‘TAKE, EAT’

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on September 1, 2024 under 2024 |

Bethany Bible Church Sermon Message from September 1, 2024 from Matthew 26:26-30

Theme: The communion meal calls us to gratefully remember and embrace Jesus’ sacrifice of love for us on the cross.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it,
and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”
Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.
For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on
until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”
And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives (Matthew 26:26-30).

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This is a particularly holy passage of Scripture. It describes a particularly holy act of remembrance—one that our Lord Himself ordained—one that is very dear to His heart. It’s the act by which we memorialize His death on the cross for us.

There’s really no other ceremony or observance like the communion meal. We often commemorate the anniversaries of important events in American history. We celebrate our birthdays, or our wedding anniversaries on a regular basis. Some of us remember the dates of a significant, life-changing event. But almost all of those commemorations have been celebrated for only a relatively short time in history. This observance however—the communion meal—has been consistently and regularly commemorated all around the world for almost two millennia. And the form of it—in every culture in which it’s commemorated—has been basically the same: breaking and eating bread together as the symbol of the body of Jesus, taking up and drinking the cup of the fruit of the vine together as a symbol of the blood of our Redeemer, and giving thanks for what He has done for us.

It has been regularly observed in Christian churches and chapels of almost every culture. But it has also been observed in prison cells, in concentration camps, in military outposts, on battlefields, in hospitals, beside deathbeds, and in the most adverse kinds of circumstances of human life—as well as in countless homes and family settings. It’s simple to do, it makes use of the most common things of life, and it’s filled with the most transcendent truth conceivable. It’s genuinely hard to think of any other ‘memorial’ that has been as faithfully observed in the same way for so long and in so many different circumstances by so great a diversity of human beings as the communion meal of the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s probably the most universally celebrated memorial in all of human history.

Some church families have the tradition of celebrating it once a week. The Lord gave us no rules on that. He simply commanded that His followers celebrate it regularly. Our church family has the tradition of celebrating it once a month—with one additional observance on Good Friday. That’s a total of thirteen times in the course of a normal year. I calculate that—during the whole of my time as your pastor—we have celebrated the Lord’s Supper just under 420 times together. And I personally believe that in heavenly glory—as we gaze upon the face of the Redeemer who gave His life for us on the cross—we will remember each and every one of them together with Him.

But given how important this observance is, how often do we—as Jesus’ followers—take the time to reflect on what the communion meal actually means? Sadly, when it comes to a memorial like this—one that we celebrate so regularly and so universally—it can become a little easy to get used to it, and simply go through the motions thoughtlessly. I suspect that there are many professing Christians who observe it out of mere duty—simply because it’s something that’s traditionally done in church and because, for some reason, it’s supposed to be done.

It’s actually a spiritually dangerous thing to partake of the Lord’s supper in a thoughtless way. In a passage that we often read when we partake of communion together, the apostle Paul wrote;

For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.

Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body (1 Corinthians 11:23-29).

All who believe on the Lord Jesus and who wish to partake of this remembrance of His sacrifice for us are certainly welcome. But because of what it is, it’s very important that it be done in the proper attitude of heart—with a clear understanding of its significance, with a reverent attitude of thanksgiving, and with genuine readiness to allow Jesus’ sacrifice to transform the way we live.

And so; let’s go back this morning to the original story of this wondrous memorial. Let’s look at how our Lord began it; and let’s consider carefully what He has told us about it. His sacrifice for us was an act of immeasurable love; and as this passage teaches us, the communion meal calls us to gratefully remember and embrace Jesus’ sacrifice of love for us on the cross.

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Now; Matthew 26:26 begins with these words: “And as they were eating …” What Jesus and His disciples were eating right then was the meal of another significant memorial—the Jewish Passover meal. Jesus initiated His memorial meal at the time of the Passover; and this gives us …

1. THE OCCASION OF THIS MEAL.

Every year—right in the middle of the first month of the Jewish calendar—the Jewish people gathered together in their homes to observe the Passover feast. It was the meal that God commanded them to eat on the anniversary of their deliverance from the bondage of slavery in the land of Egypt.

In Exodus 12, on the night that God delivered them from Egypt, we’re told that the people were to slay a lamb and paint the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of their home, and then eat the lamb together in haste—and with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. God told them;

“For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. Now 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 the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. So this day shall be to you a memorial; and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance.” (Exodus 12:12-14).

