A Sermon on the Lord's Supper

 With Jesus' establishment of the Lord's Supper coming up in our Bible reading plan, I wanted to share a sermon I preached that explores the Lord's Supper on a deeper level than our brief devotional can get into. This is from 1 Corinthians 11:23-29 in the CSB (Christian Standard Bible). 

23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, 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, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

The Origin: Passover and Last Supper

Paul’s words in verses 23 to 25 are familiar to anyone who’s spent a while in church. They are taken from Jesus himself, as he celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples shortly before his death. We can’t help but notice that these words are brief. The accounts of the first celebration of the Lord’s Supper in the Gospels are about as short. This brevity led the great Reformer John Calvin to comment that Paul “says nothing but what is exceedingly necessary to be known, and worthy of the closest attention.” In other words, if we are to do anything for the Lord’s Supper, it must be what Paul describes here: to eat of the bread and drink of the cup and to do both in remembrance of Christ.

We then wonder, what exactly are we remembering about Christ when we eat this bread and drink this juice? When we see Jesus give these instructions to his disciples, it is the night of his betrayal, during the week of Passover.

The Jews celebrated the Passover every year to commemorate God delivering the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. The reason it was called the Passover is because it marked God passing over the Israelites as he struck the Egyptians with a plague of death, killing the firstborn of man and animal alike in every household.

The Israelites were not spared simply for being Israelites, however. The Israelites were spared only through blood. They were to take a lamb without blemish and defect, their very best lamb, slaughter it, and spread its blood on their doorpost. Such a graphic act reminds us of how deep our sin is,

Each generation of Israel was to remember this event with their families, and in doing so, they proclaimed not just that God delivered their ancestors from Egypt, but that God had delivered them from bondage – bondage to sin.

In that Last Supper with his disciples, Jesus showed that he was the final Passover sacrifice, the one whose blood would spare all those who would respond to God in faith. It is not the blood of a lamb spread on a doorpost 3,000 years ago that saves us; it is the blood of Christ our Savior, God in the flesh, killed upon the cross as the perfect, final sacrifice for sin. And now, it is not Jewish families who are to celebrate the Passover, but all of God’s people by faith who celebrate the true and final Passover.

We can see and taste the elements of the Lord’s Supper and remember that night in the upper room with Jesus and his disciples, and we should. But Paul reminds us in verse 26 that the Lord’s Supper is not just about one night, and it’s not even just about the death of Christ on the cross that night all those years ago. Look again at verse 26: For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

The Lord’s Supper declares not just that through Christ, we who believe are free from the bondage of sin, not just that those who do not believe are invited to be freed by the blood of Christ as well, but also that the cross is not the end of the story! Jesus is returning, and when he returns he will rescue his people, finally and fully, from this sinful world and its effects.

And when he rescues us and brings us to heavenly glory with him, we have another supper to celebrate: the marriage supper of the Lamb, where Christ’s people with be united with him without any tears, without any hurts, without any sin. And this can only happen because of one thing: the Lord’s death.

So in the Lord’s Supper, we have this beautiful representation of Christ’s death and his sacrifice, but let us not forget that it also pictures Christ’s resurrection and second coming. Now that we have the theological foundation for what the Supper is, we can think about some more practical considerations of how to celebrate it.

Some Practical Considerations

What are the elements?

As I mentioned earlier, the Supper is about what the food and drink represent rather than the food and drink themselves. Jesus gives separate blessings for the bread and the wine, suggesting they should be viewed separately but together. Why separately? Because the body and the blood represent different things.

Jesus took the bread and broke it, and as Christians we may think of Jesus’ body being broken or killed. This doesn’t quite line up perfectly since in those times the host would break the bread to share it. We’re also told that Jesus’ bones were not broken, because just as the Passover sacrifice had to be a lamb free from blemishes or injuries, Jesus’ bones were not to be broken in order to kill him. Yet we know that Jesus’ body was indeed killed, and he tells his disciples, the believers, that his body is for you. And so his body was killed for all believers for all time.

