Is communion just a religious ceremony, or is it something more?
WATCH
Standalone from August 16, 2026
“Communion internalizes what God says is true as we rebel against the hopelessness of a fallen world through humbled pretenses.”
Luke 22 & John 13 by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks)
SUMMARY
In Luke 22, Jesus takes the Passover meal and reframes the bread and cup as a way to remember his coming sacrifice—his body broken and blood poured out to pay the price for sin. Communion is not just a ritual, but a personal and transforming reminder that Jesus’ sacrifice was for us, calling us to receive his grace, let it shape our lives, and examine our hearts honestly.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 What do our personal relationships highlight about our relationship to God?
💬 Who are we walking with as we follow Jesus?
💬 What areas of our lives are we giving the most attention to?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
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Well, good morning, everybody.
Welcome, church. Welcome to our neighbors. I am glad to be together here with you this morning.
We are going to be kind of practicing and talking about communion. And one of the difficulties of talking about communion is that everybody has some kind of an experience. And so look around the room. We've got, you know, 30, 40, 50, like, different backgrounds, experiences, understandings, traditions, and things like that. And so I acknowledge on the front end that I'm not going to be able to address everybody's questions or everybody's thoughts or whatever.
But my goal and today, and hopefully every day, is to just kind of look at the text of Scripture, see what it is that Jesus has said, and then ask the question how we can honor Jesus words together and kind of apply them. Now there's, I think, grace, and there's space for modification as we go. If he wanted a checklist and a manual and measurements, he could definitely have done that. And that's not what he gave us. And so I just want to take a look at the material that he gave us and kind of wrestle with the things that he kind of points us to on the front end.
I'll just say, in our Western modern American culture, we have largely kind of done away with ceremony. We don't even really, like, used to be you couldn't go to church on a Sunday morning unless you had a suit and a noose, a tie on and a jacket. Which, like, that was true whether you were in Hawaii, where it's a million degrees, or whether you're in Alaska, like, it doesn't matter. Like, you just have to wear. You have to dress up or you have to wear a dress.
Like, there was some ceremony to coming in to a church gathering. And largely our culture is just kind of put away with that. Oddly enough, the one place that, like, that ceremony kind of where dressing up is kind of still accepted is Sports Center. Have you ever, like, watched Sports center and thought, like, why are those guys, like, wearing suits and ties? Like, maybe.
Maybe it's just me, because I'm just like, maybe if I got to preach behind a desk, I'd feel more comfortable with a suit and tie. I don't know. By and large, we kind of have moved away from ceremony and tradition. I think the military is one place where they have kind of latched on and continued, and even they are going through different transitions and trying to figure out what it looks like to be a historic organization in a new modern era. The other one that kind of sticks around is graduations.
Graduation was the last time I wore a dress, right? Like, nobody.
Everybody knows if you're dressed up to graduate, that that is what you're there to do, by the way that you dress. Right. Weddings sometimes. Weddings sometimes are full of ceremony, but they often, like, are negotiable. Like, actually, when I start to do wedding preparations, I have a menu of options that I ask the couple what they're actually interested in or which.
The point of ceremony is that it's not adjustable. It's the thing that we do. Like, you participate in the tradition that we've always done. And even weddings, I think, have modified. Some.
Some people do them in a building, some people do them out of doors. And again, I don't have any preferences or judgment. I'm just highlighting the fact that I think as a society, ceremony is a thing that we've been like, if I have to just do the thing and kind of rote wrote, copy and paste the thing that has always been done, I would like to actually, like, have some ownership in it. And so our solution to that problem has been like, let's just do away with ceremony. However, when we come to the text of scripture, we come to a problem.
There's a truism that's common. It's not a verse in the Bible, but it does reflect an attitude in the Bible that Jesus wants a relationship, not religion. Have you heard that? Yeah, it's a truism. I think generally that's true.
Jesus wants a relationship and not a religion. However, he did leave for us some religious ceremonies and religious symbols that he asked us to take seriously if we're going to follow him. And so he's like, so we have to. We kind of have to parse out. We don't have to parse out, but this morning, parse out.
Like, why would we continue to do this ritual, this ceremony, if, like, Jesus is only about a relationship? Can't I just go out in the woods and spend time in prayer and connect and commune with God in nature? You can, but then why would Jesus say, you guys ought to gather together and observe this ceremony and then we're going to call it communion? There's something that he's kind of pointing us to that might be some deeper truths that maybe we. We just haven't made space or time to kind of chew on.