And on this particular night in Matthew 26, that’s what the Lord Jesus was doing with His disciples. But He was about to bring a new significance to the old Passover observance. In Matthew 26:2—shortly before the Passover meal was observed—He told His disciples, “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified.” Shortly after He had said this to them, a woman named Mary—the sister of Martha—came to Him and poured an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant oil upon Him. In verse 12, He told His disciples that “she did it for My burial”. In verses 14-16, we’re told that Judas then went out to betray Him to those who wanted to kill Him. And right after the event of this meal, Jesus went with His disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray—and to wait for those who would arrest Him, try Him, and crucify Him.

This particular Passover meal, then, had great significance, because it was the context of our Lord’s willing sacrifice for us. It’s not coincidental that John the Baptist looked at Him—long before—and declared to all who heard him, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). That’s what Jesus was presenting Himself to be on this particular Passover night: our Passover Lamb. As the apostle Paul once wrote, “For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:7).

The communion meal was rooted in a long history of God’s grace. In fact, the Bible tells us that Jesus was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Each time we come to this sacred meal, we need to remember that we’re commemorating the sacrifice of the Lamb of God.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; it would be very important to understand that—in all of this—the Lord Jesus didn’t abolish the Passover meal. Instead, what the Lord Jesus did was to fulfill the true prophetic meaning of it. And so; this leads us next to consider what the Lord Jesus Himself said about …

2. THE SYMBOLISM OF THIS MEAL.

Consider the bread. The eating of bread was a regular part of the Passover meal. And in verse 26, we read, “And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body.’”

It’s best to see the bread as strictly a symbol of His body—and not as something that, in some mysterious way, becomes His body. But we should always understand that the bread is a symbol of great significance. It’s to be treated with the greatest care and with an attitude of reverent holiness because of what it represents. We’re told that, on this very important evening, Jesus took that bread, blessed it, and broke it in front of His disciples. He gave each of them a piece of it. And this act of the ‘blessing’ and ‘breaking’ and ‘dividing’ of the bread is symbolic to us of how the body of Jesus was given to us by God to be—as it were—’crushed’ on the cross for us; bearing the just wrath of God for our sins in our place.

As it says of Him in Isaiah 53:4-7;

Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He opened not His mouth;
He was led as a lamb to the slaughter,
And as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
So He opened not His mouth (Isaiah 53:4-7);

and as it says in verse 10, “it pleased the Lord to bruise Him”. We should remember this whenever we pick up the piece of bread in the communion meal. Just as the grain of bread is crushed to make the loaf, and just as the loaf must be broken in order to be eaten, so the body of Jesus bore our sins on the cross and was made to suffer and die in our place.

What’s more, Jesus told His disciples to take the bread—the symbol of His broken body—and eat it. Jesus once told the people who were following Him;

“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world” (John 6:48-51).

In that case, He wasn’t talking about the bread of the communion meal. He was talking about the manna that God had sent down from heaven to the people of Israel to feed them during their wilderness wanderings. But it’s hard not to see, in our Lord’s words, how ‘eating’ the symbol of His body was an act uniting ourselves to His sacrifice by faith. It would be a way of saying, “Lord Jesus; I recognize that You gave Your body in my place to receive the just punishment for my sins on the cross. And in eating this piece of bread, I’m submitting to that sacrifice by faith; and accepting that—by faith in that sacrifice—I am saved and will live forever because of Your death for me.”

And then, consider the cup. The wine was also a part of Passover. We’re told in verses 27-28; “Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”

He said “this is My blood”; and once again, we should understand the cup of the fruit of the vine to be a symbol of His blood—and not as something that becomes His literal blood. The grape is squeezed and its juice ‘bled’—as it were—in order to fill the cup. And this serves as a symbol of the blood of the Lord Jesus that was about to be shed on the cross for us. But notice that the shedding of His blood initiates a “new covenant”; and that it was shed “for the remission” or the forgiveness “of sins”.

You see; at the time that Jesus spoke those words, the Jewish people were living under the obligation to an old ‘covenant’—or as we might say, an old ‘arrangement’ with God. That old covenant was the one that was given by Moses at Mount Sinai, and that was based on obedience to the written law of God. That old covenant was initiated by the shedding of blood. It says in Exodus 24 that Moses read the ‘Book of the Covenant’ to the people of Israel gathered around the mountain—the list of laws and ordinances—and they all said, “All that the LORD has said we will do, and be obedient”. They agreed to this old arrangement with God. And it was ratified with blood. Verse 8 says that Moses took the blood of oxen as a sacrifice and sprinkled it on the people; saying,

“This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you according to all these words” (Exodus 24:8).