We then move on to his blood. Yes, Jesus’ body was killed, but only by his blood being shed could our sin be forgiven. Thus, although we take the body and blood separately, we know that only together could redemption be accomplished. Blood was necessary for atonement – we see this all the way back to Genesis, where God shows people like Cain and Noah that the blood of a person represents his life. We are not saved merely by the death of Jesus’ body, but by the pouring out of Jesus’ blood, the essence of his life.

And it by this pouring out that Jesus secured for us the new covenant, the promise of salvation that is fulfilled in Christ. No more are we to sacrifice animals and look forward to a coming Messiah – the Messiah has come and we now look back to him in thankfulness.

Since the Reformation, the great movement of Christianity back to a central focus on the gospel and the Bible, Protestants have understood that the elements of the Lord’s Supper are not literally the body and blood of Christ, but instead a representation or symbol of Christ’s body and blood. After all, if we were to say the bread and wine were literally Jesus’ body, by the same logic, we would have to say Jesus is a door because he said he is a gate to his sheep, or that he is a chicken because he said he longed to gather Jerusalem like a hen gathers chicks under her wings.

Who should celebrate it?

I mentioned already that the Passover was celebrated by the Jewish family. That night with his disciples however, shows that know the people of God, who are the brothers and sisters of Christ and the children of the Father, are to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. We know believers are the family of Jesus from many great passages, but my favorite comes from early in Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is teaching a crowd, but someone tells him that his mother and siblings are out looking forward him, and Jesus looks at the crowd and declares, Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.

True believers are thus who celebrate this final Passover, and Paul teaches more specifically that the Lord’s Supper must be celebrated as a unified body of believers in the gathering of the church. From 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, where Paul discusses how to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, he mentions the church being gathered together for this occasion five times. Paul also mentions how important it is for everyone to partake of the supper, and to partake together. He mentions in verses 21 and 22 that the Corinthians were not eating together, and worse, that many of them were taking what should be a time of remembrance and reflection and turning it into an excuse to get full and drunk!

Paul rebukes them for this because the Lord’s Supper is not about eating and drinking, but about remembering and showing the gospel itself. That’s why unbelievers, those who haven’t turned their lives over to Christ, should not celebrate – the gospel means nothing to them until they believe it!

Who should lead it?

Finally, we wonder who should lead it. Since Paul tells us the Lord’s Supper is to we celebrated in a church gathering, it is natural for the pastors and/or deacons of the church to lead it

But before we can actually celebrate the Lord’s Supper, we have one final and significant aspect to consider. Look back at 1 Corinthians 11, starting in verse 27.

27 So, then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sin against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself; in this way let him eat the bread and drink from the cup. 29 For whoever eats and drinks without recognizing the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

An Unworthy Way

Many of the Corinthians approached the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner by using it as an excuse to get full and drunk, and even exclude the poorer believers. This behavior is so bad, Paul says their gathering is not actually to celebrate the Lord’s Supper!

We cannot approach the Lord’s table this way, believers, nor can we approach it with any other unworthiness! In taking of the bread and the cup, we are declaring that we live through the death of Christ and that we are looking forward to his return. To approach this celebration with any other attitude, with any unrepentant sin, with any other motive is so serious that God struck some of the Corinthians with sickness, and others he killed!

If you take part in this ceremony, which represents the death of Christ to free you from sin, while you are living in sin, Paul says you eat and drink judgment on yourself and sin against the body and blood of the Lord. So, before you take of the elements, examine yourself.

If you have a sinful conscience that you haven’t cleared by sincere repentance and you won’t do that now, you don’t need to take of the Lord’s Supper. If you haven’t trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you don’t need to take of the Lord’s Supper. And if you will look down on others for letting the bread and the cup pass them by rather than taking them in an unworthy way, you shouldn’t take of the Lord’s Supper either.

But here’s the good news – that sin or that bad attitude doesn’t have to stay with you. We’re told to bring our dirty, sinful selves to Jesus so he can make us new. And the Lord’s Supper is a bold declaration that we not only hear or see, but taste, that Jesus Christ died and rose to save sinners like you and like me, and one day he will return to bring them to heavenly glory.