Mark 14:12-26
Good
morning, today I am continuing in Gospel of Mark account and is a continuation
of Pastor Pete message about communion that we celebrated last Sunday. We are
still in that phrase of Jesus foretelling his death to his disciples but it is
being played out. Before we head to the Scriptures, I will be walking you
through by looking at the belief of our church as laid down in the constitution
and then look at some of the understanding about the presence of Jesus Christ.
Then we will look at the Scripture passage and note what was going on, the
Passover, the new covenant and the future.
2.10 The Communion
The Lord’s
Supper is an ordinance of the Lord Jesus Christ, instituted by Him to be
celebrated with the elements of bread and wine by believers in Him until the
end of the age. It commemorates and declares our thanks for the Lord’s
substitutionary death. The celebration of the ordinance expresses our
fellowship with each other and with the Lord Jesus Christ as members of the
Body of which He is the Head, and reminds us that He is coming again.
(Constitution – Kempsey Baptist Church)
The
faith of the people here at Kempsey expresses the Lord’s Supper as the
communion and that it is an ordinance and instituted by the Lord Jesus Christ
as we will be looking at in more detail. Also the people said it was a
celebration to give thanks for his death and that He is coming again where we
share in fellowship with each other and with the Lord Jesus Christ. There is
nothing mystical or special about the elements of bread and wine as I will
share with you next.
Each
of the four views that I will be presenting are the understanding of the church
or theologians and I will endeavour briefly describe what composes those views.
The
Roman Catholic view called transubstantiation maintains that mass can only be
delivered by a duly consecrated ordain priest, set apart by the church to
perform the service. The tradition has been that the priest is the only one who
partakes of the wine but the bread is given to the communicant. However
recently the wine is given our in special circumstances to communicants. The
church conceives the presence of Christ in the physical sense and thus the
bread and wine becomes the physical body and blood of Jesus.
The
Lutheran view rejects the Roman Catholic view of changing but accompanies with
the actual body and blood in a manner of in, under and along with as
they are received by the believer.
The
Zwinglian view or the memorial feast clearly rejects the notion of the physical
bodily of Jesus at communion, while admitting that He is spiritually present in
the believers. The Supper is merely symbolic, they are only a remembrance for
the believer of what Christ has done on the cross and calls for rededication of
life to God. You might say that this is what is implied in the communion of our
church, the Lord’s substitutionary death and our fellowship with each other and
with the Lord Jesus Christ.
The
Calvin or the Reformed view maintain the physical presence of Christ in the
communion and the deeper significance of the sacrament. Calvin saw in it a seal
and pledge of what God does for the believer rather than a pledge of
consecration to God. The virtues and effects of the sacrifice of Christ on the
cross are present and actually conveyed to the believer by the power of the
Holy Spirit.
We
will not fully understand the Lord’s Supper if we do not understand the event
it was associated with. V.12 says “On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened
Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb…” Likewise, vv. 14
& 16 also mention the Passover. We will turn our attention to the Passover.
The first century Jews understood the Passover relationship to the events (Deut
16:1-8) and by celebrating “the past events were made to come alive again in the
present.” (Milne, 2009, Know The Truth, p. 116)
The
account of Mark begins with the requirement of preparation for the celebration
of the Passover. One of the problems Jesus and his disciples had was no central
meeting place, they were always mobile going from one place to another. To
celebrate the Passover, they need a room with facility for preparation of the
feast. The disciples ask the question about the celebration of the feast and to
make preparations The Lord issued direction to the place that would be required.
All we are given is where to go and who to find, was this organised ahead of
time, Mark does not tell us. Jesus sent two of his disciples to go. make
preparation and everything they were told to do came true.
The
2 disciples made preparations. In the parallel account in Luke 22.8, we are
told that Peter and John had to take the Passover Lamb to the temple for it to
be sacrificed that afternoon. They also had to purchase unleavened bread,
bitter herbs, wine etc. Then the lamb had to be cooked as per customary
practice for the Passover meal.
The
Passover had meaning – Exodus 12:24-28, a lasting ordinance for you and your
descendants. The children ask their parents, “what does this ceremony mean for
you?” The parents replied, it is the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed
over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spare our homes when the Lord
struck down the Egyptians. To remember that the blood of the slain lamb was
used on the doorposts to keep the angel of death from slaying their first-born.
The unleavened bread was to remind them of their haste in leaving Egypt and the
bitter herbs was the remembrance of their time in Egypt as slaves under
Pharaoh. The Jews added to the ceremony 4 cups to symbolize the four distinct
redemptions promised by God in Exodus 6:6. They represent 2 cups for the past
and 2 for the future and this what they represent. (1) “I will take you out of
Egypt”, (2) “I will deliver you from Egyptian slavery”, (3) “I will redeem you
with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgement”, and (4) “I will
acquire as a nation”.
