Luke 22:1-23 – The Last Supper?

Before we read this together, let me pray that God will help us to hear.

Heavenly Father, we pray that you'd help us to hear these words of Jesus as He is anxious to celebrate this meal with His disciples.

And so we believe that, Lord Jesus, you would be anxious to celebrate with us as well.

And so, even as we come to your table later on, may we first hear from you and be encouraged about what this means for us.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So Luke chapter 22, we'll start reading in verse 1.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

Now the feast of unleavened bread drew near, which is called the Passover.

And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to put him to death, for they feared the people.

Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve.

He went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers how they might betray him to them, and they were glad and agreed to give him money.

So he consented and sought an opportunity to betray them in the absence of a crowd.

Then came the day of unleavened bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.

So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat it.

They said to him, Where will you have us prepare it?

And he said to them, Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you.

Follow him into the house that he enters, and tell the master of the house, The teacher says to you, Where is the guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?

And he will show you a large upper room furnished, prepared it prepare it there.

And they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.

And when the hour came he reclined at table, the and the apostles with him, and he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.

For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he said, Take this and divide it among yourselves.

For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.

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.

And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table.

For the Son of Man goes at it as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed.

And they began to question one another which of them it could be who is going to do this.

This is the word of the Lord.

Well, as we come to the end of Luke's gospel, we're also coming to the end of Jesus' life here on the earth.

And really, we're going to spend the almost two months now looking at the last weekend of Jesus' life and earthly ministry.

And so two months for basically two days.

And that's really what the gospel writers do as well.

And so, if you've ever noticed the gospel writers, they really only talk about three years of Jesus' life, is three years of public ministry.

And actually, over a third of that material is on his last week.

And so, like a good storyteller, the authors of the gospels, they help us to see what is really important, the death and the resurrection of Jesus.

That is where the story is driving towards, and so they use their energy and their time to tell us that story.

And in Luke's Gospel, in particular, we see two big storylines coming together.

On the one hand, we have the evil plans of Jesus' opponents, and then we have the gracious plan of Jesus himself.

It's kind of like maybe you're watching a movie where you see two viewpoints or two storylines that slowly become clear that they're going to intersect at some pivotal moment.

This is how the heist movie often goes, right?

Those preparing to do the stealing and those preparing to do the defending.

And you know what's going to happen at the end.

They're going to come together.

And so it is with Luke's gospel.

And what is the pivotal moment of Jesus' life?

Well, it's when God overcomes the evil of his death to bring about the greatest good the world has ever known.

And so before we get to the main thrust of our sermon and really the main thrust of our passage, we're going to get into it by noticing how Luke sets up the drama.

And we can think of it this way: that the hour has come.

The hour has come.

Luke, he sets up this Last Supper with the building drama of these two storylines colliding at the moment that Luke calls the hour.

And so look down at our reading, beginning in verse 1.

Notice it starts with the feast drawing near.

The feast is drawing near.

This is a feast of Passover.

But what else is happening behind the scenes?

We see Jesus' opponents, they're seeking to kill him.

We see Satan skulking in the shadows.

Judas, even one of Jesus' 12 main disciples, falling into temptation to betray him.

And so the evil plan is falling into place.

The trap is set, it is drawn near.

But then look in verse 7.

The day comes.

The day comes, and as it turns out, Jesus is fully in control.

Although we shouldn't be surprised by this, Jesus has expected and predicted his death.

In some ways, he's the one who has been planning it.

Notice that Luke he wants us to take note of Jesus' preparations, both normal and supernatural, for this critical moment.

And so he sends his disciples ahead to prepare for the Passover, but providentially, he has already prepared the way before them.

You'll meet a man, follow him to a house, tell the master that you need the guest room.

In verse 13, it's all just as Jesus said.

See, everything is under control.

And then in verse 14, the hour has come.

See you go from the feast drawing near to the day to the hour.

See, Luke is setting up the main drama.

And it's really a question of good over evil.

Who will win?

Sin and evil or Jesus and his grace?

And before we get into the details, let's just take a minute to recognize how central and applicable those questions are for our lives.

Will evil rule?

Will sin and evil rule over our lives or our relationships or even our world?

And if we're honest, sometimes it looks like that.

Sometimes it looks like that the plans and the ways of evil are just all over the place and they're having their way.

But then at other times, even sometimes at the same time, it seems as though there's a stream of goodness that's fighting to claw back.

