Questions for Further Thought

1. How does what Jesus say about the bread and wine relate to the celebration of the Passover, which Jesus and the disciples were commemorating (cf. Exodus 12:1-28)?
2. What is the significance of Jesus saying he is establishing a covenant (cf. Jeremiah 31:31-34)?
3. What can you do to promote faith in your heart when receiving communion, and thus take it in a worthy manner?
4. Given the profound degree of forgiveness that is represented in communion, what relationships might you need to work towards mending before taking communion again?
5. How might you be able to better prepare your heart before taking communion?

Matthew 26:26-29

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom.”

Every so often, we preach on our understanding of the meaning and practice of the Lord’s Supper. This weekend is one such occasion. My aim is that each time, as we eat and drink the Lord’s Supper as a local church, your faith would be strengthened and you would grow in grace.

Does that sound strange to you for me to say that we “grow in grace” through participation in the Lord’s Supper? I realize it might. Here is how we say it in our Elder Affirmation of Faith, “Those who eat and drink in a worthy manner partake of Christ’s body and blood, not physically, but spiritually, in that, by faith, they are nourished with the benefits He obtained through His death, and thus grow in grace.”

Toward that end, with regard to our worship at the Lord’s Table, I want to ask three questions of our text:

1. What did Jesus say?
2. What did Jesus mean?
3. How then are we to participate in the Lord’s Supper?

1. What Did Jesus Say?

Our text in Matthew 26 (cf. Mark 14; Luke 22) records the words of Jesus as he led the disciples in the Passover meal the night before he was crucified.

Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.

In addition to these words of Jesus recorded in our text (and parallel passages in Mark and Luke), we find one additional sentence in 1 Corinthians 11 that Jesus spoke that was not recorded in the Gospels, “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:25).

2. What Did Jesus Mean?

Right here is where, through the centuries, the Christian Church has had differing understandings—not merely between Catholics and Protestants, but even among Protestants there are differing views. For the sake of simplicity, and in order to keep our focus on preparing to participate in the Lord’s Supper, let me make three clarifications concerning what we believe Jesus meant.

Jesus meant to be figuratively understood when he said, “This is my body” and “This is my blood.”

When Jesus spoke the words, “This is my body” (v.26), I believe we can with good confidence say that the disciples understood Jesus figuratively. Jesus’ body was physically present with the disciples. The disciples knew where the physical body of Jesus was—his hands held up the bread and the cup. They didn't start chopping him up to cannibalize him.

Likewise, there is no indication that the disciples really thought that what was in the cup was Jesus’ blood. Jesus’ blood was still in his body. The next day, his blood would bleed out of his body, he would suffer, be crucified and die.

This is where we respectfully disagree with our Catholic and Lutheran neighbors and friends. We do not believe that the bread and the wine actually become the body and blood of Jesus, which is known as “transubstantiation.” Nor do we believe that Christ is present “in, with, and under” the bread of the Lord’s Supper, as Luther taught; this is known as “consubstantiation.”

Here are three illustrations of the kind of figurative language Jesus uses. If I were to hold up a photo of my dad and say, “This is my dad, who served in WWII for you,” you wouldn’t think that the photo was actually my father. You would understand the photo was representative of him. Second, if I were to hold up a pencil and say, “This is me,” what would you think? You would say something like “Oh, I get it! You are saying that you are skinny and bald!”

Third, we have a Nintendo Wii and before you can play tennis or ride a bike on the video game, you have to create an “avatar” to represent yourself in the game. So, with the help of my daughter, on our Wii there is now a bald, tall, thin, middle-aged, medium-complected man in the choice of players. If I were to point to that figure on the TV and say, “That’s me,” what would I mean? I wouldn’t mean that I have actually become the video game character but rather for the purpose of the video game, that “avatar” represents me because it has some similar traits.

Similarly, we do not believe that Jesus changed the bread or the wine in some miraculous way such that the bread actually became his body and the wine his blood. Rather, we believe that Jesus meant to be figuratively understood then and now in his words, “This is my body” and “This is my blood.” That is, he uses the bread and the cup to represent the offering of himself—the offer of his death—to his disciples (then and now).

Jesus meant to figuratively depict his literal death and its meaning.

Jesus said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (v.28; cf. Luke 22:20). Throughout the Old Testament, there are indications that God planned and promised the replacement of the covenant he had with Israel through Moses with something better, with a “New Covenant.” Through the prophet Jeremiah, God had said,

I will make a new covenant … I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people ... they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more … . I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me (Jeremiah 31:31–34, 32:36–44).

Jeremiah didn’t say how this covenant would come about. How would God forgive sins forever?  Sins must be paid for. The Bible says, “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:22).

Through Isaiah the prophet, among others, God revealed how the covenant would be accomplished through the death of the Messiah in Isaiah 53, “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed … the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5-6).

And so, as Jesus offers the bread and pours out the wine, he figuratively depicts his literal death and it’s meaning, namely the establishment of the promised New Covenant. Luke records, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20).

Therefore, at the moment of his death, Jesus said, “It is finished” (John 19:30). The work of establishing the New Covenant was done. The sacrifice of the Christ, the Son of God, was accomplished for the sins of his people—accomplished once for all of God’s people of every time and place.

Hence, the writer of Hebrews declares several times that Christ’s sacrificed himself once for all.