Because when we come to the ceremony, we're like, oh, we just gotta get through this. And so I'm grateful for doing this on a Sunday morning, get an opportunity to kind of teach and open up the scripture and spend some time Looking at a number of things, but this is one of the topics where, like, all of the threads of scripture kind of come together and they're knotted together. So when a preacher tells you that, what that means is there's lots of rabbit trails that we could run down. And I'm gonna work really hard not to run down the theological or practical rabbit trails. My goal today is to encourage us to practice these kind of ancient ceremonies that Jesus left for his disciples to continue.
I wanna. You've heard me say I'm simple enough to just kind of do what Jesus said. Okay, so we're gonna be primarily In Luke chapter 22, if you wanna start to navigate there. But one of the ceremonies that we do, one of the practices that we. That we have and the habits that we share together is that we pray together.
Excuse me, the disciples prayer. And in my preparation this week, I did not even think to put a slide in my deck that had the Lord's Prayer on it. So we'll see how that habit has taken root in us as we. As we pray together, the disciples pray prayer without the help of visual aids. Okay, so let's take a deep breath.
And let's pray together. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Again, navigating to Luke, the book of Luke, chapter 22. One of the things that I find fascinating about Luke, often we'll call him Dr. Luke because he's a doctor and Luke was not a disciple. He was not somebody who personally met and shook hands with Jesus, but he was somebody who came to trust Jesus later on through another person's ministry. And so when Dr. Luke started to walk with Jesus, he said, I really want to understand this thing as best as I possibly can. And so he went around and to the people who had shaken hands with Jesus, he conducted a number of interviews.
And the purpose of his writing the book that we call Luke in the Bible was he wanted an orderly account, kind of exhaustive of everything that Jesus did, said and taught, all kind of put in order. And so he's a skeptical guy, he's a logical guy, and he just wants the facts. Just give me the facts. I'm going to describe it. The other thing that's interesting about Dr. Luke is that he was not.
He did not have a Jewish background. So he's not somebody who came to Jesus understanding the God of the Old Testament. That was all kind of new to him. So sometimes in his writing, he explains more of what's going on in the Jewish background than other than other biographers of Jesus do, because it was new to him. So he's going to give us a little bit more detail.
He's going to try to put it together in logical order for us. So Luke chapter 22, we're going to start in verse. Let's start in 13. I think in your notes I have 14, but we can start in 13 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, 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 is the cup that is poured out for you.
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 as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is born betrayed. And they began to question one another which of them it could be who was going to do this. So we'll pause there.
Is this a familiar story? Have we pictured this scene before? In our cultural milieu, we've seen, like Da Vinci's the Last Supper, we're familiar. We've got 12 guys and Jesus all kind of having dinner together.
The interesting thing that Luke does for us is he keys in on the fact that the reason why they sat down at that meal together was that they gathered to celebrate Passover. So these are. I don't know if you ever thought about it, but these are a bunch of homeless guys. Jesus was an itinerant teacher. He kind of wandered around like the hope of the whole world rests on the shoulders of a homeless man.
He didn't have a place to lay his head. And so when it came time to celebrate the Passover, usually that's something that you do in your house, but they didn't have a house. And so they're going into Jerusalem. They're like, hey, Jesus, where should we set up to celebrate the Passover? He gives them some instructions that he's kind of miraculously pre prepared so that they have a space in an upper room where they can practice the Passover together.
And verse 13, they went and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. So Passover was a feast that was celebrated by the Jewish people, the people of Israel. And it was something that was supposed to happen annually. Something that's really, really interesting. A thread that I observed and have continued to reinforce is that when Jesus is trying or when God is trying to help reshape people to walk with him, the first thing he often gets control of is their calendar.
When Jesus was calling a people out of slavery and said, you guys have not been walking with me, but you're going to walk with me now, he said, one of the ways that you're going to walk with me is you're going to stop your work for three times a year and you're going to take a break, have a holiday and remember. He co opted their calendar. And very shortly after that he said, I know you guys have a lot to do, there's a lot going on, but what I want you to do is I want you to work for six days and rest for a seventh. He co opted their calendar and there's something about how we spend our time that shapes how we relate to God, which is not the point of this sermon, but something that I'm going to point out for you as you go. So this is a celebration that he says, you guys have to remember this.
As long as forever goes on, you people need to remember the day that I delivered you out of Egypt. Supernaturally, you guys were slaves and I'm going to set you free. And the way that you're going to do that is you're going to eat a meal the way that you guys ate it the night before I set you free. So it's interesting. What God does is he gives them a memorial meal to remember something that hasn't happened yet.
You guys are going to celebrate the Passover. The first Passover happened while they were still slaves in Egypt. And he says, okay, tomorrow you guys are going to go free, but before you go, I want you to celebrate this Passover. You're going to eat this lamb. And you're going to use the blood to cover over the door.