You see, this is a story at the heart of Christianity that at the heart of God's desire and plans for us, and thus at the heart of his story for his son, is God's ability to overcome evil with goodness.

God's ability to even bring goodness through evil.

So what makes Christianity this kind of wonderful, almost too hard to believe story?

That God can not only overcome evil, but he can work through evil for good.

But that is the story of the cross.

You know, here it is, a big cross behind us.

It's a symbol, it was a symbol of execution.

And yet we put it front and center, we put it on top of our churches, we put it even around our necks.

This should be a shocking reality.

Imagine that if someone came in wearing a noose around their neck.

Shocking, inappropriate.

And yet God has triumphed in such a way to transform the cross from a symbol of execution into a symbol of salvation and redemption.

You see, this is the story we get to believe.

It's the relationship with God that we want to receive from him to where we can grow to trust that he would write the same type of story in our lives.

And so, how do we know that God will triumph over evil?

The story we hear this morning really helps us to do that, to grow to trust the God who will triumph over evil.

And so, three points to help us go through this passage: to remember the past salvation, to receive the better replacement, and to rejoice in the new relationship.

And so remember the past salvation.

You see, Luke and Jesus, they are explicit about setting up this story with a backdrop of Passover.

A feast that was all about remembering and trusting God's past salvation.

And so you really can't miss it how central the Passover is to our passage.

And so if you look down, just notice verse 1, the feast of unleavened bread is drawing near, which is called the Passover.

Verse 7, then came the day of unleavened bread, which is the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.

And then verse after verse of preparing for the Passover, culminating then down in verse 14 and 15, the hour came, he reclined at the table with his apostles, and he said to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you.

You see, Luke and Jesus, they want us to know that this is a Passover story.

Because this is a salvation story.

And so let's just take a moment to remember a little bit of the background of the Passover.

It was there in our first reading from Exodus 12.

The Passover is commemorating and celebrating really the ultimate salvation story in the Old Testament.

And so if you read the Old Testament, this is the kind of ultimate expression of God's ability to save his people.

And so, in particular, it's a story of God saving his people from slavery in Egypt.

It's a word that's often used is bondage.

So they were in bondage to Egypt.

It's a picture of them being bondage in sin.

And so God is going to show up and he's going to save them from slavery.

He's going to judge Egypt for their sin and wickedness.

And so, you know the story of the ten plagues.

Time after time again, a little back and forth, almost like what we hear in the news and the negotiations with Iran.

It's this back and forth between God and Pharaoh.

Finally, we have the final plague, and the final plague is the one where the angel of death is going to show up and bring judgment.

But who will be judged?

Everyone.

Even the Israelites.

In the Exodus 12 story, it says, Everyone will be judged, from Pharaoh on his throne, the highest and most mighty, to the lowest captive in the dungeon.

And so how will the Israelites be spared?

Well, it's by trusting the sacrifice.

You see, if they follow God's command to sacrifice, to identify themselves with the sacrifice, both in the meal that they eat, but then especially with the blood over the door, the judgment, the angel of death, would come and pass over their house.

You see, in this way, this judgment, this final judgment, it becomes the final straw for the Pharaoh to set the people free, and it becomes the final salvation for the people who will now journey to the promised land.

You see, the Passover, it is a story of salvation through judgment, of goodness in the midst of and even through evil.

And if you want to think about it more broadly, that really is the story of Genesis as a whole.

It's a story of the Genesis story.

And so remember, God gave a promise to Abraham that he was going to make him a great nation and bless him, and through him bless the world.

And even at that time, God told Abraham, Your descendants are going to go into Egypt and suffer.

This is how it's going to go.

The blessing is going to happen through suffering.

And so then, if you read the Jacob and Joseph story, for instance, the twelve brothers and the one with the shiny coat, what is that a story about?

It's a story about goodness through evil.

The brothers would mistreat Joseph, but Joseph would stay and trust the Lord, and so God would bring salvation through his suffering.

400 years then in Egypt, the people have gone to Egypt to find salvation from famine, and yet now they're suffering in Egypt, declining freedom into bondage.

And what is the story?

It's a story of salvation through judgment.

In that way, God is writing a story through the people of Israel that really all humanity can connect with.

It's a story of the problem facing humanity that sin and evil will seemingly be all around us.

It'll always be there.

But God can make a way to overcome.

It's a story of sin and evil requiring judgment.

Things need to be made right.

Evil needs to be restrained and judged.

But God can make a way to be saved.

