The institution of the Lord` Supper

Sermon notes from Sunday 19 May 2019

Luke 22 verses 7 - 20

In Luke 22 we have what is often referred to as the institution of the Lord`s Supper.  The Lord and his disciples celebrated the Passover together the night before Jesus died. 

The significance of the Lord`s Supper.  They were remembering that night in Egypt when the chilren of Israel were under hard bondage and labour to Pharoah.  Pharoah represents a type of the devil and Egypt a type of the world.  As well as looking back they were looking forward to the cross.  The Lord came to Moses and devised this great plan to lead the Children of Israel out of Egypt.  This was what was on the minds of the disciples.  They were thinking of the slavery of Egypt but also this great plan of God.  God had told Moses to take a lamb, put it to death and the blood was to be poured out.  A little hyssop, the weakest of all the shrubs grown out of the very blocks on the wall was to be used to apply the blood.  That hyssop reminds me of faith in applying that blood.  They were to dip it into the blood and apply it to the door lintels.  Every other plague had failed but the lamb would never fail.  As they looked back on that particular occasion they were thinking of the lamb that was put to death and the angel who passed through the land that night.  Now the Lord was participating in this supper with his friends.  He was pointing now to his departure, to the day when he would be betrayed, when he would be scourged and beaten, hung on a cross by his hands and feet with nails.  He told the disciples that night "this do in remembrance of me."  The Lord`s table speaks of fellowship and communion.  The Lord sat with his disciples around the table to eat this last supper with them.  The Lord`s Supper is for those who have been saved, the moment we trusted Christ as Saviour and Lord we became part of God`s family.  We died to all our ego, our selfish ambitions and now celebrate fellowship and communion with God himself.  One day we will join with him in heaven.  When the apostle Paul speaks of the Lord`s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11 he says "I praise you not that ye come together not for the better but for the worse."  In the early Chrisitan church there were agape feasts or love feasts.  The apostle Paul realised the church had hijacked this whole theme, they were bringing wine and food for everyone`s convenience.  The sentiment was good to the rich and poor that they could eat together, they were showing a love for each other in Corinth but there was also an abuse of this.  We read that there were divisions in the church.  Some were leaving the table in a drunken stupor and Paul condemned that practice.  They were coming together, not to eat the Lord`s Supper.  It was not a feast of the physical and temporal but a feast for us in spiritual things.  As the Lord sat around the table with his disciples he showed a love for them.  It is for us to celebrate in this great love.

The simplicity of the Lord`s Supper.  Jesus gave us a pattern to follow with the bread and wine sitting before him.  He said "this do in remembrance of me."  In other words "I want you to do this and nothing more."  Maybe the Lord knew how the religious world would take this religious supper for themselves.  The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11 gives the teaching to the church based on that which happened between the Lord and his disciples.  Verse 23 "For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread.  Paul learned this from the Lord himself.  The simplicity of it - a simple remembrance of what the Lord did that night with his disciples.  C H Spurgeon said "if we were to take the cover off the table we would find bread, ordinary bread and ordinary wine, not turned into the body of Christ or the blood of Christ.  In this respect we take the simple service as remembrance of what Christ has done for us."  We should not lose sight of the simple routine.

The scrutiny of the Lord`s Supper.  1 Corinthians 11 verse 27 "Wherefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord."  Paul then goes on to say in verses 30 and 31 "For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged."  Paul was not saying that many are cut down because of what they have done at the Lord`s table but it can happen.  "Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup." verse 28  Paul was saying that if something comes up with someone else, they were to get before the Lord and deal with it then and there and then let him eat.  We don`t go away first but rather deal with it immediately.  Examine means to consider our motives, our goals, our ambitions, our desires and then we can confess and take the emblems.

The scope of the Lord`s Supper.  Who can come to the Lord`s table and take little from it?  In Luke 22 when the Lord celebrated the bread and wine with his disciples he didn`t tell them how often they were to do it but in 1 Corinthians 11 Paul says "as oft".  Every time we do take the Lord`s supper it is in remembrance of the Lord.  It is a remembrance service, it proclaims Jesus` death for us, it proclaims Jesus` resurrection for us, it proclaims the promise that Jesus is coming back again for us.  Acts 2 verse 46 states that the early disciples celebrated the Lord`s Suppr "daily with one accord".  In Acts 20 we read of Paul in Troas preaching until midnight and then they broke bread.  At that meeting a young man called Eutychus fell backwards and died.  We can only celebrate the Lord`s Supper when we know the Lord as Saviour.  In Acts 2 verses 41 and 42 only those who received the word of God, were saved by God`s grace, "thy continued stedfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and in the breaking of bread."  It is for those whom Jesus suffered and bled and died and gave his life for.  It is for those who have applied that atonement to their lives.  The Lord is looking for those who have applied the blood to their lives for the forgiveness of sins.  When we come to the Lord`s table we look back to Calvary, see how he was abused, tried and butchered, think of the blood running down his face from the crown of thorns placed on his head, see his back lacerated like a ploughed field, see the blood pouring from his side where a sword pierced him.  The Lord asks us to come and wait at the table and remember him.  Is that too much to ask for from the one who has done so much for us?