And as the angel sees the blood of the lamb that was sacrificed over the door, the angel of death will pass over your house and won't kill anybody. That's where the name came from. The passing over was actually the angel of death. Right? Are we somewhat familiar?
Have we heard that? Okay, if this is all new to you, I'm trying to summarize a lot of material, but that is what they gathered together to commemorate. It was something that they often worshiped together with their family to have this meal. And one of the things that might have raised a question for you as we were reading Luke's account is that there was more than one cup. Did you notice?
They drank a cup and Jesus said some things, and then they ate some bread, and then they drank another cup. So in the Passover meal, there are actually four separate cups that they passed ceremonially. The first is the cup of sanctification, where God declares, I'm going to bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. So in the meal, they would pass around this cup. And that was like, everybody takes a sip of the cup of sanctification, then the cup of deliverance.
I'm going to rescue you from their bondage. So I'm going to set you apart, I'm going to make you part of that, and then I'm going to set you free. You're going to be distinct, and then you're going to be free. And then the cup of redemption, I'll redeem you with an outstretched arm. And then the cup of praise, I'll take you as my people.
So he closes with a hymn, a cup of praise and celebration. So those are kind of the four cups. If you want to do some more research, this is often called the cedar meal. S E D E R. Cedar Seder meal. Something like that.
Yeah, I'm white, I'm not Jewish. The cedar meal, there's a whole lot more that goes into it, but there's these four cups. So in Luke, in verse 16, I'll start in 15, Jesus says to his disciples, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. There's something about the timing here that he was looking forward to. I tell you, I'm not going to eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
So I'm not going to finish this until it's. Until God comes and sets everything right. He took a cup, and when he'd given thanks he said, take this and divide it among yourselves. I tell you, from now on I'll not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom comes. So one of those earlier cups, he kind of gives them the instructions and says like this is going to be the last one I do with you.
And then he gave the bread and passes around the bread and 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. The whole point of Passover was for the people of God to remember the time that God delivered them out of slavery in Egypt. And now Jesus has stepped into this ceremony that is designed to help them remember a historical event. And now he's saying, this bread is my body which is broken for you.
And now you're going to do this to remember me. Now, just like the Passover, the first Passover was celebrated while they were still slaves in Egypt. Jesus body is not broken yet. This is the night before or the night he was betrayed, the night before he was crucified. He's looking at them, a whole and complete healthy human saying this is my body which is broken for you.
And they're a little bit confused. But he says when you do this again, do this to remember me. He's co opted this Passover celebration, it's no longer about deliverance from the cup or it's no longer deliverance from slavery in Egypt is going to be a new deliverance that I'm going to bring you out of. Well what deliverance is that in verse 20? And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
When he takes that cup of redemption, that third cup, he says this cup of redemption is not a cup of remembrance, it's a cup of cleansing that is going to be my blood. My blood is going to be shed to redeem, to buy you out of slavery. So he's taking these components that they're familiar with, he's taking something they know to teach them something that they don't know and inviting them to participate. So he shifted the memory of deliverance in Egypt to be a memory of something that Jesus is going to do. But for these guys on that night, he hadn't done it yet.
And it's incredible to me that he is that confident in what's getting ready to happen that he institutes this before he leaves. Right? I don't think Jesus had any doubt that a he was going to die the next Day he was pretty clear on that. This is my body which is broken. This is my blood that's poured out.
I'm going to die. And he says, you guys are going to remember this. Why would we remember the day that you died? Because I'm not going to stay dead. And you guys are going to.
You're going to practice this, and you're going to remember because I came back from the one enemy that could not be defeated by you.
This bread in the cup is often called the Lord's Supper because it belongs to Him. I don't know if you noticed, they wouldn't have practiced it if it wasn't for Him. They didn't even know where to set it up. Like, he's like. They're like, what should we do?
And he's like, well, you should go do this. This is this. And then verse 13, they went and found it just as he told them so he had prepared it. And then they went and did it, and then they practiced it together. It belongs to Him.
I think that that's an appropriate thing to remember. Jesus gets to set the table. He gets to set the ground rules. But it's often called Eucharist. Anybody come from a background where we call this part, like Eucharist?
So that's a Greek word. Eucharist is a Greek word, Eucharista, that simply means thanksgiving. And it comes from that phrase where it says, he took the bread, broke it, and giving thanks. He is giving thanks. And so the attitude of this meal and this part is an attitude of gratitude.
What a preacher. Sorry. Is an attitude of gratitude. It's an attitude of thanksgiving that God has provided something that I could not provide for myself. And so that's, again, not a fruit of the Spirit, but I think could probably be included in that list too, that we approach God with a spirit of humility and gratitude for the ways that he has provided for us before we knew we had a need.
