[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear Saints of God, 3,466 years ago tonight, the Lord commanded Moses to go to the people
and celebrate a meal, the Passover meal.
They were to kill the lamb and keep the blood.
They were to roast it.
They were to cook bread unleavened.
they didn’t have time to let the bread rise, and they were to put the blood on the door
because of what the Lord would do the next day, sending the angel of death through all
of Egypt to kill the firstborn, but to pass over the blood on the door.
The funny thing about that institution of the Passover is that the Lord told them to
eat the meal to remember what the Lord had not yet done. How can you remember something
that’s going to happen tomorrow? How can you remember something that hasn’t been accomplished
yet and still the Lord institutes the Passover in remembrance of the events that would unfold
the next day. So too, our Lord Jesus Christ, 1,988 years ago, when He had finished celebrating
the Passover meal, took bread. And when He had broken it and given thanks, He gave it
to His disciples, saying, Take and eat. This is My body given for you. And then He took
the cup. And when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, Drink of it, all
of you. This cup is the New Testament in My blood, which is poured out for you for the
forgiveness of sins. Do this, says Jesus, in remembrance of me, in remembrance of his
death which had not yet happened. But just like the Passover meal was followed by the
rescue from Egypt, so this New Testament meal is followed by the rescue of humanity, by
our rescue from sin and death and the power of the devil that happened the next day.
So when we take the bread and we take the cup, we declare the Lord’s death until he
comes.
Jesus wraps up everything that he has done for us in this meal.
His incarnation, His life, His doctrine and teaching, His suffering and death, His bleeding,
His crucifixion, His laying in the tomb and His being raised on the third day, all of
these things are brought to us in the supper.
Now, we, all of us, are weak and sinful. We break God’s commandments. We don’t do what
we ought. We do do what we shouldn’t. We deserve God’s wrath, temporally and eternally.
This is true. And one of the things that clings to our sinful flesh is that we have an ungodly
memory. When we think about things, we probably think of ourselves mostly, our accomplishments,
our failures. Imagine when we think back over this last year, there’s a lot of tragedy
that we can remember, but Jesus would have us do this thing. He wants us to have in our
memories Him. His life and death, His cross and sacrifice, His blood and His mercy, His
forgiveness, which extends over all our failures. After all the things that Jesus does for us,
after all that He accomplishes, after all that He suffers, after all that He manages
to do on our behalf. Do you know what Jesus asks of us in return? That we would
remember all that He’s done for us. That we would remember His suffering and
death. That we would remember His life and teaching. That we would remember His
resurrection and ascension and give thanks to God for it. That’s it. So that
And we open our mouths wide, and Jesus, who cares for us, who loves us even to the end,
He fills it with good things.
Even His body and His blood, together with the promise that all of our sins are forgiven.
This is what you inherit when your Lord dies for you. May God grant us His Holy Spirit so this
treasure of the New Testament would be our hope, our peace, our life, and our salvation. In the
name of Jesus, amen. And the peace of God which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and
minds through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