It's a story that God would make a promise and offer freedom, and yet it would require a journey of trust.

A journey of learning to trust and to follow God in the midst of suffering.

And so, in this way, the feast of Passover was a yearly reminder of God's great act of salvation.

It's remembering the past to continue the story in the present.

Out of bondage, salvation through sacrifice, goodness through suffering and evil, a journey to the promised land.

And so look again at verse 15.

Jesus says to them, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.

And Jesus is very emphatic there.

He's actually, he says, Um, I have desired with desire.

It's the same word repeated.

It's how the ancient languages would show emphasis.

I have earnestly desired to eat this with you.

It's interesting that Jesus comes to the end of his life, as his evil opponents and his betraying disciples, and even the devil himself is trying to take Jesus' life from him.

What is Jesus preparing to do?

A repetition of the greatest work of salvation God had ever achieved.

I earnestly desire this moment.

And so, how do we know that God can be trusted to triumph over evil?

Because he's done it over and over and over again in the past.

You know, before we move on, it might be worthwhile to wonder and to question what are the stories that you tell yourself and your family?

What are the stories that you tell yourself and your family?

The repeated stories that have become a bit of the folklore of who your family is and who you are.

Are you sprinkling in the stories of when God came through?

Are you sprinkling in the stories of when God came through in the midst of difficulty and trouble?

These are the stories, the power of memory, that will actually build up our faith.

And so Jesus, he's choosing to do this at the time of Passover because he is claiming a new memorable event.

A new salvation has come.

So remember the past salvation.

Number two here, receive the better replacement.

Jesus is eager to celebrate the Passover with his disciples, but he is going to make it all about himself.

He is going to make it all about himself.

And so, really, the Passover meal was all about experiencing and participating in the salvation from Egypt.

And so all sorts of details that God kind of wove in through the Passover, both in what we read in Exodus 12, and then later things get explained even more later.

But there is that the eating of the sacrificed lamb.

Kill the lamb, and you have to eat it.

You have to eat it.

You have to participate in it.

It's the unleavened bread, the bread, there's no time for it to rise because salvation is at hand.

You have to be ready to go.

And in the Passover feast, they would say, This is the bread of our affliction.

This is the bread that represents the time when we were lean and we had to wait and be ready to leave.

If you know anything about the Seder meal, you can think of other things like the cup of suffering, the bitter herbs that you dip things in.

All of it was an experience, an embodied experience of trusting God in the midst of trouble.

And so Jesus takes this meal full of analogy and illustration, and he replaces the visible elements to declare a new and more powerful spiritual reality.

And so look down in verse 19.

Jesus, he redefines a Passover meal, now set around his salvation as the Lamb of God.

So verse 19, he took the bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and he gave it to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

See, he is transforming the meal.

A new symbol now, bread instead of a lamb.

I think multiple reasons here.

One, perhaps to fit with the bread of life picture that Jesus has already claimed, but even more so to make it clear that continued sacrifice is no longer necessary.

We no longer continue a sacrifice.

He gives us a new symbol.

A final and full replacement has been made.

And notice the way he describes it: my body, which is for you.

You see, the receiving of the bread is a symbol of participating and receiving and trusting the sacrifice.

That's what he says.

Do this in remembrance of me, a replacement, epic salvation moment now to be remembered.

And so throughout church history, people have described the Lord's table as a visible word, a visible expression and picture of what it means to be to have a life of faith.

That just as Jesus' body was broken, so it is the bread is broken.

Just as he said his body was given for us, so it is the bread is given.

And what do we do?

We receive.

In some ways, we need to kind of connect our ordinary world with the spiritual here.

That's what we talk about when we mean a sacrament.

A sacrament is a mystical union between ordinary things pictured and the supernatural thing offered and given.

And so think of how it works with the power of advertising.

And so someone has described advertising in this way.

Everywhere we go, everywhere we look, we're inundated with messages.

We don't even have to think for ourselves.

All we have to do is sit on our comfy couch and be told how to live our lives.

From how to look, what to wear, what to eat, what our home should look like, how to meet people, what to drive, and practically every facet of our lives is taken care of.

That is the power of advertising.

A good advertisement tells us we need something before we even think to do it.

It offers us a look into the ideal life, the ideal body, the ideal mate, all wrapped in an ideal world.

As Jesus re-identifies and re-explains the Passover, he is offering his disciples and us a better offer of a better reality.

That if we look in the past, what we are receiving is a salvation that is full and in effect.