Today we call it communion.
Now unplug that word from church, because that is a word that we use. But oftentimes when we plug it into church, like, it has all of this baggage. Unplug that word communion from church. And what is it that we're talking about? Like the definition of the word Communion is like the act of sharing thoughts, feelings, or experiences with others.
Communion is a close relationship or a close connection between people. When we talk about communion, we're talking about an intimacy of relationship. And so when we talk about communion, we talk about the bread and the cup. When we talk about Jesus, body broken and his blood poured out for us. What he is doing is he's making and facilitating communion between us and God.
That it's not just a. We have come together for this solemn assembly to remember.
We've come together to remember that Jesus has done what we could not do and praise God. Thank God that he's done it. Because what he's done is he's made it possible for me to be friends with God. I could not figure that out by myself. I have done a lot of things in my life that I thought would make God happy, only to realize that the way that I was doing them was actually causing more harm than good.
Left to my own devices, I don't think I'm smart enough to figure out what it is that's gonna make God happy. And yet Jesus comes along and says, you know what? Let me just cover this for you. I'll pay the bill, because you're not gonna be able to do it by yourself.
Communion reflects a close relationship with God through Jesus sacrifice. That's the gospel. The gospel is we started off, and we do start off as enemies of God. And yet Jesus sees our hostility. And rather than just kind of punting us or zapping us, he, like, put on skin.
Almighty God, creator of the universe, put on skin to be born as a baby so that he could show us a way to live in fellowship with his Father and ultimately allow himself to be unjustly executed and died not just for the sake of a political cause, but because his death as a perfect man and his death as fully divine made it possible for God to forgive completely human sin and failure.
I don't know what you've thought about church being before, but that's it. Jesus came to make us right with God and to have fellowship, to have communion, to have friendship, have camaraderie, to have intimacy. I'm running out of synonyms for us to be able to be with God. Jesus made the way where there was no way, and that's what we celebrate. So he says, let me leave behind this ceremony where you will now remember this.
You'll do this thing in remembrance of me. And what I find fascinating is he asks us to eat.
Have you heard the other truism, you are what you eat. Any nutritionists, there's something that happens chemically where who you are today is somehow a bit a product of what you ate yesterday. God takes the atoms of the food that you ate yesterday and breaks them apart and reorganizes them so that they become incorporated in your body somehow, so that what you ate yesterday becomes more of who you are today.
And so what Jesus says is, I want you to believe. I want you to confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that he died for your sins and you'll be forgiven. But the way that I want you to remember that time that you put your trust in me is I want you to eat it. I want my body and my blood to be internalized in you. I want for those things and that foundational principle of how we are made right with God to become more of who you are tomorrow than it was yesterday.
This is the thing that I can't give to my students when I'm teaching eighth grade. Like, I can tell them, can tell them all of the things the Bible says about faith in Jesus, but I can't. I can't make them eat. And Jesus says, as you surrender your life to me, as you allow me to forgive your sins, as you allow me to forgive your sins, Jesus says, then my forgiveness is something that you internalize, you consume, and it becomes part of who you are. If you can pray to Jesus to forgive your sins and walk out of the room unchanged, unmodified, living exactly the same way as before, I would wonder what the genuineness is of your confession.
There's somebody who says, a faith that hasn't changed you is likely not a faith that has saved you.
And so Jesus here puts it on the table and says, I want I become a part of you. The world has been crucified to me, and I along with it. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And when we take the bread and the cup, we declare that truth, that Jesus came and died for sinners is true for this sinner, and he is remaking me and he has forgiven my sin.
It's a personal thing, you see, that communion internalizes what God says is true. We believe on faith because God says he forgives his sin. That, like, okay, Jesus, you say you forgive me. I just gotta trust that you forgive me. I can't see it.
I can't. I can't. Like, I don't start glowing in the dark when I'm forgiven. Like, I just gotta trust. But communion is internalizing, like, literally taking in what God says is true, that Jesus was broken, his body was broken and his blood was poured out for the whole world.
Sure, I don't want to minimize that. But broken and poured out for me.
Infinite Almighty Creator of the universe. Knows your name.
You're not forgotten, you're not hidden, you're not a number in a huge mass.
Those who belong to the Good shepherd are known by Him.
He counts you, and he calls you by name. And he says, when you do this, when you take this bread and this cup, know that my sacrifice was effective for you, my child, my brother, my sister.
We're saying that it was for us that his body was broken, and for us his blood was poured out.
