Word of Salvation – Vol.30 No.27 – July 1985
The Last Supper
Sermon by Rev. S. Voorwinde on Luke 22:19, 20
Scripture: Luke 22: 1-23;
Read: Belgic Confession Art.35
“Come, for the feast is spread,
Hark to the call;
Come to the Living Bread,
offered to all.
Come to His house of wine,
Low on His breast recline,
All that He has is thine;
Come, sinner, come.” (Hymn 420)
In this rather poetic and old-fashioned way one of our hymns invites believers to come to the Lord’s Table.
But now imagine that on a communion Sunday there was somebody in church who had never before seen the Lord’s Supper celebrated. In our day and age that’s not too hard to imagine. But now imagine further that that same person watched closely to see what was happening and then after church asked you some very relevant questions:
“What did all of this mean?”
“What was the bread and wine all about?”
“And personally how do you benefit from all of this?”
If someone asked you these questions after the Lord’s Supper, would you be able to give a satisfactory answer? Do you realize the full implications of what you do at the Lord’s Table? Do you have a clear understanding of what’s involved?
In many ways our celebration of the Lord’s Supper is very simple. And yet this simple activity has profound spiritual significance. And so I would like us to consider again exactly what the significance of the Lord’s Supper is. And I’d like to do this by taking three steps.
- How the Lord Jesus celebrated the Supper with His disciples.
- How the Lord’s Supper has been understood in the history of the Church.
- How the Lord’s Supper is significant for us today.
That original Supper that Jesus had with His disciples, commonly known as “the Last Supper” in actual fact should be more correctly called, “the First Supper”. In any case this Supper with His disciples is a highly important event in the life and ministry of our Lord. He tells His disciples that with great longing He has desired to eat this Passover with them. And in the events of Luke 22 we can see just how deep His longing was.
It’s just a few days before His trial and execution, and Jesus knows it. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to put Him to death, and Jesus knows it. And Satan had entered into the heart of Judas to betray Him. And Jesus knows that too.
Now here in this chapter the drama is rapidly unfolding. The plot is thickening. It is just before the Passover feast. Crowds from far and wide were milling around Jerusalem. They were looking for places to stay. They were making last minute preparations for the feast. Jesus and His disciples were there too, but one of His disciples had been making quite different arrangements. Judas had had a discussion with the chief priests how he might betray Jesus. He had to be cunning though. He had to avoid the crowds, or the whole plot might misfire. Those people had been getting up early in the morning to hear Jesus preach in the Temple. If He was to be betrayed it had to be by stealth. Keep clear of the crowds.
What better time than this Thursday night to betray Jesus? It would be dark and furthermore all the people would be indoors having their Passover meal. What an ideal opportunity! All that Judas had to do now was to find out where Jesus planned to celebrate the Passover and he would have his evil scheme all sown up.
But Jesus was a step ahead of Judas. He knew the devilish plan that Judas had in mind even if none of the others knew about it. He had to forestall Judas. So He takes some precautions. Judas is not to know where they will celebrate the Passover. So Jesus makes some secret arrangements with a man in town in Jerusalem. At a certain hour he is to have a man carrying a pitcher of water near the entrance to the city. This man would be easily recognized because it was the custom for women to carry pitchers. Men carried water in skins. Without saying a word, two of Jesus’ disciples would follow this man to the chosen house. In this way Judas would not know where the Passover was being celebrated until they were all together in the Upper Room. Then he must wait for another opportunity for his evil deed. Meanwhile Jesus is able to celebrate the Supper with His disciples. Judas’ plan must wait. It will go ahead, but not yet. Jesus’ hour has not quite come.
So you can see that Jesus went out of His way to make this Supper with His disciples possible. With great longing He had looked forward to it, and now that great moment has arrived.
There was Jesus with His disciples eating the Passover meal like so many other little groups throughout Jerusalem. They were eating the Passover Lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Along with that went the customary glasses of wine.
Now we begin to understand why Jesus would not have missed this Supper for anything. According to the Jewish reckoning Passover day and Good Friday had already begun on that Thursday evening. He was the Passover Lamb to which all the thousands of lambs throughout Jewish history had been pointing. On that Passover the Lamb of God was going to be slain. Jesus Himself was that Lamb.
This was the last meal that Jesus was going to have with His disciples. Let them see the significance of what He was about to do! Let them never forget what He was about to do. Then He took some of the unleavened bread and broke it and gave it to them: “This is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Then after the meal He took the cup of red wine and said: “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’
The new covenant has now come. The old covenant was remembered by the Passover. The new covenant is going to be remembered by the Lord’s Supper. In the Passover people looked forward to the cross. In the Lord’s Supper we look back to the cross. After the crucifixion no more Passover lambs need to be slain anymore. The Passover Lamb has been slain.
Do you see now why Jesus, with great longing, desired to eat the Passover with His disciples? He was bringing in a new covenant. He was bringing in a new sacrament. From now on the old was finished!
But now, secondly, how has the church understood the Lord’s Supper throughout its history? Early in the history of the church in the 5th Century, Augustine made an important distinction between the sign and the thing signified. The bread was the sign which signified Christ’s body. The wine was the sign which signified Christ’s blood. He didn’t believe in a change of substance in either the bread or the wine. But then during the Middle Ages another teaching gradually emerged. This was the doctrine of transubstantiation. Basically this meant a change in substance. When the priest prays a prayer of consecration the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine becomes the blood of Christ. It may not look like or taste like anything but bread and wine. But don’t let that fool you. When the priest said the prayer the bread became the body of Christ and the wine became the blood of Christ – not in appearance, but definitely in essence. In the 11th Century the theologian Lanfranc stated the doctrine rather crudely: “The very body of Christ was truly held in the priest’s hand, broken and chewed by the teeth of the faithful.”
