“LAST PASSOVER – FIRST COMMUNION”
LUKE 22:7-20
I. Introduction
Think for a moment about someone whom you’ve loved who has passed away. Can you see them in your mind’s eye? Sure you can. Do the memories of that person flood back and wash over you? What are you remembering? Are you’re thinking of something, a moment in time, or a particular place that connected you to that person and defined your relationship? If so, you’re remembering that loved one’s life and how that life affected yours. Remember- ing isn’t a bad thing. Although such memories can be bittersweet, it’s good to remember the lives of those who have influenced us and then gone on before us.
This morning we will remember our Lord Jesus Christ. He is your Savior who has gone on before you to, as He said in John 14:2, “…prepare a place for you.” Can you see Him in your mind’s eye? Are you remembering His life and what you know of Him as it’s been revealed in the Scriptures? It’s good to remember Jesus’ life, isn’t it? That is one of the things Christians are called to do – remember Jesus’ life.
So, we will come to this table this morning, and we will partake of these elements, and we will remember Jesus. That’s why Communion is called a memorial service. But taking the time to remember Jesus’ life really isn’t the primary purpose of this memorial. Rather, we are here to remember His death.
Alexander Maclaren was one of the great preachers of the nineteenth century. What follows are excerpts taken from one of his sermons.
“The Lord’s Supper is a standing evidence of Christ’s own estimate of where the cen-ter of His work lies. We are to remember His death. Why should it be selected as the chief treasure for memory, unless it was something altogether different from the death of other wise teachers and benefactors?”
“…what meaning is there in it, if Christ’s death were not the sacrifice for the world’s sin? Surely no view of the significance and purpose of the cross but that which sees in it the propitiation for the world’s sins accounts for this rite. A Christianity which strikes the atoning death of Jesus out of its theology is sorely embarrassed to find a worthy meaning for His dying command, ‘This do in remembrance of Me.’”
“But if…His death was the indispensable condition of pardon and the impartation of His life, then ‘wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world (Matt. 26:13),’ there, as its vital center, shall His death be proclaimed, and this rite shall speak of it as a memorial of Him, and ‘…proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes (1 Cor. 11:26).’”
“Thank you for that reminder, Pastor Maclaren. This morning we will remember Jesus’ death and we will proclaim it.”
Whether we call our Communion service a rite (as did Alexander Maclaren), a sacrament (as do the Roman Catholics and some others), or an ordinance (as do many Protestants), the meaning is the same. One dictionary defines what we do here today as “a formal religious act that is sac-red as a sign or symbol of a spiritual reality.” That’s pretty good. And all the way back in the fourth century, Augustine said that partaking in the Lord’s Supper was an “outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.”
So as we go through the service this morning I would ask you to keep this question at the forefront of your thinking: “Where would I be without Jesus’ death?”
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II. Review
Let’s review the events that have led up to the Thursday evening before Jesus’ crucifixion in Jerusalem. Four days ago, on what we now call “Palm Sunday,” He enters the city to the shouts of multitudes, “Hosanna, Hosanna!” There’s no doubt that some of those who are calling out to Him understand who He is and believe in Him. But few of them are humbly seeking the salvation of their souls and someone to free them from their bondage to sin. On the contrary, most of them are looking for an influential and powerful leader who will lead the nation in throwing off its bonds of slavery to Rome.
But since Jesus’ arrival in the city, He has made no attempt to incite the people or to rally them to rise up against the Roman Empire. On the contrary, He has gone into the temple and preached and taught God’s eternal truths. In doing so He has confronted the religious lead-ers with their sins of self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and the oppression and spiritual abuse of the very same people God has called them to lead and shepherd.
None of what Jesus has to say to them is new. He has been saying these things to the reli-gious leaders for three years. But now, as the hour appointed for Jesus’ death approaches, those leaders are stirred into a frenzy of hatred for the Lord. One way or the other, they will be rid of Him. One way or the other, they will see Him dead. But how can they do it?
Satan sees his opportunity and finds just the vehicle to accomplish his purpose. One of the Lord’s disciples, Judas Iscariot, is a phony, an unbeliever pretending to be a believer. Jesus, of course, knows this; no one else does until, after Judas is possessed by Satan, he goes to the religious leaders of Israel and offers his services. He will gladly betray Jesus to them.
*Luke 22:5-6a
5 And they (the religious leaders) were glad, and agreed to give him (Judas) money.
6 And he consented, and began seeking a good opportunity to betray Him (Jesus) to them…
It’s interesting to note that Matthew’s gospel tells us that Judas decided to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. That’s significant because Exodus 21:32 specified that thirty pieces of silver was the value of a slave.
And that brings us to this morning’s text in Luke’s gospel.
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III. Text
It is Thursday in Jerusalem. The Feast of Unleavened Bread will begin tomorrow. And so, just as it is prescribed in the Law of Moses, the Passover meal will be eaten tonight.
*Luke 22:7-20 (Please stand with me in honor of reading God’s Word.)
7 Then came the first day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.
8 And (Jesus) sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.”
9 And they said to Him, “Where do You want us to prepare it?”
10 And He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house that he enters.
11 “And you shall say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, “Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?”’