And even as he's giving that, he's got these undertones of like, I'm going to leave this for you, and I'm not going to do it again until the kingdom of God is at hand. I'm not going to do it again until kingdom comes. So even as he is making this way and leaving this ceremony, he is leaving breadcrumbs that he's coming back. I don't think that this text or First Corinthians 11, which is the other place that kind of talks about the bread and the cup significantly, will let us remember the death of Christ without also remembering his promise to return, that what he's paid for is complete, the price is paid in full. But the work isn't over, and he's going to return.
He says, until I come back. As often as you do this, do this, and remember me.
So we practice, we observe. This is what we do. Now, I think there's three dangers that I just want to articulate briefly.
The first is insincerity.
If we become familiar with a ceremony, we can just kind of go through the motions. We can just kind of say, yeah, yeah, they pass the little thingy and I get the grape juice, and they bring the little wafer thingy, and I kind of gnaw the matzah because it's a little bit stale, right? Like, we just become familiar with it. Familiarity can breed contempt, and we can come to the table insincere. But my friends, like, I hope.
I hope that in our conversation we have realized that what Jesus offers is for you. For me, it's personal. The second is ignorance.
Kind of astonishing. I had lunch one time with a person who was really, really gifted musically. And because they were gifted musically, it was actually really easy for them to get a job in a church. And so their first church service, like, their interaction with church, was only ever from the platform. They got hired on as a church musician, and they just kind of got into it.
And actually, because they were on the platform, because they were a musician, everybody assumed they knew what the book said. And nobody ever taught them. And so I was sitting at lunch with a person who had been in Church for 10 years, on the platform, for 10 years, serving faithfully in music ministry, and had no idea what the bread and cup meant because somebody had just left it on their music stand for them and never explained it. So the danger is we can have a ceremony and we can have a thing that we do, and we can forget that. Just because I know doesn't mean that everybody else has heard.
And so Jesus asks us to do this in remembrance of him, to express, explain those so that we not take it in ignorance.
And the third danger is, I think, unconfessed sin.
We can look at the Lord's sacrifice and we can say, oh, I'm just so grateful that he has forgiven my sin, and that makes it so that he must be okay with my sin. And he says, I died for this.
We aren't looking at it this morning, but in 1 Corinthians 11, there's a community of people. And he warns the people in Corinth, he says, some of you guys have gotten sick. Some of you have even died because you are taking communion. A declaration of internalizing Jesus forgiveness without actually confessing and verbalizing what your sin is and not leaving the sin that Jesus has called you out of. And so one of the like, that's the third danger I think, of having this ceremony is we can be like, well, I did the bread and the cup, and so that means that I must be clean before God.
And he says here, as I think he says throughout Scripture, that what he wants more than the outward conformity of your body going through the right motions, that he actually is after our heart surrender, and that we should take some time to reflect and confess sin that we have tried to hide from Him. So I would like to this morning, just in the next couple of minutes, to take the bread and the cup together. You can choose to abstain. There is no judgment. If you don't want to, it's totally fine.
But I want to give us an opportunity to take the bread and the cup together, together this morning. But before we do, having gone through this teaching, I want to give us an opportunity to spend some time in prayer, to spend some time reflecting on, is there something that I have not yet agreed with God as a sin? That's what confession means. Confession means I agree that what God says is a sin is a sin. Have we taken time?
Or let's take some time and consider, like, what's going on in me? Is there something I've not confused fest and take the time to do that. Okay, so let's just take a couple of minutes, just in silence.
It.
You can continue in prayer. There's some folks that are going to pass around some bread while you're praying.
Lord Jesus, we thank youk for this day, for this time to be reminded in the middle of our busy lives and all of the things that are on our calendar this month that yout body was broken, That yout love for us was not just a thought and prayer that you cast from the mountain of heaven, but the Lord. You entered our story and you allowed your body to be beaten and you suffered in the flesh.
When this wasn't a transaction that you carried off and just kind of mailed in a check, Lord, you came and paid it yourself.
And so we remember with gratitude in Jesus name, for I received from the Lord what I also pass on to you. The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.
It.
Thank you, Sa.
It.
Jesus, we thank youk for your blood.
God, in how youw created the world, you said that the life is in the blood.
And consistently throughout scripture, Scripture you have warned us against drinking blood. And yet for this ceremony you invite us to remember your blood poured out as a sacrifice which is able to cleanse every sin.
Jesus, we don't understand and yet we thankfully receive your sacrifice. It's in Jesus name we pray in the same way. After supper, he took the cup, saying, this cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this whenever you drink it, in remembrance of Me.
For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Thank you.
In our tradition, in our habit, call that component of communion, the bread and the cup. Because there's bread and a cup. Really complicated. There's also two other components that we observe regularly to continue the reenactment of what it is that Jesus did that night. And so I'm going to take some time this morning before we close together to explain those things.
