Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Megan and I have attempted over the course of our marriage to discipline ourselves to eat regularly at our table.

It’s a sign of the times that we live in that we even have to make such a statement, but it has required discipline and intentionality nonetheless.

But, what we’ve found is that sitting down at the table with one another is powerful in ways that we don’t often perceive.

Sitting down at the table has a way of just letting you know that, as a family, we’re good with one another.

Throughout the day, you may be pulled in a hundred different directions and find yourself being totally overwhelmed by the chaos, but joining your family at the table has a way of resetting your priorities so that you remember what really matters.

There’s an intimacy that comes with sharing a meal and a conversation that is powerful and renewing.

It’s coming to a place in which you are embraced and accepted, a reminder that there is somebody that’s always in your corner no matter how you’ve failed or succeeded at school, at work, or any of your endeavors.

Today, we’re going to see Jesus sit down with his disciples for the final time before He goes to the cross.

And, what we’re privileged to look in on is an intimate meal established for the church so that we can come together to remember who He really is and who we really are in him so that we might be renewed and so that our priorities might be reset.

God’s Word

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A New Memory

“Now, as they were eating...” Jesus gathers with his disciples for one final meal, one final time of fellowship with each other.

And, the meal they are sharing with one another is not just any meal; it is the Passover.

They were gathered as a family to celebrate the provision of God for their salvation from death all those years ago in Egypt.

The Passover was a time that was set aside for God's people to remember how wonderful their God was.

They remembered that God sent the plagues and that God conquered Pharaoh on their behalf.

They remembered how they thought they were about to be destroyed when God parted the Red Sea.

They remembered how they ate the manna from heaven and drank from the water poured out of a rock.

They remembered how God had led them by a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud during the day.

They remembered how God had not only delivered them from Egypt's slavery but also how He took them into a land that was flowing with milk and honey.

The Passover was a time set aside so that all of God's people could remember who their God was and the assurance that they could have assurance that He would preserve them just as He did their ancestors.

But now, Jesus is establishing a new memory, a new celebration of God's goodness and provision.

Just as God had delivered his people from Egypt's oppression, now He will deliver them from sin's slavery.

Just as God had conquered their enemy Pharaoh, now He would conquer their enemy death.

As He had provided for their every need to sustain them, now He would sustain them with his provision of grace.

On Mt.

Sinai, God had given the stipulations of the Old Covenant so that his people might enter into the Promised Land, but now, on Mt.

Calvary He will provide the stipulations of a New Covenant that will circumcise the heart and write his Law within.

The difference between Egypt and Israel was not Israel’s goodness; it was the blood of all of the lambs.

And now, the difference between the church and the world is not our goodness; it’s the blood of the Lamb of God shed for us.

Immediate Purpose, Future Purpose

This would have been the most intense night that these disciples would have ever experienced.

Jesus is leaving nothing a mystery.

And, there’s an immediate purpose and a future purpose established.

In the immediate, He is preparing his disciples.

He is preparing them for what would happen tomorrow by pre-explaining exactly what was about to happen.

I remember just before my surgery the doctors explaining to me how I would feel and what my recovery would be like once the surgery was concluded.

They wanted to me to have the right expectations so that I wouldn’t think things were out of control, going badly.

This is what Jesus is doing here in his last supper with his disciples.

He is telling them exactly what is to take place tomorrow and that He is embracing it willingly so that they will know that things are not out of control and the cross is not proof that Jesus is weak or defeated, though this is how it will look.

In fact, tomorrow will happen exactly as He describes.

Jesus knows how He will be murdered even before his murderers know.

He is setting the expectation for his disciples.

Just as all of those lambs were slaughtered in the initial Passover for the good of God’s people, so will He be slain so that God’s people might find an exodus from their bondage to sin.

And so, we see there is this immediate purpose for his disciples.

But, there is also a future purpose in mind.

We can see that the purpose of this last supper was also to establish a pattern of remembering for Jesus' church so that we would not forget what God the Father has provided and what God the Son has done.

And, on that night of intensity, Christ Jesus established what is still today the most intense form of Christian worship -- the Lord's Supper, which is has been passed down to us directly from the original disciples.

When we take of the Lord’s supper, we join in with over 2000 years of Christians to remember the wonder of Christ’s sacrifice for us.

We remember who Christ is, what Christ has done, and the assurance of what Christ has promised to us.

The Bread That is Broken

“Take, eat, this is my body” For more than a thousand years, Jewish households had celebrated the passover the same way.

First, they would take the unleavened bread, and every head of household would say the same thing before the family ate, “This is the bread of affliction, which our ancestors ate when they left Egypt.”

They would dip the bread into a bowl of bitter herbs, and they would remember the bitterness of the slavery from which they had been delivered.

But, Jesus does something that is blasphemous if He isn’t God.

He says, “This is my body that is broken for you.”

It would have dropped the jaws of his disciples.

Jesus was saying, “I am the bread of affliction.

I will bear the bitterness of your slavery and God’s wrath.

As we break this bread with one another, so will my body be broken for you tomorrow.

Jesus gathers with his disciples for one final meal, one final time of fellowship with each other.

And, the meal they are sharing with one another is not just any meal; it is the Passover.

They were gathered as a family to celebrate the provision of God for their salvation from death all those years ago in Egypt.

The Passover was a time that was set aside for God's people to remember how wonderful their God was.

They remembered that God sent the plagues and that God conquered Pharaoh on their behalf.

They remembered how they thought they were about to be destroyed when God parted the Red Sea.

They remembered how they ate the manna from heaven and drank from the water poured out of a rock.

They remembered how God had led them by a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud during the day.

They remembered how God had not only delivered them from Egypt's slavery but also how He took them into a land that was flowing with milk and honey.

The Passover was a time set aside so that all of God's people could remember who their God was and the assurance that they could have that He would preserve them just as He did their ancestors.

His Body at No Expense

“after bless it, broke it and gave it to his disciples” The way that bread was eaten was that it was baked as one loaf, and this was quite literally before sliced bread.

So, the host of the home would take the loaf, and he would break it so that he could provide for each person that was eating at his table.

It was a picture of fellowship, love, and provision at someone else's expense.

They were to provide the bread and offer it to you.

You were just to enjoy it.

This is a picture of Jesus' body.

It was his body that was to be provided.

It was his body that was to be chained to the post.

It was his body that was to be beaten with the cat of 9 tails.

It was his body that was to endure the stripes that removed the flesh from his back and his body that was receive the crown of thorns on his brow.

It was his body that was to receive the nails and his body that would suffocate on the cross.

It was his body provided at no expense to us so that we might enjoy God's provision for our sin.