Introduction

Luke 22:14-20 ESV  And when the hour came, he reclined at 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 tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”  (17)  And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves.  (18)  For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”  (19)  And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”  (20)  And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

• We now come to the feast of Passover.
  • A feast that the Jewish people had celebrated for centuries.
  • A celebration of God’s miraculous provision for His people as He freed them from slavery in Egypt.
• Now before we get into the meat of todays sermon I need to briefly tell the Passover story, so that you understand the prophetic nature of the feast, and the magnitude of this supper that Jesus is having with His disciples.
• If you remember, all the way back in the book of Exodus, God’s people, the Hebrews, where enslaved by the Egyptians.
• After a few hundred years of slavery, God raised up a young prince named Moses to help free His people.
  • God spoke to Moses through a burning bush that never burnt up, and it was here that God gave Himself the Name “YHVH” or in English “I Am that I Am”
• Moses spoke to Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, and demanded “Let God’s People Go!”
• Pharaoh refused and God sent a plague on Egypt.
• Pharaoh refused again… and God sent another plague.
• After a few more cycles of Pharaoh refusing and God sending a plague, God prepared one final plague that would finally convince Pharaoh to let His people go.
  • This final plague was the death of the firstborn son.
  • In every house in Egypt one night, God would send His angel of death to kill the first born son of the house, unless the house was marked with the blood of a pure and spotless lamb.
  • So the Hebrew people took pure and spotless lambs and sacrificed them and marked their house with it’s blood. And the angle of death would Passover that house not killing the firstborn.
  • It was through this act of all of Egypt’s firstborns dying that Pharaoh released the Hebrews from Egypt.

Exodus 12:12-14 ESV  For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD.  (13)  The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.  (14)  “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.

• Someone say “forever”… This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep this feast!”
  • This command was still honored even in the time of Jesus, and it was honored by all Christians until an Anti-Semite named Constantine… to learn more about that go listen to the Return to Ancient Paths series from this fall.
• But the short of it is, here at CLC we still celebrate Passover, and it is for three reasons… one, God commanded it in Exodus 13:14, and two, it prophetically speaks of Christ, our Passover lamb, and three, it was during a Passover feast that Jesus gave the first communion.
• Now if you want to get the full experience of what we are going to talk about today then you need to come to our Passover feast this Spring, we will be holding a traditional Passover, much like the one Jesus ate with His disciples and much like the ones that Jews have held for thousands of years and still hold today.
  • The only difference in our feast and the way the Jews celebrate today Is that we take time to point out the elements of Passover that prophetically speak of Jesus Christ our Messiah.
  • We will be holding that Thursday April 1^st. Mark you calendars, you have dinner plans that night!
• In the meantime I want to talk about the two elements of the Passover dinner that Jesus highlighted here in Luke… The bread that is broken and the wine that is poured after dinner…

Point One – Jesus is the Perfect Sacrifice

Luke 22:19 ESV  And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

• One of the unique things about Passover is that one of it’s biggest rules is no leaven… nothing that makes bread rise…
  • No yeast, no baking soda, not even letting your dough sit out in warm air for too long.
  • Now this is done in remembrance of the Hebrews fleeing from Egypt, because they didn’t have time to let their bread rise before baking it, so they invented Matzah, a flat bread that can be cooked very quickly.
    • So God commanded in remembrance of this “Hey, when you celebrate Passover, get all the leaven out of the house!”
• What’s more, in Hebrew and Biblical culture, leaven also represents sin.
• In regards to sin effecting the whole church and the whole person who sins, Paul writes this in Galatians…

Galatians 5:9 ESV  A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

• So now there is a double meaning at Passover… not only are we remembering the flight of the Hebrews from the Egyptians, but we are also reminded to rid our house of sin…
• But this gets even more interesting when you realize that there is only one peace of bread that is broken in a Passover meal… a very special piece of bread…

Pull out Unity

• This is called a Unity. It is 3 pieces of Matzah wrapped together as one and called Unity. Three pieces united as one…
  • Three pieces of sinless bread, united as one…
  • Three sinless objects, but one unity…
• Now can you think of anything that exists as three distinct sinless individuals united as one?
  • Of course, the Trinity, the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit.
• Now no one knows for sure when this tradition of the unity came about, but we do now it was being done hundreds of years before Jesus’ time…
  • Not only that, but no one really knows why…
  • Rabi’s have speculated that it might represent Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…
  • Or it might Represent these prophets or those angels… or whatever the flavor of the day is… but there is no definitive answer in Judaism…
• That was until Jesus came along… He answered the question… What are these three pieces of sinless bread that are called the unity…
  • You see, at a certain point in the Passover meal you take out the second piece of bread, you bless it, then you break it… then you hide it…
  • After a short while it is found and brought back to the dinner table…
  • This is called the Afikomen.
• It is this piece of bread that, the second in a three part unity, a perfect, sinless, stripped and pierced piece of bread… that is removed from the other two, broken, hidden away, then later restored… it is this Afikomen that Jesus says “This is my body which is broken for you”.