And then we will close our, like our worship celebration for the morning. And then you have the option to participate at your at your comfort level or maybe a little bit beyond your comfort level. So the first is this. For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Inseparable from his death and burial and resurrection is his promise to return.
Jesus was adamant that his ministry on earth was not over and that there was a time where he was going to return. And so what's interesting is he includes in the. Or he sets the bread in the cup in the context of a meal. There's an ongoing meal that they are sharing together is the Passover meal. So it's assumed in the original exercise, in the original time that there was a meal included with the bread and the cup.
In First Corinthians 11, Paul is writing to correct the church in Corinth, who had taken that special meal time and kind of misused it, where the rich people in the community, in the church family, were using the meal and eating it early and getting drunk and all this kind of stuff in order to exclude the poor people from their community. And so he's like, that's not the way that this was supposed to be. Like a. It's not your table, it's Jesus table. And Jesus, when he sets the table, makes it open for everybody to be welcomed in.
And so it seems like in First Corinthians, they practiced some kind of a meal more than just the bread and the cup. And then in a very, very short book, it's only one chapter, it's called Jude. As Jude is talking about some false teachers in the community is he's kind of giving correction of something that the false teachers are doing. He names that meal the love feast. So Jude in verse 12 says, these false teachers are hidden reefs, like underneath the sea, hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear.
Shepherds feeding themselves. Waterless clouds swept away, swept along by winds. Fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted. So he's talking about how awful these false teachers are, but he says they are present at your love feasts. And so as you gather together as a church and share this meal together, which is supposed to celebrate Jesus sacrifice and the future return, these false teachers are kind of hiding in among the love feasts.
They're welcome and all that kind of stuff. And so that's where we get the name the love feast, which means that communion ultimately, when taken as a whole, is meant to be a celebration of God's love. Like, yeah, we can be excited about that. Communion is meant to be a celebration of God's love, which I don't think is, like, what the culture expects to be the heartbeat of God. When we talk about God's love and we talk about, like, the way that he cares for creation, the picture that Jesus leaves for us to share with One another is a shared meal.
Think about that. Of all of the different, like religious ceremonies that Jesus could have like invested in, he says, the one that best reflects my heart is a time where we eat together and share together and celebrate God's work and God's love together. He's not thinking of like suit and tie formal dinner. He's thinking about we are sharing a table together. That's why we read together from Isaiah, chapter 25.
And this is hundreds of years before Jesus came. There's a prophecy that says on this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, A feast of well aged wine, of rich food, full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. He will swallow up on this mountain a covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that spreads over all nations. So as he's talking to the people of Israel, he's saying, this communion's going to come. The veil that separates God and men is going to be removed.
And I'm going to have a feast. Table set, rich food, expensive food for every nation. Jew and Gentile alike are welcome and are going to feast at my table. And the Lord will swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth.
For the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day. Behold, this is our God. We have waited for him that he might save us. This is the Lord.
We have waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. It's interesting as Isaiah is giving this picture of this table that sets the conversation at the table, is fixated on somebody at the table with them. Do you see that? It will be said on that day.
Behold, look, this is our God. They're pointing at somebody at the table. This is our God. We waited for him that he's going to save, that he might save us. And then he did.
This is the Lord. So Jesus, I think is sitting at the table that Isaiah is seeing. And everybody at the table attention is not fixated on what the weather's like. They're not talking about the sports ball tournament thing. They're not dreaming of the imaginary draft thing.
I'm vaguely aware that fantasy football started.
Like that's not the topic of conversation. The topic of conversation is he's the guy. Jesus is the one that we waited for. Look, he's here. He set the table.
He brought you. He brought me. Let me tell you how that's so crazy. We're going to say together, this is our God. Then In Revelation, chapter 19, a very similar picture is seen by John.
John says, I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters, and like the sound of. Of mighty peals of thunder crying out hallelujah. For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exalt and give him the glory. For the marriage of the lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready.
It was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure. For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, write this. Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he said to me, these are the true words of God.
As John gets a picture of what the end of the story of creation is going to be, he sees a table of people that are feasting together in honor of Jesus, who have made themselves ready by getting dressed in the righteous deeds of the saints.
A little bit of a difficult language to grapple with, but did you see that the people who are sitting are the saints, and what they're clothed in is the righteous deeds, the things that they did that were right and honoring to Jesus. And it's a celebration in Israel. The way that their marriages worked, there were kind of three components of a marriage. You had to have all three for it to count. And the first is a marriage contract.
You had to negotiate and sign a contract. Usually the fathers were the ones that were negotiating on behalf of the kids. And it was a whole family affair. But like that, it's phase one. Phase two is, then you got to go pay the dowry.