Over the years this doctrine of transubstantiation has come in for a lot of criticism, but it is still the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. It was reaffirmed in an encyclical by Pope Paul as recently as 1965. One of the greatest critics of the doctrine was of course Martin Luther at the time of the Reformation. Yet he still believed that Jesus Christ was physically present in the Lord’s Supper. He replaced transubstantiation with the doctrine of consubstantiation. In other words, Christ was “in, with, and under” the elements of the Supper. As magnetism is in a magnet, so Christ is in the elements. As the soul is in the body, so Christ is in the bread and wine.
You may not think that consubstantiation is much of an improvement. And in Luther’s day there were others who didn’t think so either. One of them was the Swiss Reformer Zwingli. He denied the physical presence of Christ altogether. He saw the Lord’s Supper as mainly an act of commemoration. Christ is present spiritually in the faith of the believers. He used a nice illustration to make his point: A sailor is about to go on a long voyage. Before he leaves he gives his wife a beautiful ring. Whenever she wears it she is reminded of his love for her and of the fact that he will return. The Lord’s Supper is such a reminder. It is a memorial feast.
In 1529 one of the Protestant princes brought Luther and Zwingli together to sort out their differences. Unfortunately the meeting was a disaster. Luther kept coming back to the words: “This is my body.” He ridiculed Zwingli’s interpretation: “This signifies my body.” If any term could signify anything you wanted it to say, then you could translate the opening words of Genesis by saying: “The cuckoo ate the hedge-sparrow.” Luther was clearly being unreasonable and it was a sad day for the Protestant cause.
But then in the second generation of the Reformation another interpretation was put forward – this time by John Calvin. With Zwingli he denied that Christ was physically present in the sacrament. Nevertheless Christ was really and truly present through the Holy Spirit. As to the meaning of the Supper, Calvin also put the emphasis where it belonged. The Supper was not first of all an act of man whether it be commemoration or an expression of love or faith. The Supper was first and foremost a gracious gift of God to man. Christ is the host. We are His guests. He invites us to His table.
Christ is spiritually present and the Supper is His gift to us. This is Calvin’s position in a nutshell. It was adopted by many later Protestants, including of course, all the Reformed Churches.
How then is the Lord’s Supper significant for us today? What does it mean to you personally? In the light of the perspective we have just gained, let’s answer these questions in two ways:
(i) What God does for us,
(ii) What we do in the Supper.
(i) What God, what Christ does:
a) He nourishes us spiritually. The Lord’s Supper is food for our souls. We are fed spiritually from the Word of God which is sometimes referred to as milk. Likewise we are fed by the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
b) He strengthens our faith. Like prayer and Bible reading the sacraments are a means of grace. When we partake worthily (sincerely) the Lord strengthens our faith.
c) We are drawn closer to Christ. By the Holy Spirit we are linked or connected to the risen Christ. As the Belgic Confession puts it: “This feast is a spiritual table, at which Christ communicates Himself with all His benefits to us, and gives us there to enjoy both Himself and the merits of His sufferings and death.” (Chap.35).
Christ may not be physically present at our communion.
But His presence at our L.S. celebration is just as real as it was with His disciples on that last evening. He is here to nourish us, to strengthen our faith and to draw us closer to Himself.
(ii) What do we do in the Lord’s Supper?
a) We remember the Lord’s death. “Do this in remembrance of me. In this sense it is a memorial feast. It is a way of saying: “Lest we forget. And at the same time we are telling the world what a central place the cross of Christ has in our lives. We are proclaiming the Lord’s death.
b) We give thanks. The Lord’s Supper is also called “The Eucharist”, the thanksgiving. We give thanks that Christ died for our sins. As Christ gave thanks for the bread and for the cup, so now we give thanks for Him.
c) We express our spiritual unity with one another. For we share what matters most in life. That’s why some people call it Communion. 10:16,17: “Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.”
The Lord’s Supper is a visible and tangible expression of the fellowship that we have in Christ. It does not necessarily mean that we agree on every last point of doctrine, but it does mean that all together we are saying: “Jesus bled and died for us.”
d) In the Lord’s Supper we are looking forward to the great banquet in Heaven, the marriage supper of the Lamb. As Jesus said to His disciples then: “I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.’
The Lord’s Supper then has reference to the past, the present and the future. We look back at Christ’s death and we give thanks. We look at ourselves today and we express the unity and the fellowship that we have in Christ. And we look forward to the great banquet in Heaven.
And as we celebrate, let’s not forget to look at that Future. Remember it’s called “The Marriage Supper of The Lamb.” The Passover Lamb on the cross will be the Bridegroom of Glory.
And let’s remember too that only then will we finally celebrate the Lord’s Supper perfectly. There we will stand above the theological arguments and divisions of the ages. Luther will be there. Calvin will be there. Zwingli will be there. And also, by God’s grace, you and I will be there. And in perfect harmony we will sing:
“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God,
the Almighty, reigns.” (Rev.19:6).