Luke 22:19 ESV  And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

• We know that Jesus is the Bread of Life…
• We know that Jesus comes from Bethlehem, which literally means the house of bread…
• But know Jesus is saying very specifically, this bread, that is perfect, sinless, stripped, bruised, broken and hidden away…
  • This thing you have been doing all your life year after year as you celebrate Passover, there is a reason for it… IT REPRESENTS ME!
    • Jesus is unequivocally saying “I am a part of the Godhead, I am sinless, but I will be pierced, and stripped, and broken for you… and though I may be hidden away in a tomb for a while, fret not for I will return… and though I may be going to the Father for a while… fret not for I WILL RETURN!

Hebrews 4:15 ESV  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

• Jesus WAS AND IS PERFECT!
  • If anyone tells you different, let them be accursed.
    • Wow, let them be accursed, that’s a little rough pastor… well, tell that to Paul!

a 1:6-8 ESV  I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—  (7)  not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.  (8)  But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

• The gospel is that Jesus Christ, the perfect son of God, though He did not have to die (for death is the result of sin, which He did not have), He chose to take on our sin and die for us. He who knew no sin became sin that we might be saved, and three days later rose from the grave, revealed himself to the disciples and thousands of others, ascended into heaven, and now intercedes at the right hand of the Father on our behalf… waiting to return one day soon.
  • That’s the Gospel… it doesn’t work if Jesus is not perfect!
  • Because if Jesus sinned, then He deserved to die… and if He deserved to die then His death was the result of His own sin and could not cover the sin of the world…
  • JESUS WAS PERFECT! This is what we remember when we take communion… That our perfect savior was stripped, pierced and broken for us, but He returned, ascended, and will return again!

2Corinthians 5:21 ESV  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 

Point Two – Jesus’ Blood Redeems

• That brings me perfectly to point two Jesus’ blood redeems!
• His blood redeems!
• You see in a Passover meal there are 4 cups of wine that are drank at specific times during the night, each one has a specific meaning and a specific blessing…
  • The first cup is the cup of Sanctification. This comes early in the evening.
  • Then before the meal is the cup of Deliverance.
  • Then after the meal is the cup of Redemption
  • Finally right before the end of the celebrations in the fourth cup, the cup of Hallel.
• These are the ONLY cups of wine drank during a Passover meal… and the Bible goes out of it’s way to signify which cup Jesus said was His blood.

Luke 22:20 ESV  And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

• It was the cup AFTER THEY HAD EATEN, and this is an important detail… even Paul references it…

1 Corinthians 11:24-25 ESV  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.”  (25)  In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”

• Somebody say “After Supper”.
  • It was the cup after supper that Jesus said “This is my blood poured out for you”.
  • The third cup. THE CUP OF REDEMPTION.
  • Baruch Attah Adonia Elohanui Melach Ha Olem…
    • Blessed are You Lord our God King of the Universe… who created the fruit of the vine and redeemed us from Isreal!
    • This is how we bless the cup of redemption.
• Jesus says, this Cup, the cup of Redemption! This is my blood!
  • Jesus was not saying that an Alcoholic Beverage derived from grapes is His blood, no!
  • Jesus is saying “MY BLOOD REDEEMS!”

1 John 1:7 ESV  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

• This is the fullness of the Gospel, not only are we saved, but we are redeemed, we are made right, we are justified, we are restored!

Romans 5:8-9 ESV  but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  (9)  Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

• What does redemption mean?
  • Redemption means that we were once beautiful, perfect, spotless, a glorious creation.
    • The Bible says that God knew us before we were in the womb… before we were tainted by this cursed world, before we feel into sin…
    • And when we were created, even before the womb…
      • Side note, life doesn’t begin at conception, it begins even before that, because GOD KNEW US BEFORE WE WERE IN THE WOMB. Psalm 71:6, Jeremiah 1:5, and Galatians 1:15 all say this!
    • And before we were in the womb we were perfect!
    • But we got all mucked up in this world… we got beat up, and dirtied up, and broken, and rusted… Some of it our own fault, some of it Adam and Eve’s fault, some of it the Enemy’s fault… But disgusting and torn and destroyed non-the-less…
    • Redemption means that God takes our broken, rusted, gross, self… and makes us beautiful and perfect, and new again.
      • Like a restoration shop restoring a beautiful antique, God restores us to our original beauty!
• Listen the Gospel is not that Christ came to make good people better… it is that God came to make awful, ugly, sinful, broken, sick, torn, hurt, and lonely people redeemed and restored!
• CHRIST BLOOD REEDEMS CHURCH! THAT IS WHAT WE ARE CALLED TO REMEMBER WHEN WE TAKE THE CUP FOR COMMUNION! THAT WE HAVE BEEN REDEMED BY HIS BLOOD. THAT WE HAVE BEEN MADE NEW. AND THAT WHAT CHRIST DID FOR US HE WANTS TO DO FOR OTHERS!
• THIS IS THE GOSPEL! RECEIVE IT! BE CHANGED BY IT! BE BORN AGAIN AND THEN SHARE IT! SHARE IT! SHARE IT!

Conclusion

• Gospel Call