The Good News of Jesus
02/14/2010 - Love is in the Air
Well today is Valentine's Day and love is in the air. Its funny nobody came up to me last week to find out how they could get a bottle of Clive Christian's Imperial Majesty for their special someone. I don't know why. If you weren't around last week you missed hearing that Imperial Majesty is the most expensive perfume in the world and you can pick up a 16 oz. bottle of it for a mere $215,000. I offered to give you all the details on how you could get one, but nobody took me up on it. What's the matter with you?
Some people give perfume to say "I love you." Others give chocolate or candy or flowers or cards to say "I love you." Jesus gave us a meal to say "I love you." It's a meal that we call the Lord's Table or the Lord's Supper, we observed it last week. Others call it Communion or the Eucharist or the Mass. It goes by different names in different church traditions, but it all comes from the same passage, the passage we're going to look at today.
If you have your Bible turn with me to Mark 14:12-26 as we continue our journey with Jesus through the gospel of Mark. In my Bible this passage is captioned "The Last Supper" and is found in all four gospel accounts.
The apostle John opens his account of the Last Supper with these words in John 13:1, It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.
It's Thursday evening of Passion Week and within twenty-four hours Jesus will be dead. And we know that his death on the cross for our sins was the full extent of his love.
Later on John will tell us that in 1 John 4:9-10 when he writes, This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
The sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross for your sin and mine defines what love is. And we depend on his death for our life. And the meal that Jesus gave us was meant to remind us all of his incredible love over and over and over again. Let's look at that meal in Mark 14 starting with verse 12.
Mark 14:12,On the first day of the Festival 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?"
Luke tells us that it was Peter and John who asked Jesus that question and he gave them the responsibility to get everything ready for the Passover Seder. Most likely this was Thursday morning and Passover would begin at sunset that night. But there was a lot to do before then to get ready.
First of all, a place had to be chosen and that was a challenge in a city packed with as many as three million people who had come to Jerusalem that week from all over the world. Jesus didn't own a home so they couldn't meet at his place. And none of the disciples lived in Jerusalem either. So they had to find a place to go where Jesus wouldn't be detected.
But Jesus had already made arrangements for that. This is a covert operation. Look at verse 13, 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. 14Say to the owner of the house he enters, 'The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?' 15He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there." 16The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.
Once again, we see Jesus in control of all the events that are about to unfold. He didn't want to leave anything to chance especially during this very delicate time.
They were to go into the city and look for a man carrying a water jar which was very unusual because men didn't carry water jars in that culture, women did. So it would be easy to spot the guy with the jar. And they did. Sounds like a scene right out of a James Bond movie.
The guy leads them to the anonymous owner of an undisclosed location that has a large upper room and Jesus tells them to use a certain code question that the owner must have known in advance so he can tell if these guys are legit. The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?
The whole thing has secrecy and intrigue written all over it because Jesus was a marked man and he didn't want his movements detected, at least not until after he observed the Passover. He's about to give some of his most powerful teaching before, during, and after the Passover meal and he doesnot want to be disturbed or even worse, arrested.
So they find the large room upstairs furnished and ready to go which was no small task. Before the Passover it was a Jewish tradition that the head of the house take a lighted candle and ceremonially remove every speck of leaven in the place. On top of that, they had certain elaborate rituals that involved the cleansing of pots and pans and bowls and utensils that would be used during the meal. It was like getting ready for a big Thanksgiving Dinner in our culture. There was lots to do.
The place was furnished and ready to go, but the meal wasn't. It still had to be prepared and it was up to Peter and John to get it done. So they needed to go to the Temple, purchase a lamb, stand in line, have it examined by a priest, slit its throat, pour its blood on the altar, and prepare it for roasting over an open fire on a spit made of pomegranate wood. They also needed to pick up wine and vinegar, unleavened bread, parsley and bitter herbs for the dinner. They had a lot to do before sun down on the 14th day of Nissan. But they hustled and got it done and so we read in verse 17, When evening came, Jesus arrived with the Twelve.
Now in John's gospel we discover that they forgot one thing. They forgot to hire a servant to wash their feet which was customary in that culture as well. Your feet would get dirty walking the dusty, dung filled streets in your sandals and so when you entered a house it was the servant's job to wash your feet. But there was no servant there that night. So Jesus does it.