He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily … since he did this once for all when he offered up himself (7:27).

Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly … for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many (9:25-28).

We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (10:10).

Therefore, unlike our Catholic friends, we do not believe that in the celebration of the Lord's Supper that Jesus is offering himself up as a sacrifice again and again. Rather, we believe that at his physical death 2,000 years ago, Jesus—once and for all—established the new covenant by his death for us.

Jesus meant to be figuratively understood when he said, “Eat,” and “Drink.”

You have probably heard that early Christians in the Roman Empire were accused of being cannibals. It was said, “Those Christians eat the body and drink the blood of their Lord!” Again, Jesus spoke figuratively.

That he spoke figuratively at the Last Supper is not strange. It was not the first time Jesus referred to himself figuratively in reference to a physical object in order to teach a spiritual truth. Jesus said he was the light of the world (John 8:12, 9:5), the door (John 10:9), and the vine (John 15:5). Most helpful is John 6, where Jesus declares himself, figuratively as bread. He says, “I am the bread of life … I am the living bread … I am the bread that came down from heaven” (John 6:35, 41, 51). In John 6:50, where Jesus says, “I am the bread of life,” he tells us that when he speaks of eating him as the bread of life, he means to believe in him.

The preceding verses provide the context, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died” (John 6:47-49). So in John 6, when Jesus speaks of eating of the bread, we understand him to be talking about believing in him, “This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:50-51).

It’s all here. What does it mean to “eat” of Jesus, the “bread of life”? He means to believe in him. He means that he will give his flesh for the life of the world.

3. How Then Are We to Participate in the Lord’s Supper?

I remember as a kid some of my friends saying that they had to go receive the sacrament of communion on Saturday nights before they would spend the rest of the evening doing what they knew Christians shouldn’t do. They thought, and were actually taught, that they received grace by being present at the Eucharist—the Lord’s Supper.

We believe that the place of blessing is not this sanctuary. There is no magic blessing that happens by your mere physical presence at the Lord’s Table. The grace is not in the elements. There is no grace in merely physically eating the bread and drinking the cup (except the few calories, and minimal nutritional benefit).

The place of blessing is where we worship Christ by faith in the New Covenant, by faith in all the promises of God, by faith in the gospel. So participate in expectation, that our faith will be strengthened in the Spirit and the truth by the God’s grace to us in Christ!

Just as the Passover supper was to be received in present faith, remembering past salvation, and looking toward the Promised Land, so also the Lord’s Supper is to be received in faith with a past, present and future aspect. I have three ways you can have this three-way faith.

1. Believe (Present Faith)

Jesus invites you to believe in him, right now, when he says, “Take, eat; this is my body.” Jesus says, “Take in faith …

• For it represents my life given freely for you.
• For it represents my death for you.
• And have life (cf. John 6:37).
• I will not cast you out (cf. John 6:37).
• Feeding on my gospel promises (cf. John 6:54).
• For “everyone who believes … has been born of God.”
• Since whoever believes in me is not condemned, but has eternal life.
• For whoever does not have me in faith, does not have life (1 John 5:12), but the wrath of God remains on him (John 3:36).

He invites all of you who believe in him to take the elements, but not only you! “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:27-28). There is an undeniable corporate element in the Lord’s Supper. We all benefit from one Christ, represented by the bread and the cup.

Believe that you are a sinner, in a church full of sinners who also need the death of Christ as much as you do. Receive the elements from Christ who sees through you. You are in a congregation of sinners. When you take the elements, you pronounce to all who witness, “I am a sinner. I am wicked. I am worthy of eternal death except for one thing.” Renounce pretense. The feeling should be like an AA meeting: “Hi, I’m Kenny, and I am a sinner. And my only hope is Christ Jesus.”

1 Corinthians 11 says so much about how not to receive the elements. You can’t receive in a worthy manner if you have no love for the church or if you despise and divide the church.

2. Remember (Past Faith)

Jesus commands his disciples to do this, to do Communion, over and over again, “in remembrance.” That’s why we call the Lord’s Supper an “ordinance” of Jesus, meaning it is a command of Jesus. He said, “Do this in remembrance of me … Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Cor. 11:24-25). Don’t think of this as a mere remembering of facts. Rather, it is a remembering in faith of our Lord, the person of Christ who loved us and gave himself for us.

Christians need the proclamation of gospel. Jesus gave us the Lord’s Supper as an ordinance in order that we might regularly preach the gospel to ourselves by this ceremony. We forget. The world, our flesh and the devil press relentlessly in on us and we drift into unbelief and sin. Remembering in faith is a very biblical thing to do.

In faith, remember:

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:10).

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit (1 Peter 3:18).

3. Hope (Future Faith)

I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom (Matthew 26:29).

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Corinthians 11:26).

Believe that there is a day coming when we will cease with this ceremonial remembrance. Why? Because there is a day coming when you will eat and drink together with Jesus face to face at the marriage banquet of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9). And God will dwell forever with his people in fellowship, eating and drinking and fellowshiping together forever.

The Lord’s Supper is a pointer to the fact that, while Jesus is spiritually present (cf. Matthew 18:20), there is a day coming when we will be reunited with him and actually eat and drink together (Revelation 19:9). There is a day when we will always be with the Lord (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:17) and God will dwell with us as his people (Revelation 21:3).