Mark 14:12-26

We come to a very familiar passage today. Once a month we celebrate communion, or the Lord’s Supper, or very technically, the Eucharist. There have been some theological splits in the history of Christianity over communion; exactly what it is and so forth. One of the justification’s for the persecution of Christians early on in its history was that Christians were cannibals. They would get together and eat the body and drink the blood of someone named Jesus. For those outside the Christian community, it could seem a little odd; talking about eating and drinking someone. That image of what we are doing in remembering and celebrating Communion is what I want to talk about today; primarily because it is where we have come to in our journey through Mark.

I’m not sure much introduction is needed for this subject. Let’s just jump into the text and see where we end up. Please stand for the reading of God’s Word.

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover Lamb, Jesus disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?”

So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Say to the owner pf the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.”

The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.

When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.”

They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, “Surely not I?”

“It is one of the Twelve,” he replied, “one who dips bread into the bowl with me. 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.”

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.” Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they drank from it.

“This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,” he said to them. “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.”

When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Let’s pray.

Before we take a more in depth look at the text, I want to give you some theology. Don’t let your eyes glaze over; communion is one of those areas of the church where denominations have differed over time. There are essentially 4 views of communion. The first is the Catholic Church’s position, that the bread becomes Jesus actual body and the wine becomes Jesus actual blood when the priest prays over it. The bread may look like bread, but it has changed, fundamentally, into Jesus body and blood. This is called “transubstantiation”; trans as in transformed. To become something else. Because it is Jesus’ actual body and blood, they believe, no one but a priest is qualified to handle the body and the blood. The bread is given out by a priest and not supposed to be touched by anyone except when it touches their tongue and the bread it taken in. Likewise with the wine. In fact, the wine cannot be wasted, because it is Jesus’ blood, and so typically the priest drinks whatever wine is left at the end of the service. This is also why the front of a Catholic church is walled off; if you’ve ever been to a Catholic church you would notice a short fence around the front. Only proper people are allowed beyond the fenced off area because that’s where Christ’s body is. When Jesus says “This is my body” they take that literally. Seems to me that when Jesus holds up the bread He is aware that it isn’t His body; but He is being symbolic. This sort of leads us to the next option for communion.

The Lutheran/Methodist and some others view is that Jesus body is joined to the bread, and Jesus blood is joined to the wine. This is called “consubstantiation”, con meaning “with”. Jesus body is joined with the bread, and His blood is joined with the wine. This is essentially a modified view of the Catholic version. You might have noticed in Episcopal and Methodist and Lutheran churches that their communion altar are fenced off as well. That reminds me to tell you that we celebrate communion at a communion Table; they celebrate at an altar. There is a reason for that difference. What happens at an altar? Things get sacrificed. If the bread becomes Jesus body, and the bread is broken, essentially then Jesus is being re-sacrificed. Each week, Jesus is killed again. We believe Jesus was sacrificed once, and that was enough.

There are two other views, both of which are considered proper Presbyterian views. One is that Jesus was just being symbolic. Jesus knew where His hand ended and the bread began. He was giving us a symbolic meal that would help us remember Him until He returns. The last option was proposed by John Calvin, and it is that instead of Jesus being drawn to down to the bread and the wine, we when we take communion are drawn up into Heaven, in a manner of speaking, and that we are never so close to God in this life as we are when we celebrate communion. Those are the basic theological issues with communion. I hope this little intro was helpful as we dive into the text for today.

You will remember Jesus is with the disciples in Jerusalem. He has been in the capital city, around the Temple all week. He has been causing trouble to the religious hierarchy, arguing, criticizing, teaching and preaching. He has irritated the people in power to the point where His death will be their revenge. He, along with all the other visitors, is in town to celebrate the Passover Feast, which we talked about previously. It is the feast that remembers the freeing of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt; it was a high point of worship at the Temple. This feast, if you’ve ever gone through the one we have here just before Easter, is a night of remembering specific aspects of the time of slavery, the tears shed, the haste in leaving Egypt and so forth. Jesus, being a good Jew, is going to celebrate the Passover. You might think Jesus’ instructions were pretty vague; follow a man carrying water. Just the opposite was true. Carrying water was a woman’s job; therefore there was likely only one man carrying water. That’s the one Jesus wanted picked out, and their reservations for the feast made.