So, like, dads would negotiate, then the son would be on the line and he'd have to pay the bill. And then we couldn't move past pay phase two until the dowry had been paid. So Jesus, having been sent by the Father, has now done the work and paid the price in full. And then everybody, like, once the dowry has been paid, there's a waiting game. And we wait for the bridegroom to come so that he can collect his bride and we can have the party.
Carlos is ready to party.
So we should live in eager anticipation of the appearance of our bridegroom. He will come and claim us as and take us to the Father's house. So when we celebrate communion, we will include a feast, a love feast, a meal. And it looks just like a normal meal because we're not endowed with supernatural either with supernatural finances to pay for fine foods, but we're also not endowed with heavenly skills to be able to cook. I mean, some of you are.
Some of you are fantastic cooks. It's not me, but it looks like a normal meal, but we can practice for the marriage supper of the lamb if when we sit at the table, we fix our eyes and our attention on Jesus and say, this is the Lord. This is the one that we've waited to save on. Save us so conversations, or so I think our love feast as we practice it is a rebellion against the hopelessness of a fallen creation. When we gather together, we take the bread and the cup.
We remember Jesus sacrifice, that he has paid the price and full. We then feast together in anticipation for the day that he comes back, which is directly contrary to everything the world says is worth our time.
When's he coming? That guy in the 80s was pretty sure he was coming. We weren't going to see the 1990s and here we are. He's not coming. Things have always continued the way that they always have been.
Jesus isn't coming back. Your faith is hopeless. You're wasting your time. You're spending time with people that just backbite and they gossip and they're just as bad as people outside the church. Why do you waste your time eating meals with these people?
Why do you invest your life with these people? It's hopeless. Everything is darkness. The news is bad everywhere you go. And when we gather at the table and say, no, this is our God.
We have waited for him to save us. He has paid the price in full for me. Let me tell you why I'm grateful. This morning we. We rebel against the hopelessness of the fallen creation that we live in.
So conversations as we feast together at lunch today should be directed towards gratitude, a testimony of how God has loved you tell a story of when you saw God's love showing up and ultimately should be directed towards hope that we are not hopeless. I've got some cards that I'll put on the table for you. They're just conversation starters that are trying to gear us towards get our minds thinking about gratitude, testimony of God's love and hope for the future. That's the love feast.
Hallelujah.
The last component that we practice is foot washing. This is not a tradition that I grew up in. I grew up in a Southern Baptist church. This wasn't a thing that we did. I learned later on that we participated with a church around Easter time, that they would do it, but we always opted out.
So I had never seen this done until I was Grown up and kind of came to this tradition late. So this one is new for me. But it's interesting. We've been in Luke chapter 22.
He does the bread and the cup. And then 21 in verse 21, Luke chapter 22, verse 21, he says this. But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is on the table. For the Son of man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed. And they, the rest of the apostles, began to question one another which of them it could be who was going to do this.
And a dispute arose among them as to which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. So he's saying, I'm getting ready to lay down my life for you. I'm getting ready. My body's gonna be broken for you. And they're like, yeah, but which one of us is, like, the best apostle?
Which one of us is the like, okay, we don't know who's gonna betray you, but we can be pretty sure about who's the guy greatest, right? And he said to them, the Kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest and the leader as one who serves. For who is greater.
The one who reclines at table or the one who serves. Is it not the one who reclines at table? He's saying rhetorically, yeah, the one who reclines at the table is better than the one who serves. And then he closes this, but I am among you as the one who serves. And you're like, oh, that's so sweet that Jesus would say that.
And Luke, as he records it, it seems like he's just giving a teaching, but John actually articulates what's going on in the room. So I'm just going to ask you to turn a couple of pages to the book of John and chapter 13. It's just a couple of pages to the right. John 13 on page 1039 in the blue Bibles. So he does the bread and the cup.
They're arguing over who's the greatest. And Jesus says, I am among you as one who serves. John, chapter 13.
In the midst of all of this now, before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas, iscariot Simon's son, to betray him. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. So they're eating. And then Jesus, the guest of honor, the rabbi, their teacher, gets up from supper.
He laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, lord, do you wash my feet? And Jesus answered him, what I am doing, you do not understand now, but afterwards you will understand. Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet.
Jesus answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me. Simon Peter said to him, lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head. And Jesus said to him, the one who is bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you. For he knew who was to betray him.
That's why he said, not all of you are clean. When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, do you understand what I have done for you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I, then your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should do just as I have done to you.
Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. So if the Christian life is designed to be lived so that we can know who God is like, have a better understanding of who God is, and then be remade to be like him. This is one of the things that Jesus leaves for us to practice for one another.