But sadly, the people broke the covenant. They couldn’t keep God’s law. And so God promised that He would one day establish a ‘new’ covenant with His people. Jeremiah 31:31-34 says,

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:31-34).

Just think of what a better covenant this ‘new’ covenant would be! God’s holy standards and commandments would no longer be on the outside of the hearts of His people, but inside! They would keep His commandments from the heart. And when it came to the ways that they had failed in the old covenant, He would not remember their sins anymore. He would completely forgive them.

And that newer and better ‘arrangement’ is what Jesus brought about for us on the cross. He became the One who established the ‘new’ covenant—not just for the Jewish people alone, but for all who would place their faith in Him. And just as the old covenant was ratified by the sprinkling of blood, so also the new covenant was ratified by the blood of Jesus. As it says in Hebrews 9:11-15;

But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance (Hebrews 9:11-15).

This is what Jesus meant when He gave thanks for the cup, passed it to His disciples, told them all to drink of it, and explained, “this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” So; when we take up that cup, we’re essentially saying, “Lord Jesus; I recognize that You shed Your blood on the cross to bring me into a new agreement with the heavenly Father—one in which, by faith, I am washed clean of all my sins and made into a completely new creation by His grace. I accept that—by faith in Your shed blood—I am made 100% acceptable in the heavenly Father’s sight forevermore.”

We need to remember these things—through these symbols—when we partake together of the Lord’s supper.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; notice in verse 29, Jesus said to His disciples, “But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.” And this leads us to …

3. THE PROMISE OF THIS MEAL.

The wine was a part of the Passover meal. It represented the promise of God’s full redemption of His people from bondage, and of His full acceptance of them, and of the blessedness of their fellowship with Him as His special people. And Jesus was saying that He Himself would not drink of that cup until the time when He would come again to those He has redeemed and will enter into the full blessing of new covenant fellowship with them. That’s why Paul wrote later that as often as we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death “till He comes”.

What will the fulfillment of that promise look like? To some degree, we experience it now. It says in Hebrews 10:19-22;

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water (Hebrews 10:19-22).

Right now, through faith in Jesus, we have been washed clean of all our sins and are free to enter into the full blessing of fellowship with the heavenly Father in Him. But the true depth of that fellowship won’t be completely experienced by us until the day when Jesus returns bodily to this earth, and we gaze upon the majesty of His face, and are glorified with Him, and dwell with Him in His Father’s house forever. Jesus Himself looks forward to that day; and to some degree, He Himself won’t be completely satisfied until He drinks that cup with us in His Father’s kingdom.

When we partake of the communion meal together, we need to remember that future prospect.

* * * * * * * * * *

And finally, notice what we’re told at the end of this passage—and what happened after that first communion meal was over. We’re told, “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.”

We’re not told what the hymn was. Many believe it to be one of the psalms. But the astonishing fact is that before Jesus led them to the place where He would then pray in agony before the Father, be betrayed, be arrested, be tried, and finally be handed over to be crucified, they sang a hymn together.

This teaches us about …

4. THE JOY OF THIS MEAL.

You know, dear brothers and sisters in Christ; we should always remember what it tells us in Hebrews 12:1-2;

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:1-2.)

Do you know what that joyful outcome was that led Jesus to willingly suffer on the cross? It was the joy He felt over how it would result in you and me being with Him forever in glory—basking in the eternal love of His Father—sharing together in the rich inheritance that He gives to His Son.

Our remembrance of this meal ought to be reverent and respectful. But it also ought to be characterized with joy over what Jesus has accomplished for us because it was the prospect of that glorious joy that moved Him to do it.

* * * * * * * * * *

As we look at the story of how our Lord commenced this important memorial for us, we see—from His own words—that there are some tremendous truths for us to remember in it. But I would suggest to you that it can all be summed up in sacrificial love. As Jesus Himself said in Matthew 20:28;

“ … the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

Let’s always remember that the communion meal calls us to gratefully remember and embrace Jesus’ sacrifice of love for us on the cross—and thus celebrate it together.

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