He says, My body given in sacrifice for you.

So here's the point before we move on.

Salvation has to be received.

Salvation has to be received.

It's not enough to be seen.

And so you can imagine if you're living in the time of the Exodus at the time of that first Passover, imagine being the firstborn of a nice Jewish family.

You see the blood on the door, dangerous place to be.

You need to be inside the door.

And how anxious you would have been to be inside the door, how anxious you would have been to have your family to put out the visible sign, and yet you would found your safety within the visible sign.

And so it is with our salvation, that salvation has to be received.

That's what we do each and every Sunday as we take the elements for ourselves.

We actually take them into our hands and we take them into our body as an expression, an acknowledgement that Lord Jesus, what you did, I need.

Salvation has to be received.

And so because of that, then Jesus He re-identifies this entire meal then to lead to rejoicing in a new relationship.

Rejoicing in a new relationship.

In this way, the the title of Last Supper might be a little unhelpful.

Because did you notice that Jesus doesn't intend or believe that this will be his last supper with his disciples?

Rather, he says that this is the start of a new relationship.

Look what he says in verse 20.

Likewise, he takes the cup, and after they had eaten, he says, This cup that is poured out for you is a new covenant in my blood.

New covenant in my blood.

You know, covenant's not a word that we use very often anymore.

Really, it just means a formal and significant relationship.

And so some have said that it's a covenant is a bond in blood.

And so in the ancient world, that was literally true.

The way that they would make a covenant and ratify it was with the shedding of blood, basically saying, if this goes wrong, it will cost blood.

You see, a relationship with a covenant, it doesn't make it less important or less authentic.

Instead, it makes it more.

And so even think of that about marriage vows.

All right?

Marriage vows don't make the love less significant.

It doesn't make the relationship forced.

Instead, there are vows to line up with the significance of the relationship.

And so just this past week, uh, Rebecca and our marriage turned into adulthood.

And so 21 years now we've been married, we finally made it, it's getting serious.

But vows that you have said all the way back then are significant.

Why?

Because the connection, the relationship is significant.

And so it is in the Bible with the word covenant.

That it's this relationship, a way of relating that is significant and serious.

And so Jesus says this cup represents a new covenant.

New, as in, there's a new quality of freshness not found before.

Something is happening new.

And what it means is that this relationship with God, it was there before, but now something about it is new.

It's been changed, it's been freshened up.

And to help us think about that, we need to think about the old.

And so the old covenant in the Bible most specifically really talks about the covenant with Moses, in and with Moses, around the time of the Exodus.

And just give us a summary of how that covenant worked is that God had promised the basic intent of the covenant is that I will be your God and you will be my people.

That's a very basic summary.

And so he rescued them from bondage and then set up a new way of life.

Rules and regulations.

We might think, so that they could be witnesses of what it was like for people to have a close and intimate relationship with God.

And so you have moral laws like the Ten Commandments that are meant to lead to life, make it flourish.

You have ceremonial laws that are meant to regulate worship, including sacrifice, how to grow to trust God's forgiveness.

He even had civil laws that demonstrated how a godly nation would behave.

So there was this covenant, this agreement that we are going to be together and it's going to look like this.

But if you know anything of the story of the Old Testament, how did that go?

Not well.

In fact, time after time, God relates his relationship with his people like a marriage.

And he says, You are all over the place.

You see, what was the problem?

You see, the old covenant was incapable of producing lasting freedom of safety for the people.

Why?

Because they had to keep performing.

Time after time, year after year, they had to keep bringing and trusting the sacrifice.

They had to keep hearing and believing the laws and the words.

You see, the covenant didn't consistently pierce the heart.

It wasn't good enough.

And so what does Jesus do?

He brings something better.

A new covenant.

He says it's a new covenant in my blood.

And so just like the blood of that sacrifice would cover the door and allow God to pass over, so it is that there is a new relationship covered in blood.

Established not on the sacrifice of animals, but on the sacrifice of the Son.

A covenant experienced not by blood applied to the door frame, but blood individually and internally applied by faith in the life of the believer.

Laws written not on tablets of stone, but laws written on the heart.

And so what does Jesus expect the results of this new relationship with God to be?

Not a last supper, but a lasting supper that he says will be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

Look down, verse 15 and 16.

I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I tell you I will not eat it until it's fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

Jesus is looking forward to a future day.

Verse 17 and 18, take this and divide it among yourselves, for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.

You see, Satan is coming against Jesus.