We
have look at the brief remembrance of the Passover and the preparation
involved. Now we come to the celebration of the Passover, the feast of
unleavened bread. Jesus and the disciples are gather together to remember the
Passover and while celebrating Jesus warns them of the impending activity that
will take place that evening. This led to the disciples to start
self-questioning and Paul instructing the church at Corinth remind them to
examine themselves before partaking in the feast. Jesus reminds the disciples
of what he has been telling them previously and was foretold will happen that
night.
In
Matthew 5:23-24 is about being in right relationship with each other and to
have a right relationship with God, one need to in right relationship with each
other. The disciples came together in fellowship to share in remembrance and
self-questioning to ensure our motives are correct in partaking in the
celebration.
Mark
moves on in telling the story while they were celebrating the Passover, Jesus
begins by taking the bread, give thanks and broke it to share and likewise with
the cup also. These are part of the elements used in the Passover and now we
find as the elements of the Lord’s Supper. Moving from the old remembrance to
the new remembrance of which is to happen. Both of these pictures speaks of the
blood that was shed for redemption of life, one was temporary and the other
permanent.
When
we think of the Lord’s Supper, there are different names that it is referred
to, Holy Communion, The Eucharist and the Mass. Some churches refer the
communion as a sacrament and according to Baptist theologian Nigel Wright, he
states that sacrament means “to be used to signify this kind of divine action
of the Spirit through consecrated earthly means” and “the primary sacramental
action of God in making the cross and resurrection the means of human
salvations.” (Wright, 2005, Free Church, Free State: The Positive Baptist
View, p. 96 & p. 99)
These
verses represent the elements of the Lord’s Supper, the bread and the wine. We
find the Lord introduces the bread as his body and then the cup as his blood of
the covenant. What observation can we make from this when he says, “This is my
body” and “this is my blood”? Firstly, Jesus was still physically among them
and so the disciples were not feasting of his physical body and blood.
Secondly, the Lord used symbolic language where he was referring that the bread
represents his body being broken on the cross and the cup remind us of our
Lord’s blood being shed. In the Aramaic language that Jesus spoke, these
phrases would simply be render as “This my body broken for you” and “This my
blood” and reduces the notion of the body and the cup becoming the physical
body of our Lord.
Christ’s sacrifice for us – is reminded by the elements of the Lord’s Supper.
The bread reminds us of the “body” of Christ. Isaiah 53, the prophet predicted
that the Messiah would be “wounded for our transgressions. And by His stripes
we are healed.” The Cup is to remind us of the “blood” of Christ, which was
shed to save us from sin and death.
A New Covenant – this is represented by the Cup where Jesus said in v. 24,
“This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many.” The word
‘covenant’ in Hebrew means ‘to cut’ and therefore all biblical covenant was
ratified with blood. What is this new covenant that Jesus instituted at that
meal with the Cup? It is a reminded that we have been forgiven of our sins by
the blood of Jesus being shed on the cross.
Our dependence upon Christ – What do we do at the Lord’s Supper, we eat the
bread and drink from the cup. The natural objective of eating and drinking is
to be refreshed and nourished and in the same manner with our souls. We hold
onto Galatians 2:20 where Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ and I
no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in my body, I live by
faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
The Proper Reception of the Elements
The
elements of the bread and the cup have no mystical or supernatural powers in
themselves. We are totally dependent entirely on the spirit and frame of mind
in which we receive it. We go to the table as partakers with remembrance of
our Lord and we ought to partake with gratitude and love. “The early
Anabaptists also often attained this note of joyful anticipation through their
stress on the Supper as an occasion of fellowship and celebration” noted by
Bruce Milne (Milne, 2009, Know The Truth, p. 318)
All
the way through this Passover meal and the institution of the Lord’s Supper of
remembering the past, the present and now he adds something very future that he
will not partake again “until that day that drink it new in the kingdom of
God.” Paul writing to the church at Corinth alluded when celebrating the Lord’s
Supper, “you proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes.” (1 Cor 11:26)
In
closing my message, it is the Lord’s promises that he made and which apostles
bear witness to “a coming kingdom” and “to come again.” This is
the expectancy we have when celebrating the Lord’s Supper. Right through the
Gospel’s account we hear Jesus describing the kingdom of God and that it was
near to the Israelites.
Beyond
the cross Jesus looked forward to a day of fulfilment in the kingdom of God
when once more he would eat and drink with the disciples. (Matt 26:29; Luke
22:14-18)
References
Berkhof,
L (1938) A Summary of Christian Doctrine
(7th Impression) Edinburgh: W. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co
Felker,
S. (2010) The Last Supper. Sermon:
Swift Creek Baptist Church. Colonial Heights, VA
http://www.swiftcreekbaptistchurch.com/Sermons/Mark14_12-26.pdf
Milne,
B (2009) Know The Truth: A handbook of
Christian Belief. (3rd Ed) Nottingham, England: Inter-Varsity
Press
Wright,
N. G. (2005). Free Church, Free State:
The Positive Baptist Vision. Eugene, Oregon: Paternoster.
No comments:
Post a Comment