By Scott Brown
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Waverly
Focal Passage: Luke 22:7-20
This is a special moment of calm before the storm that is to come in the life of Jesus and the disciples. Jesus, the true Passover Lamb, shares the Passover meal with the disciples.
This Passover meal is what we now call The Last Supper. Each time that believers gather and celebrate communion, they are pointing back to this meal and the picture it paints of our salvation and our common union in Christ.
When we gather for communion it draws our hearts to do three things: look back, look in and look ahead. Celebrating the Lord’s Supper causes us to look back at the meaning of this Passover meal.
We are told the bread is His body, broken for us. The wine is His blood, spilled out for us. Everything about the elements and the action of this ordinance brings us back to the gospel. We look back and meditate on the wonder of our sins being passed over because of the blood of Jesus.
Scott Brown
We look back and we think on the horror of His death on the cross in our place. We look back and we worship Jesus because He has won the battle, defeating death and sin forever for all who would trust in Him. Communion also draws us to look inward, examining ourselves.
Paul tells the Corinthians to examine themselves before coming to the table. Something about this act causes us to stop and see our sin more clearly. We are to eat and drink this in a worthy manner.
I think of that night Jesus gathered with His disciples for the final time, eager to share this meal with them before He fulfilled its promise upon the cross. There at the table He is surrounded by men who couldn’t stop arguing about who was going to be greatest in the coming kingdom.
There at the table was a man who soon would deny Jesus three times. Right beside Him is the man who will betray Him to be arrested and crucified. Something about this table causes us to stop and recognize just how wretched and miserable we are apart from Christ.
This table stills us as we look in and see our desperate, daily need for Jesus. We look back to focus on His suffering for us. We look inward to see our deep need of Him.
We also look ahead, longing for His return. Jesus tells the disciples He was eager to eat the Passover meal with them because He “will not eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” We look ahead to His return and His reign. Communion creates an expectancy as we look and long for His return.
We long for the final destruction of sin and death. This Last Supper is a promise of that so each time we take it we remember Him and proclaim His death until He comes. B&R