The disciples are going to betray and abandon him.

He's going to be killed and lay in a tomb, but what does he expect?

A new relationship with God that will be established in such a way that he will feast with these very same men who are soon to fall away.

You see, the goodness of the new covenant is that the relationship and the future is based not on the blood of lambs, not on the laws of stone, not on the obedience of people, but based on the blood of the Savior, based on a law perfectly kept, a son who obeyed and trusted the will of his father even through death.

You see, the cup reminds us to not only look back, but to also look forward.

Because that's what Jesus promises for all those who receive.

That's why in the book of Revelation it picks up on this theme of the table and it describes the future of heaven as a marriage supper with the Lamb, where Jesus Himself will feast with all of us who are connected to Him through faith.

You see, in the supper, in this replacement of the Passover meal, Jesus is setting up a new experience, a new way to relate to God.

It reminds me of a scene from the show Mad Men.

It's probably the most popular scene from the show.

It's in the first season.

It's a show about an advertising firm from maybe the 60s.

The lead character, Don Draper, he's supposed to give an advertising pitch for a new and fancy product, a slide projector.

I was thinking, I probably need to explain this.

Some of you won't even know what a slide projector is, but back in the day, before cell phones, uh, you would have pictures on these little slides, and to look at them, you had to put them in a projector and they would project the light up on a screen.

And so Kodak was coming up with this new product where they would have this wheel that would have all these different pictures into it, and as you pushed a button, it would switch from one to the next to the next to the next.

The slide projector.

And so Kodak, they really wanted to incorporate the circular design.

They wanted to call it the wheel.

The wheel.

But Don Draper and the advertising company, they didn't think that really worked.

It didn't really capture what was going on.

And so in the critical breakthrough moment, as Don is getting ready to pitch the scene to the board, this is what he says.

He says, technology is a glittering lure, but there is a rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash.

If they have a sentimental bond with the product.

He says, in my first job, there was an old pro-copywriter, a Greek named Teddy, and Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising was new.

It creates an itch.

You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion.

But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product, nostalgia.

It's delicate but potent.

Teddy told me that in Greek, nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound.

It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone.

This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine.

It goes backward and forwards and it takes us to a place where we ache to go again.

It's not called the wheel, it's called the carousel.

It lets us travel the way as a child travels, around and around and back home again to a place where we know we are loved.

Jesus has redefined the Passover as to recreate and to embody a sacrament, a spiritual and mystical union between a thing truly signified and the symbols we now received.

And he's done it in such a way that it works as a travel through time to be with him in his sacrifice.

That there is a moment when we would be judged and yet the blood has covered.

There is a moment when we would be in need and yet he has fed.

And there is a moment when we will feast and he has promised and made the way known.

You see, it's a way that we can travel through time with him to experience a place where we are known and loved.

So a couple simple applications.

All of this relates to how we celebrate the Lord's Supper each and every week.

We remember.

We remember.

It is right that we would remember the great act of salvation that Jesus has done.

That he would break his body, that he would pour out his life for us.

But remember, it has to be received.

Salvation has to be received, almost embodied in that way.

And so remember, as you can come forward each and every Sunday, you would come forward in danger of being judged.

That you come forward into the presence of God, and the danger is that you will be judged, and yet, here with these elements, you are safe.

And so we rejoice.

You know, Jesus, he greatly desired to celebrate with his disciples.

He greatly desires to celebrate with us.

The word there for giving thanks in our passage is the word Eucharist.

Some of you may know that word from other church traditions where they call this table the Eucharist, that it is a celebration of thanksgiving.

That is not primarily or only our thanksgiving to God, but here's the shocking reality: this is his thanksgiving to us.

That as we come each and every Sunday in great need, Jesus would celebrate the chance to continue to have this meal with us.

And so, in light of that, remember, he serves.

He serves of himself.

To anyone who will come to promise salvation through sin, through evil, that God is still the one who can overcome evil with good.

Let's pray that he will grow us to trust that.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this word from Luke's Gospel, a reminder of this pivotal moment of our salvation.

A moment that through your plan has continued to have great usefulness in our lives.

That here as we see and we take and we receive, so it is with our salvation, that we would see you, Lord Jesus, more clearly this morning.

That by faith you would allow us to receive you into our lives for our spiritual life.

And give us the joy to look forward to the celebration in heaven when all things are made new, and even now to begin to imagine and experience some of that in our community together.

We pray that you would make this even more true in our community this morning.

We ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.