The Lord's Supper is a shocking interruption to your life.
Mark 14:17-26 (NIV)
17 When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. 18 While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, “Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.”
19 They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, “Surely you don’t mean me?”
20 “It is one of the Twelve,” he replied, “one who dips bread into the bowl with me. 21 The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born.”
22 While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.”
23 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.
24 “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. 25 “Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
26 When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Listen to passage & devotional:
Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 35: The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper
We believe and confess
that our Savior Jesus Christ
has ordained and instituted the sacrament of the Holy Supper
to nourish and sustain those
who are already born again and ingrafted
into his family:
his church.
Now those who are born again have two lives in them.
The one is physical and temporal—
they have it from the moment of their first birth,
and it is common to all.
The other is spiritual and heavenly,
and is given them in their second birth;
it comes through the Word of the gospel
in the communion of the body of Christ;
and this life is common to God’s elect only.
Thus, to support the physical and earthly life
God has prescribed for us
an appropriate earthly and material bread,
which is as common to all
as life itself also is.
But to maintain the spiritual and heavenly life
that belongs to believers
he has sent a living bread
that came down from heaven:
namely Jesus Christ,
who nourishes and maintains
the spiritual life of believers
when eaten—that is, when appropriated
and received spiritually
by faith.
To represent to us
this spiritual and heavenly bread
Christ has instituted
an earthly and visible bread as the sacrament of his body
and wine as the sacrament of his blood.
He did this to testify to us that
just as truly as we take and hold the sacraments in our hands
and eat and drink it in our mouths,
by which our life is then sustained,
so truly we receive into our souls,
for our spiritual life,
the true body and true blood of Christ,
our only Savior.
We receive these by faith,
which is the hand and mouth of our souls.
Now it is certain
that Jesus Christ did not prescribe
his sacraments for us in vain,
since he works in us all he represents
by these holy signs,
although the manner in which he does it
goes beyond our understanding
and is incomprehensible to us,
just as the operation of God’s Spirit
is hidden and incomprehensible.
Summary
Our practice in Reformed churches is to participate in communion usually every 4-6 weeks. But the Sunday before we celebrate it, we begin a week of preparation. These next couple of weeks as we read the Bible together, we'll be reminded why it is we do this; to come to the Lord's Table is a big deal, and we don't want to rush into it as if we were just grabbing a quick bite to eat.
Jesus' preparatory exhortation, to use the formal term, at first seems really different that what we might do. He begins by dropping a bomb: someone at the table would betray Him. Mark then records the disciples' reaction, writing that they were saddened, and one by one they said to him, “Surely you don’t mean me?”
Jesus followed His shocking announcement with a dire warning for the one who would sit at His table, communing with Him, before going out to betray Him. It would be better for that one, Jesus says, if he had not been born.
But that's what we still seek to do as we prepare to respond to God's gracious invitation: to instruct you to spend the intervening days looking within yourself to be certain you're fully on board with Jesus, and that you trust in Him completely. We also, like Jesus, warn those who would pretend to sit at the table on Sunday while denying Christ every other day of the week.
Dig Deeper
It seems so ironic the way the gospels present it. For lots of reasons it's good that our communion services are as formal and even somber as what they are, but this first experience of the Lord's Supper was quite different from what we've come to think of it as. Thirteen guys were stuffed into an upstairs room which was likely very cramped (da Vinci's painting, as magnificent as what it is, isn't a very accurate representation of the actual scene). Nobody quietly played Just As I Am as Jesus distributed the elements.
As this motley crew worked their way through a very regimented passover liturgy, their Rabbi went off script, breaking bread and passing around a cup. That's exactly how Mark records what happened: While they were eating, Jesus took bread... It was a completely unexpected interruption.
Most significantly, Jesus usurped the very meaning of the ceremony they'd come to celebrate. Instead of using the meal to symbolize solidarity with the people whom God had passed over while they were slaves, our Savior invited participants to become one with Him by consuming His body and blood.
But that's really what a communion celebration is: an intrusion of the heavenly into our otherwise mundane world. A chance to see, touch, smell and even taste the very spiritual presence of Jesus right there around us. It's important for you to prepare yourself to participate in communion, but don't miss the shocking interruption it represents.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, whose Kingdom is coming where we will drink from the fruit of the vine right alongside Jesus!
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that your commitment to Christ would be solidified so that you will not betray Him;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: John 21
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