It's interesting, this is a whole different sermon, but I suspect that Peter is actually at the end of the table. He's actually in the seat of the least honor. And if you know Peter, he's the most vocal guy. He's the guy who is always doing stuff. And so I actually think he watched the whole room get his feet washed before he was like, you're not gonna wash my feet.
You put me at the lowest place at the table. I'm not gonna let. I should be serving your feet. Because foot washing was the job that was reserved for the lowest slave, not just the slave of the household, but the new guy, the guy with the least seniority. He was the one that had to wash the guest's feet.
And so Peter's like, you're not gonna do this. And Jesus says, listen, you don't get it yet, you're gonna get it someday. But if you don't let me do this, you're not a part of my team. And so Pete says, yeah, okay, then give me a shower. No, no, no, no.
That's not what we're doing. I'm gonna wash you in my blood. That's a whole different thing. You guys are already clean because you believe. But I'm gonna leave this for you so that you guys can journey together.
I am among you as one who serves. If I, your teacher and rabbi, have so bent down and done the lowest slave's, then how low should you go to serve your brothers? And they are a group of guys who are going to sit together again and they are going to eat together again. Can you imagine? The Last Supper is cool.
But I really want to know about the second, the first Last Supper, like when they all got together and they realized, oh, man, somebody's got to wash, Somebody's got to wash feet. What do we do? He said we should do it. I mean, I'll ask him when we get there, but I don't know. I just think that would be an interesting conversation to be a fly on the wall for.
But washing feet is a reminder that Jesus, although He saves each of us individually, he incorporates us into his body. The body of Christ is a plurality of people and we belong to one another and we care for one another and we bear one another's burdens. Perhaps we could say, the Holy Spirit grows the good life in me by using other people. If you've been around for the last couple of weeks, we are justified and we are saved by Jesus alone. He's the only one who does it, but he puts us into a spiritual family to journey together with.
And when I fail, not if, when I fail, he has put me side by side and arm in arm with other people who are going to help me remember the cleansing that Jesus has done for me and the way that he gave us to observe that together is to wash one another's feet. Now, as we close, as we are leaving, I'm going to get like, we've got bottles here set out, we've got towels here set out, and I'm going to give you the opportunity to wash one another's feet. I'm going to say guys with guys, girls with girls, just for the sake of making things not super awkward and for protection and all that kind of stuff. But the goal of it isn't just to, like, go through the motions. The goal of it is to kind of unhinge ourself from the idea that I actually have it all together.
It's me and Jesus. I took the bread and the cup. I got it locked in. I'm going to walk this out perfectly. We know we're going to fail, and so let's just bear one another's burdens in the process.
Because I think foot washing humbles our pretenses. We tend to think, like, I can make it look like everything's okay, and I actually am kind of okay with washing other people's feet. I can. I like, just personality wise, I'm a servant. Like, I can do that.
That's. That's fine. But the crazy thing about what Jesus asked us to do is not just that I can go and wash other people's feet feet, but that I would let somebody else wash mine is usually the harder thing. And that's the community that Jesus wants to build, to lay down our pretenses and to acknowledge that we are a part of one another's sanctification of growing to be like Jesus. So.
I'm going to pray and we'll close in singing. And in the transition time, I'm going to leave it to you, if you would like to practice that there's water and there's towels, I would say lay the towel down, pour the water over the feet, dry it up. Like, we don't have buckets or anything like that. Put the water thing back where you got it from and drop the towel in a bucket so that we can wash them logistics wise.
And then when you're finished with that, if you'd help us transition to the love feast and setting up tables and things like that, I don't know what that means. Oh, yeah, don't forget, if you got kids in Kid Nation, you can go and get them. We did. We will set aside bread and the cup if you want to give to your kids, if you want to practice that with them, that's available. You can do that too.
But make sure that you pick up your kids from Kid Nation as we're going out so that Kid Nation leaders can come and be a part of the rest of the ceremony. So let me pray and then we'll close together and sing. Jesus, thanks so much for this morning. I thank you for your graciousness that you would leave for us something tangible that we can practice together.
Lord, there's so many ways where we can kind of pretend and fake it. And so I thank you for how you draw us into your story by having us reenact some things. And Lord, I pray.
I pray that we would not practice our faith on the street corners so that other people would give us praise for how spiritual we are. But Lord, that we could practice these things in genuine faith to honor you and that you would receive our worship. Lord, I pray that you would continue to be with us as we move through the rest of our day and the rest of this week. And Lord, I pray that this time would be honoring and pleasing to you. And it's in Jesus name we pray.
LINKS
Music by Blue Dot Sessions
