Second he says drink this cup it’s the blood of the covenant.
What is the blood of the covenant?
After God freed Israel, he made a covenant with them -like a marriage ceremony - to solidify his love with them. And Moses enacted that covenant by a sacrifice and putting blood on the altar.
And so Jesus is saying God is making a new marriage ceremony - a new covenant with sinful people - and my blood shed on the cross is going to enact that new covenant.
The basis of our relationship with God is the blood of Jesus.
Now maybe you’re like - okay you’ve lost me with all this animal sacrifice stuff.
It’s cruel! And weird.
I admit, it is weird. But animal sacrifice is also a huge part of humanity for thousands of years it’s how people thought about their relationship with the reality of the spiritual world.
God does not like killing animals. But he wants to be in relationship with his people and sin gets in the way. And how do you get rid of sin? The Bible says blood. And Jesus’ blood is the final way we remove the sin of the world.
Finally, Jesus says this meal will remind you that I’m not going to stay dead.
My body will break. My blood will be shed. God incarnated will die.
And yet I’m going to share this meal with you again.
This new Passover meal is both a symbol of Jesus’ death and his resurrection.
Then it says they sang a hymn - which was likely Psalms 115-118 as a part of the Passover meal - and they went to the Mt. of Olives.
Wow, so much to take in. What do we see this week about Jesus?
We see Jesus in Communion.
We see Jesus in Communion.
Maybe your kids ask you this, too. But Isabelle often asks me some variation of the question, “Why can’t we see Jesus?”
I think you could make the counterpoint - though it would be beyond a 3-year old - where do we not see Jesus?
Certainly we see him here.
While we don’t believe that these bits of bread ARE Jesus, they symbolize him and give us a picture of who he is.
The bread we eat each Sunday reminds us that Jesus’ body was broken on the cross. He was pierced for our sins and was striped by whips for our sins.
Jesus is our Passover lamb killed so that we could be spared from the wrath of God. God destroyed the gods which enslaved us on the cross as Jesus died.
The cup we dip the bread in represents Jesus’ blood which poured out of his body as he died.
His blood enacted a new covenant. If you love Jesus, your relationship with God is not based on how much you prayed this week. It’s not based on how well you parent. It’s not based on how successful you are at work. It’s not based on what other people think about you. It’s not based on how much Bible you know. It’s based on Jesus’ blood shed for you.
Just like the Passover lamb was the reason God spared Israel, Jesus is the reason God spares us from destruction and invites us into relationship with him.
Every week we take Communion we see Jesus.
Communion is the Freedom Meal of the kingdom.
Communion is the Freedom Meal of the kingdom.
When I take communion, it is a time of introspection.
Remembrance
Remembrance
Fellowship
Fellowship
Anticipation
Anticipation
As we take communion, which of these do you need to emphasize?
I don’t know every dish we have back there, maybe someone was thinking ahead and brought lamb for gyros.
Jesus the true bread of life. Anytime we eat, especially communion and especially meals together as the family of God, food reminds us that we cannot live without Jesus’ life given for us.
And Jesus’ blood poured out for our forgiveness. Anytime we drink, especially the communion cup and even as we drink together, we are reminded that the basis of our relationship with God is not our performance but in Jesus’ blood shed for us.
Whatever we eat, whatever we drink, all meals are important because they’re all about Jesus.
Communion - take together
It’s been said that this is a meal where the boundary between heaven and earth grows thin.