12 “And he will show you a large, furnished, upper room; prepare it there.”
13 And they departed and found everything just as He had told them; and they prepared the Passover.
14 And when the hour had come (Jesus) reclined at the table, and the apostles with Him.
15 And He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;
16 for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
17 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He said, “Take this and share it among yourselves;
18 for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.”
19 And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remem-brance of Me.”
20 And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.”
We know that Jesus will be in control of the things that will take place over the next twenty-four hours. But here we see that truth begin to come into a sharper focus. Events that seem to be driven by sinful men, demonic influence, and even by Satan himself will not be driven by them at all. The only power they will have over Jesus is the power that God will give them. Therefore, everything that happens between Luke 22:7 and Jesus’ taking His last breath in Luke 23:46 will be established by the plan of God and orchestrated by His hand.
Let me read just a few of the verses in John’s gospel where Jesus reminds us that He is in control, and that He has total and absolute power and authority over His own life.
John 10:17-18a
17 “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again.
18a “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again…”
John 19:10-11a
10 Pilate therefore said to (Jesus), “You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?”
11a Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above…”
Now with that reality firmly in mind…
*Luke 22:7-13
7 Then came the first day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.
8 And (Jesus) sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.”
9 And they said to Him, “Where do You want us to prepare it?”
10 And He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house that he enters.
11 “And you shall say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, “Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?”’
12 “And he will show you a large, furnished, upper room; prepare it there.”
13 And they departed and found everything just as He had told them; and they prepared the Passover.
In order to get all of this is its proper context we need to go back to the Book of Exodus. God gave Moses and Aaron instructions for the Feast of Unleavened Bread in Exodus 12. The Passover lamb would act as the sacrifice for the sins of the people. It would be slain on the night before the feast began.
*Exodus 12:3-6
3 “Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their father’s households, a lamb for each household.
4 ‘Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor near-est to his house are to take one according to the number of persons in them; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb.
5 ‘Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
6 ‘And you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight.’”
Since the Feast of Unleavened Bread would begin on the Sabbath (the first day of the week, Saturday) – and since, on the Hebrew calendar, days end and begin at sunset, not midnight as they do on our calendar – and since the Passover Lamb had to be killed at twilight (by the end of the day on Friday) the day before the feast began – then, Jesus had to die (and in order to com-ply with various other OT laws), and His body had to be in the tomb before sunset on the Friday before the Sabbath on which the Feast of Unleavened Bread would began. Got it?
Now with all of that you can see just how clear and specific a prophecy is found in Exodus 12:6, can’t you? None of Jesus’ enemies, not even Satan, could have orchestrated or chore-ographed that! And they didn’t. God did!
Can you imagine how many lambs were being slain that day? Or more specifically, how many lambs were being slain during those last hours that Jesus hung on the cross? We know that Jerusalem was overflowing with pilgrims from all over Israel who were there to cele-brate Passover and partake in the feast. How many of them were desperately trying to com-ply with the law and have their lamb slain before sundown? Literally tens of thousands of lambs were dying and the blood must have been running deep. Paul said, “For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed (1 Corinthians 5:7).” (back to Luke 22)
Jesus knows that Judas is looking for a time and a place to betray Him. The religious lead-ers want a time and a place where they can take Him without causing a stir among the peo-ple. So in Luke 22:8 Jesus, knowing he would be in a secluded place for the Passover meal, quietly tells Peter and John to “…go and prepare the Passover for us.” By not telling them exactly specifically where to go, Judas’ plan is at least temporarily foiled.
And so Jesus’ disciples would eat the Passover meal together, and when that was over He would institute what you and I do here today in this Communion service – what we call the “Lord’s Supper.”
*Luke 22:14-18
14 And when the hour had come (Jesus) reclined at the table, and the apostles with Him.
15 And He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;
16 for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
17 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He said, “Take this and share it among yourselves;
18 for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.”
The substitutionary atonement is what I hope you can readily see in the Passover. In it God presents us with a picture of the death of an innocent substitute who takes the place of a guilty sinner. He instituted it as a shadow of the substance to come. It is a symbol of a reali-ty. And while shadows and symbols have great value in teaching God’s truths, they cannot provide the substance or the reality.
When it comes to atonement for our sins the shed blood of animals could have no permanent effect for sinners. It matters not how many times or how much blood is shed. Only the shed blood of God’s perfect Lamb, His Son, could do that. And He only had to shed His blood one time. That’s because He was without any sin of His own. Therefore, His sacrifice was perfect. Listen to the writer of Hebrews.
*Hebrews 10:1-4
1 For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near.
2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshippers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins?
3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year.
4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
King David knew this and said so when he spoke about his sin being covered.
Psalm 32:1
1 How blessed he man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
The Hebrew word translated “covered” is “kâcâh.” (kaw-sawʹ) It means to hide or to conceal something. So the blood of sacrificial animals didn’t remove any sins; it merely covered them up. But when Jesus came and sacrificed Himself it was a different story.
