11/29/201111:48 AM

Lords Supper
In just a minute we are going to take the Lord s Supper. 1 Corinthians 11. There is a strong warning in Verse 28. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly. 30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. 31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we should not be judged. Before we do that we need to do some inspection. Self-examination. This is a beautiful picture of preparation. David said, Psalms 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; Lets begin with some self examination. Unconfessed sin. Bitterness. Unforgiveness. Unresolved anger. Jealousy. Slander. Backbiting. Impure thoughts. 1 Corinthians 11:23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, "This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me."

The Bread
The first element in the supper was the bread. Im holding a piece of bread that you will soon eat in remembrance. Before you do that I want you to understand the meaning of the bread. Jesus had just eaten the Passover. The Passover was the historic Jewish feast commemorating the deliverance from the death angel and freedom from Egypt. Very specific instructions. Take a lamb and hold it 14 days to make sure it is pure. Then at the stroke of Midnight on the th 14 day they were to kill it. And eat it. The Bible says that the lamb was to be eaten with bread and bitter herbs.

The Bread symbolized the Body

He has just eaten the Passover. Jesus took the bread. He handed them broken bread and said, this is my body. Hes doing something interesting. The lamb was the obvious metaphor of Jesus. The sacrificial lamb slain for the sins of the people. The blood from the lamb was placed on the doorpost. When death saw the blood it passed over. Powerful connection to the way that when God sees the blood of Jesus applied to our lives by faith he passes over. The lamb was pure, unblemished. They held it for 14 days to make sure. Jesus was perfect. He who knew no sin. . . The lamb was the perfect image of Christ. When John the Baptist looked up from the muddy waters of the Jordan and saw Jesus walking toward him he cried out, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! Seventy years later when John the apostle was marooned on the island of Patmos God carried him away in a vision. Listen to how he described it, Revelation 14:1 And I looked, and behold, the Lamb was standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads. Jesus was the lamb! But he wasnt holding a piece of lamb. He was holding a piece of bread. This is my body! Why bread? He was actually combining two ideas. They all knew what he meant. That bread wasnt actually his body.

11/29/201111:48 AM There are those within the church who try to say that when the priests sanctify the bread it becomes the actual body of Christ. No. Its not his actual body. Its a representation of his body. Its a symbol to remind us of his sacrifice! Jesus said, I am the unleavened bread.

They demanded more food. They said they would believe him if he provided a sign. Then they offered a suggestion. Moses gave the people manna in the wilderness. How about some more bread. Interesting. The people connected what Jesus had done with what Moses had done. His feeding the five thousand bread corresponded to Moses and the manna. Jesus turned the tide. He used the bread discussion to deal with something much more significant. Our spiritual hunger. First he corrected their theology. That bread from heaven called manna wasnt supplied by Moses. He said, John 6:32 Jesus therefore said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. 33 "For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world." 34 They said therefore to Him, "Lord, evermore give us this bread." They are still focused on filling their bellies. As so many are today. 35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. He repeated that statement in Verse 48. 48 "I am the bread of life. The problem with man is that we are terminal. This is a terminal generation. No matter how good we get with medicine and other things, we will continue to age, and we will ultimately die. So no matter how well fed you are, you must think beyond this life! 49 "Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 "This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 "I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread also which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh." They just didnt get it.

The Bread symbolized purity.

Why unleavened bread. The feast of Unleavened bread began the same day as Passover and lasted 7 days after it. For 7 days no Jew was to allow any leaven into his home. No bread with leaven. Thats why the cracker before you. It wasnt baked bread, it was unleavened bread, a cracker. That would also explain why he broke the bread. He didnt tear it, he broke it. You break a cracker you tear bread. Why unleavened bread? Leaven symbolized sin. Lev 2:11 No grain offering, which you bring to the LORD, shall be made with leaven, for you shall not offer up in smoke any leaven or any honey as an offering by fire to the LORD. 1 Corinthians 5:6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? 7 Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. 8 Let us therefore celebrate the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

The Bread symbolized fulfillment.

There is another powerful image of the bread that I dont want to leave out. His body was broken. Sacrifice is a part of the symbolism. But theres more to it. When he said this is my body he was reminding them of the episode John described in chapter 6. Jesus fed 5000 with five loaves and two fish. He fed them bread. That night Jesus and the disciples slipped away to the other side of the lake. The crowd followed him and finally caught up to him at the synagogue in Capernaum.

11/29/201111:48 AM 52 The Jews therefore began to argue with one another, saying, "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?" Jesus pressed the metaphor even farther. He is goading them to think outside the flesh. But they cant. 53 Jesus therefore said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. 54 "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 "For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. 56 "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. 57 "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me. 58 "This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate, and died, he who eats this bread shall live forever." The bread is a powerful symbol of satisfying your eternal need. he who eats this bread shall live forever. He handed them the broken bread and said, This is my body which is for you. Remember me. Whenever you eat it you proclaim my death.

Blood permanently marked the house.

The Blood symbolized death.

Judaism is a bloody religion. Christianity is a bloody religion. We like to sanitize it. No more sacrifices so no more blood. We miss it. I was preaching on the sacrificial system and the fact that blood was required to atone for sin. I told how Solomon dedicated the temple with 22,000 cows and 122,000 sheep. I wondered how much blood that would be. About 3-6 gallons per cow. At least a couple of quarts per sheep. Lot of blood. Matthew, 7, is listening beside Amy, Thats it, Im not listening any more, all this talk of blood is just too violent. . . Later Amy told me and I asked Matthew what he thought of my sermon. Great, without ever looking up from Nintendo, Just one thing, You should have left out all that violence. Judaism is a violent bloody religion. Highlights the severity of sin and judgment.

The Blood symbolized Life.

Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. I know this is an unusual statement. The blood of Jesus covers our sins. Covers your sins. Nothing you could do. No way you could atone. Christ did what you cant do. Blood. So as you drink, imagine yourself drinking blood. Be repulsed by that. Be horrified by it. And then appreciate what it means. He gave his blood so your dont have to give yours.

The Wine
Verse 25, In the same way also he took the cup. . . This cup is the new covenant in My blood. He took the wine and connected it to the blood. Lets go back to that night in Egypt. They took that lamb theyd been caring for 14 days. God told them to take the blood and dip a brush in the bucket and paint the blood on the doorpost and lintels. When the death angel passed the house and saw the blood he would pass over. Hence the name Passover.

The Wine symbolized blood.

You marked yourself as a person of faith. Next day it was no doubt who believed. 3