What’s The Big Deal About The Lord’s Supper?

1 Cor. 11:23-29

One of our most revered and central parts of worship is the Lord’s Supper. Some call it communion, Eucharist, or “that cracker stuff and those little cups”. I’m not trying to be sacrilegious here, but those who don’t have much of a religious background have absolutely no idea of what the Lord’s Supper is or what it means.

I remember one time at another congregation a visitor was in the first pew and the bread was passed to him. He had no idea what to do, so he grabbed about a quarter of the bread and ate it. Many times I have seen visitors who don’t know what to do give some to their children. Others bypass it all together with a look of consternation trying to figure out why everyone is so quiet and just sitting there.

Questions about the Lord’s Supper are among the most common questions asked by people who visit with us. Let’s see if we can find the answer to “what’s the big deal about the Lord’s Supper.”

PRAYER

I. The Lord’s Supper Instituted

A. The first Lord’s Supper

1. READ Lk. 22:14-20

2. This event is recorded in all four gospels.

3. That alone is very unusual as most of the events are found in some of the gospels but not others.

4. So the fact that it was mentioned in all, is a very strong indicator that this was an important event.

B. A Passover meal

1. This supper took place during the Passover.

2. Vs 7 tells us it was the day of unleavened bread

3. The Jews each year held a memorial of the night they were saved as a nation from the hands of the Egyptians.

4. It was one of their holiest, if not the holiest day of the year.

5. In Exodus 12 and 13 tells of the Passover and the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt.

a) God had given instructions about killing a lamb and putting in on the door posts of their homes so the death angel would not enter their home and kill the first born.

b) After that final devastating plague, the Egyptians were so insistent that the people leave immediately, that they didn’t have time to make bread with leavening in it. They just carried the dough they had with them at the time.

c) God combined these two elements into a ceremony to remember how God had cared for them and brought them out of slavery.

6. Jesus takes that unleavened bread, prays, and then breaks it and gives it to them.

7. He does the same think with the cup of wine he had before him.

C. Meant to be done in the future

1. What is important to catch in these verses is found in vs. 19

a) Do this in remembrance of me.

2. You can’t remember the future; you can only remember the past.

3. Jesus wanted this simple ceremony to be done after his death.

4. It was to be a constant reminder of what Christ did for mankind.

5. A simple, but very powerful visual reminder.

II. Understanding the Lord’s Supper

A. Parallels to the Passover

1. Part of this was formal ceremony of the Passover, but he put a new meaning to what they were doing.

2. It was no longer memorializing when the angel of death passed over the homes of the Jews because God had provided a way for them to be saved, but that now Jesus was that sacrificial lamb that God provided so ALL men could be saved.

3. Instead of bread of urgency it was to remember the flesh that was pierced on our behalf.

B. The sacrificial lamb

1. Jesus knew what was about to happen to him.

2. This was the reason he was born in human form.

3. This was why he remained sinless when all other men sinned.

4. Even in human form he never lost sight of what his life was all about.

a) Soon he would face physical torture and death.

b) That alone would be bad enough, but that wasn’t the end of his sacrifice.

c) While he certainly didn’t look forward to that death and much great death awaited him.

5. Spiritual separation

a) When I was a child, one Sunday night my parents left me asleep in the church building. I remember waking up to pitch darkness, knowing my parents were not there and thinking I was in Hell because Dad had just preached on hell. The fear and grief of separation is something I still remember to this day.

b) In Matt 27: 46 it says " "About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”"

c) For the first and only time Jesus was separated from his Heavenly Father.

d) 2 Cor 5:21 tells us He was made sin for mankind

e) Gal 3:13 says he was made a curse for us.

f) God cannot look on sin, so when Christ became my sins, God had to turn his back on him.

g) Reread “My God…” dramatically

6. That’s what Jesus knew he was in for.

7. That was the sacrifice he asked you and I to remember.

III. Never Forget

A. 9-11

1. The shock and pain of 9-11 was so profound that the rallying cry was “never forget.” You would see those words on bumper stickers, tee shirts, posters and magnets.

2. Just as December 7 was etched in one generation’s memory so this date was etched in ours.

3. Yet already, as the happenings of that day move further and further from us, we don’t remember it quite as vividly.

4. It is human nature to move on.

5. Sometimes that is good; we need to move on. At other times it isn’t so good as we need to remember just what happened.

B. Do this in remembrance of me

1. Jesus words were to set up this memorial for us to remember the sacrifice what he had done.

2. We need that constant reminder lest we forget the meaning of that sacrifice.

C. How to remember

1. In Acts 20:7 we read that the Christians had gathered together to partake of the Lord’s Supper on Sunday.

2. While we don’t have a command to do this every Sunday, it seems from Biblical accounts that is what the early Christians did and certainly post Biblical accounts show early Christians meeting every Sunday for the Lord’s Supper.

3. What we must be careful of doing is making the communion so routine that it becomes an empty ceremony. Too many churches have fallen into this trap.

4. I like the fact that our men take a couple of minutes to speak to what communion is all about and how it affects our daily lives.

D. Examine Yourselves

1. There is a passage in 1 Cor 11 that has provoked all kinds of discussion about the Lord’s Supper and those who partake of it.

2. READ vs. 27-29

3. When we lived in Great Britain, those who served the Lord’s Supper would bypass anyone they believed were not Christians. Their thought was that these people would be unworthy to take the Lord’s Supper.

4. I am so glad the Bible doesn’t say we have to be worthy to take the Lord’s Supper because none of us are!

a) We are all sinners.

b) We are all unworthy of what Christ did for us.

c) That’s why we need to thank God for grace.

5. What Paul said was don’t take it in an unworthy manner. Examine yourself.

6. There are 2 things we need to understand with this phrase

a) If you go back in this chapter they had turned the Lord’s Supper into a drunken feast. They forgot what it was all about.

b) We need to approach the Lord’s Supper with reverence and keep in focus what it is all about.

c) The other aspect of this is the people taking it need to look within themselves and know how badly we needed that sacrifice.

d) To approach it flippantly with no regard to the sacrifice it represents or the sins we were forgiven of in that sacrifice is spit in the face of what Jesus did for us.

e) None of us want to be guilty of that do we?

E. Conclusion

1. Remember these things as you partake of the Lord’s Supper next time and every time here after.