John 1:29
29 (John the Baptist) saw Jesus coming to him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
Jesus’ single sacrifice doesn’t cover up our sins or hide them away someplace. It removes them and they are gone forever! (Psalm 103:12 says, “As far as the east is from the west…”)
*Hebrews 10:10-12
10 By this will (God’s will) we have been sanctified (made holy) through the offer-ing of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11 And every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins;
12 but He (Jesus), having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God… (back to Luke 22)
In v. 14 the fact that they “reclined at the table” tells us this was a long leisurely meal.
The Passover celebration would take hours because there was quite a bit to it. It would open with prayer followed by a cup of diluted wine called the cup of blessing. That would be fol-lowed by a ceremonial hand-washing that symbolized cleansing from sin. After that they would eat bitter herbs to remind them of the bitterness of slavery in Egypt (and the bitterness of slavery to sin). Then they would eat bread dipped in a sweetened mixture fruit and nuts.
That would be followed by the singing of Psalms 113-114 and the father (or whoever was sit-ting at the head of the table) would explain the meaning of Passover. Only then would the main course be served. It consisted of unleavened bread and the roasted sacrificial lamb. The Passover meal would be followed with another cup of wine and the singing of Psalms 115-118. (Those six psalms [113-118] are the “Hallel,” from which we get the word “Hallelujah.”)
In Luke 22:15-16 Jesus expresses His heartfelt desire to eat this last Passover with those whom He loves and – based upon the intensity of the Greek words used here – there is great emotion as He tells them that even though this is His last Passover in this life, there will be another. The day will come when He will eat it with them “…in the kingdom of God.”
Now that raises a question for us, doesn’t it? If this is the last Passover, if Jesus is now ful-filling the Mosaic Law, why would there ever need to be another Passover celebration? The last sixteen chapters of Ezekiel (34-48) are about the coming Millennial Kingdom when Israel will be restored. Those chapters lay out the details of worship during the Millennium. Jesus is speaking of that day. But in that day there will be one major difference. Israel will not be remembering the exodus and the blood of bulls and goats. Rather, Israel will be remember-ing the cross and the blood of the Lamb of God.
In this promise to His disciples is the hope of eternal life. No matter what happens next, they will be with Jesus again, and they will “recline at table” with Him again. All the joys of the kingdom of God were yet to come. And so, in Luke 22:18, Jesus’ last Passover cele-bration comes to an end with the statement that He will not do this again “…until the king-dom of God comes.” But wait, there’s something more.
*Luke 22:19-20
19 And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remem-brance of Me.”
20 And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.”
Wait a minute! What’s this? What Jesus is doing in these two verses is bringing the Old Covenant to an end and instituting the New Covenant. This has nothing to do with the Pass-over. Listen to John MacArthur’s explanation from his commentary on Luke’s gospel…
“It is impossible to overstate the monumental change these few simple phrases intro-duce.
Christ’s words signaled the end of the Old Covenant, with its social, ceremonial, die-tary, and Sabbath laws, and installed the New Covenant. With these words, Jesus marked the end of all the rituals and sacrifices, the priesthood, the holy place, and the Holy of Holies, the curtain (veil) of which God would soon split from top to bottom, throwing it wide open. All that the Old Covenant symbolism pointed toward would be fulfilled in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
It is right there in v. 19 where Jesus says, “…My body which is given for you.” This is the sacrifice of Christ, the substitutionary atonement, without which you and I would have no hope. In Luke 22:19-20 we see the reality of the New Covenant laid out before our eyes.
Before we partake of the elements let me say a few words about just what those elements are. They are unleavened bread and grape juice (the fruit of the vine). That is what they are. There is no magic in them, and they do not supernaturally become something else for the benefit of this service. They are symbols.
I say this because many of us here come from a background and theological tradition that teaches otherwise. The Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation teaches that, during the mass, the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Christ. Rome claims that although the appearance of the bread and wine do not change, the substance does.
Martin Luther (to his credit) rejected that false teaching but replaced it with one of his own, which may be even more convoluted. Lutherans teach the doctrine of consubstantiation. It says that Jesus’ spiritual presence is in the elements. Millard Erickson explains…
“…the molecules (of the bread and wine) are not changed into flesh and blood; they remain bread and wine. But the body and blood of Christ are present ‘in, with, and under’ the bread and wine. (So the Lutheran doctrine teaches that) it is not that the bread and wine have become Christ’s body and blood, but that we now have the body and blood in addition to the bread and the wine.”
Both of these teachings (transubstantiation and consubstantiation) are false. The truth is that all we have here are symbols – symbols of the body and blood of our Lord and Savior. In John Jesus says that He is the bread of life, the light of the world, the door for the sheep, and the vine that grows fruit-producing branches. But, of course, Jesus is literally neither bread, nor light, nor a door, nor a vine. In each case of these cases (and many others) He is speaking figuratively. He is using symbolism.
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IV. Conclusion
So this morning we eat the bread and we drink the cup as reminders of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, His substitutionary atonement. That is what we remember and this is what we celebrate. So, with John the Baptist, we look to Jesus and we say, “Behold, the Lamb of God to takes away the sin of the world!” Please join me at the table.