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April 17, 2003
Maundy Thursday
Mark 14:12-26
Pastor Ben Berger

The Last Supper: A Place for a Communion Feast

On the Jesus was betrayed, on the night before his death, Jesus was thinking of you. At just the time you would assume Jesus was only thinking of himself, Jesus was concerned about his disciples, and about you. When Satan was marshaling his forces, when Judas had made his contract to betray the Son of God, when the soldiers and guards stood ready to follow the traitor wherever he would lead them, when Caiaphas was drumming up a meeting of the Sanhedrin in anticipation of Jesus' arrest, Jesus was thinking of his disciples, and of you.

Jesus knew how frightened and frail his disciples were; before he died, he wanted to give them the support and strength they would need. Jesus knows how frail and frightened we are and he wants to give us the support and strength we need. So, he shares with us the Last Supper: A Place for a Communion Feast.

We call the Last Supper Holy Communion and we confess the communion of saints, but do you know what "communion" means? Communion stresses the idea of unity, of two things coming together. In the Last Supper God gives us strength and support through three different communions: 1) a communion of elements 2) a communion of God and sinners 3) a communion of believers.

If you sit down to eat dinner and want to know what you are eating, all you have to do is look down at the food. Maybe you have some meat: chicken or steak or fish. Maybe you have potatoes or rice. Maybe some vegetables and possibly even a little dessert. If you want to know about the ingredients that make up the food, the stuff you can't see, you have to read the food label. You can find out that your double fudge chocolate cake with frosting on it is made from flour, vegetable oil, starch and a whole lot of sugar among other things you don't know how to pronounce.

If you come to Jesus' communion feast, you can find out what you're eating by doing the same thing. First, you look down at the elements. You see a wafer or bread without yeast and you see wine. You see the same elements Jesus gave his disciples. "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples…Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them." When we eat this communion feast today, we still eat bread and drink wine. You get what you see.

But what ingredients are there that you don't see? To find that out, you have to "read the label" or hear what Jesus said. "He took the bread and gave it to his disciples saying, 'Take and eat; this is my body'…Then he took the cup and gave it to them saying, 'Take and drink; this is my blood of the covenant.'" In this special meal, Jesus joins together his body and blood with the bread and the wine. He creates a holy communion.

How is such a communion possible? To be honest, I don't know and I don't need to know. What I do know is that Jesus said that at this meal I eat bread and wine in, with, and under his body and blood. He said that all four are really present. I also know that with God all things are possible. Therefore, I believe it.

This communion of elements is the first communion or coming together. Luther put it this way. Holy Communion is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ, for us Christians to eat and to drink. This communion of elements creates a communion with God and sinners.

When you eat, do you sometimes find yourself eating the wrong foods? C'mon, admit it. Most of us really enjoy eating the sweets and deserts, drinking sugary juice and soda. Unfortunately, eating those good tasting foods can lead to some problems. We can get fat, have heart problems, bad cholesterol or high blood pressure. What we really need to eat is a well balanced diet. We need to have the right amount of fat, protein and fiber at the right times and in the right amounts to really maintain a healthy body and lifestyle. We need vitamins and nutrients to give us physical strength and support.

The same is true of our souls. If we want our faith to grow and gain strength so that it can support us, we need to feed it a well-balanced spiritual diet. There is a lot of spiritual junk food available to you. You could eat the Twinkies of emotional worship. You could fool yourself into feeling good for an hour but never feeding yourself the proper vitamins you need for the rest of the week. You could eat the Ho-Hos of how to Bible study. You want to learn how to be a spouse or how to be a parent or how to live a moral life, but you never study the main teachings that give you the strength, support and motivation you need to how to. What you really need (although we don't always want) is to have God feed your soul with his diet plan.

When you want a proper diet plan for your body, you don't ask yourself. You know that won't work because you've tried it; you go to the doctor or a nutritionist. They are the experts. When you want a proper diet plan for your soul, you don't ask yourself. You go to the expert, God.

As part of his spiritual diet plan God includes this feast, this supper. When God gives you Jesus' body and blood in, with and under the bread and wine in this supper, he is giving you true strength and support for your soul. For, connected with those elements is God's word. Through that word God establishes with you a relationship. He establishes a relationship based on a promise. "Take and eat; this is my body given for you. Take and drink; this is my blood poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins." Mark calls is the blood of the covenant. God promises to "forgive your wickedness and remember your sins no more." Then he feeds you with the very body and blood he used to fulfill his promise.

My friends you can't find better support or strength anywhere. Where else can you hear such an awesome promise, like the forgiveness of your sins, and see the promise fulfilled right there before your own eyes and in your own mouth. How awesome is this feast. And through this promise, God creates another holy communion; he joins you together with him.

This communion, or coming together between you and God, between all sinners and God, is the second communion. This communion makes the third and final communion, the communion between believers, possible.

This Last Supper had an unusual list of guests. First of all, God was eating with sinners. That's crazy to think about by itself. Second of all, a traitor was sitting at the table. I can't imagine how hard it would be to eat with my worst enemy. Most of the time we eat with friends. Eating together is one of the ways we strengthen and support one another. That's what Jesus was doing for his disciples that night and that's what Jesus was teaching his disciples and us to do for each other thereafter.

That night in the upper room, as the evening was drawing to a close, Jesus hinted at the communion of believers. He said, "I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God." What will we do in heaven? Jesus makes it sound like we will eat together. We will share in one another's company and celebrate being in God's company. "When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives." I wouldn't be surprised if our heavenly meals closed with a hymn either.

However, before we eat together in heaven, we have a chance to eat together right here on earth. And, when we eat together with those who share our faith and our confession, we have opportunity to strengthen and support one another. Paul wrote, "Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf."

While the Lord's Supper is a very personal matter between God and the individual sinner, it is also a very public matter between all who are eating and drinking. On the one hand, the communion is vertical; on the other hand the communion is horizontal. We celebrate the fact that God has forgiven the sins of each one of us and that he has established a new relationship with each one of us, but we also celebrate that God has forgiven all our sins and has established a new relationship with all of us. What better way to celebrate that to eat a feast together!

This communion, the coming together of believers, is the third holy communion.

Through these three communions: a communion of elements in which we eat Jesus' true body and blood in, with and under the bread and wine, a communion between God and sinners and a communion between believers. Through these three communions God gives us all the strength and support we need. That night Jesus was thinking of you.

Do you remember doubting Thomas? You'll hear his story in the next couple of weeks. He refused to believe that Jesus rose from the dead until he saw it with his own eyes and touched Jesus with his own hands. God knows that we are often like Thomas. We doubt whether or not God really forgives our sins; we doubt whether or not God really loves us. Leave behind your doubt.

Rather, come to Holy Communion and leave with assurance. Leave with the assurance that God has already forgiven all of your sins and with the assurance that God will always love you. Leave with this assurance because in this Holy Communion God allows you to see his sacrifice with your eyes and to taste his love with your mouth. In this Holy Communion God gives you himself.