Jesus often takes the ordinary and makes extraordinary examples of them; a lost coin, a mustard seed, a meal to make an example of, so that we might enter into a holy space, a holy place with God. Jesus is going to take that very special meal they were celebrating and put upon it the deep meaning for us that God is always with us, and that we are to remember what He has done for us on the cross, and that He will be coming back for us.

The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.

When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve. While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me.”

They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, “Surely not I?”

The betrayal of Jesus by Judas is probably the most infamous of all betrayals. But in a very real sense, his betrayal is like all of ours. When we who follow Christ sin, in a real sense that too is a betrayal of the One who loves us best and most. Certainly we didn’t send Jesus up to His death, but His death is what had to happen for all of your sins, all of our sins. When we take communion we remember the terrible cost paid for each of us; Jesus on the cross. But all that was done because of God’s great love for you. God was willing to die for you because that was the best way to both cleanse our sins, but also to show us how much we are loved. Someone who had walked with Jesus all that time was willing to sell Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver. I wonder if we don’t sell our relationship with Jesus for less; for a little cheating of someone else, for a little gossip, for a little time thinking about someone who isn’t our spouse, for a little sin. Don’t sell out. Hang tough and be committed to God. Think about the cost He paid, and what little we sell that for as we listen to the next section.

When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

Covenant is an old idea that we really only see here, and in marriage. A covenant is a promise to keep one’s word, come hell or high water. In the Old Testament God made a covenant with Abraham in a ceremony where various animals were cut in half, and a flame, symbolizing God, passed through the divided animal. In effect, the people agreeing to the covenant are saying, if I fail to live up to my half of the covenant, let this (the divided animal) happen to me. This covenant that God is offering to us has Jesus Himself as His sacrifice. We know God will never go back on His word, and so Jesus will never have to be sacrificed again. The blood was sufficient for you and for me. His body does not need to be broken again. It was broken once; that is sufficient.

Jesus takes the common meal, bread and wine, and gives us a way to remember His death; the importance of His death as well as a reminder that He is with us in a very special way. We ask Jesus to come live in our hearts; He gave us another way to remind us that He is in us as we are in Him. Just as we need bread and wine everyday to sustain our physical selves, we also need Jesus in our lives to sustain our spiritual selves. Bread is not a once a month need, it is an every day need. So it is with Jesus, whom we need everyday.

And lastly, there is the element of hope; that Jesus is coming back for us. Despite the circumstances of life; there is hope. Jesus is within a few hours of His capture, which will begin the events of His death. He is in the last 24 hours of His pre-resurrected life on earth. He knows that the disciples are going to go to pieces without Him. But that cannot be their long term state of mind. They have to put their hope in Him, and teach others to do the same. This, of course, is what has happened. We still remember and celebrate communion each month. We could celebrate it each week, like other denominations, but we choose to celebrate it once a month so that it not lose its special-ness. Also, at least in the Catholic church, communion is the center of worship, whereas in our theological stream the Word of God preached is the center of worship.

The last thing I would have us think about as we examine this Scripture and approach communion, is St. Paul’s comments to the Corinthians about the Lord’s Supper in his first letter, chapter 11. Paul makes the comment that we are not to eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, otherwise we are guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. We have taken this to mean that the Lord’s Supper is not for everyone; it is for those who have committed their lives to Christ and are seeking to follow His teachings and His ways of living. Someone who is not a Christian should not take communion; it is not for them. They have not asked Christ to live in their hearts, and so should not symbolize that act of submission. They have not entered into the covenant of life with God, and so they should not reenact the offering up of Jesus body as the sacrifice. This is not to say that they shouldn’t, at some point, do this when they become a Christian. Just that, before one has made a commitment to Christ, it isn’t proper to take communion, to celebrate His death and the hope therein.

I would also like to take a second to say that if you come to the Table of the Lord with any anger toward another person; any bitterness in your heart, any jealousy or problems with another person that it would be for the best to confess those things and give them over to God before coming to the Table. We desire to come to the Table as cleansed as we can possibly be from our sins because this is a holy meal Jesus has created for us. It is not the elements themselves are precious, it is not the person presiding over the meal, but it is Christ Himself who takes this meal and gives it more meaning to us. This is a reminder of the hope we have in Christ, the freedom from sin we have in Christ, it is a reminder of the life we have in Christ. Jesus, our bread of life, becomes ours again today as we celebrate.

Let’s take some time in prayer to confess anything further that needs to be confessed before we celebrate communion.

Let’s pray.