At one point he gets up from the meal, takes off his outer clothing, wraps a towel around his waist, gets down on his knees and washes the feet of his disciples. And when he's all done he tells them and us that, "I have set an example that you should do as I have done for you." He becomes the model of what servant leadership is all about. Then he says,"Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them." If you want to be great in the kingdom of God learn to be the servant of all. This was Jesus' most powerful lesson on servanthood.
I love the way Martin Luther King, Jr. put it when he said, "Everybody can be great because everybody can serve." He goes on to say, "You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's Theory of Relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second law of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love and you can be that servant." Serving others is the key to greatness.
So their feet are washed and they're reclining at the table. They're not sitting at the table in chairs facing the camera as in da Vinci's famous picture of the Last Supper. No. They're in a circle lying on the floor, leaning on pillows around a low table when Jesus throws a rock in the pond with this shocking statement.
Look at verse 18, While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, "Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me—one who is eating with me." 19They were saddened, and one by one they said to him, "Surely not I?"
Last week I mentioned that Jesus knew it was Judas who would betray him put he didn't say his name or else Judas may not have have gotten out of that room alive. But none of them suspect Judas. In fact, he was likely the most respected disciple in the group, certainly the most trusted as keeper of the money bag and treasurer of the Twelve. In fact, just the day before he had made the pompous statement that Mary shouldn't have drained $30,000 worth of perfume on Jesus' head. Instead, the bottle should have been sold and the money given to the poor. And they all agreed with him. No one suspected Judas. Instead, one by one they say, "Is it I, Lord? Is it I?"
Look at verse 20,"It is one of the Twelve," he replied, "one who dips bread into the bowl with me. 21The 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."
Whoa. That's a frightening statement. Again, we get more details from John's gospel. Apparently, John was reclining right next to Jesus and after he made this statement Peter motioned to him and said, "Ask him which one he means." And so John leaned back against Jesus and said, "Lord, who is it?"
And Jesus answered quietly in John 13:26-27, "It is the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish." Then, dipping the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. 27As soon as Judas took the bread, Satan entered into him.
Giving Judas that piece of bread was a profound gesture of love on the part of Jesus. In the Passover Seder everyone would get a piece of bread dipped in a bowl. It was the master of the meal who would distribute them. He would take pieces of unleavened bread which were like flat cakes put some bits of lamb on them, sprinkle them with bitter herbs, roll them up, dip them into a bitter sauce, and then hand them out.
But the first piece of bread was special. It always went to the guest of honor which is why in John's gospel Jesus quotes Psalm 41:9,Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.
And so Jesus gives the first piece to his close friend, Judas, who was reclining right next to him in the place of honor. Right up until the end, I believe, Jesus is willing to forgive Judas for what he's about to do. But Judas doesn't want his forgiveness. He doesn't eat the bread. Instead, he puts it down and you can feel the sadness in Jesus' heart.
So Jesus told him, "What you are about to do, do quickly." 28But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. 29Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the Festival, or to give something to the poor. 30As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night.
Judas leaves the room and the rest of the disciples think he's going to Wawa to get something they forgot for the Festival or else to give something to the poor. They're clueless that he's on his way to betray Jesus and have him arrested.
About this event J. Dwight Pentecost writes, "This was evidence of the love and the grace of the Lord, who knew what was in Judas' heart. Jesus was offering Judas forgiveness if only he would accept it. This is grace exemplified. Perhaps no greater demonstration of the love and the grace of Christ can be found anywhere in Scripture than in this scene, for the One who would be betrayed was offering the betrayer forgiveness of sin if he would accept it. Judas took the bread, but there is no record that he ate it as a sign of his acceptance of the Messiah's offer of salvation. Rather he left the bread untouched and went from the Lord's presence. And John says, 'It was night.' But the night without was not as dark as the night within the heart of Judas."
This was all part of Jesus showing his disciples the full extent of his love. He was loving his enemy right up until the end, doing exactly what he tells all of us to do. And then he breaks from traditional Passover protocol and introduces what we've come to call the Lord's Table.
Now remember the disciples had a hard time getting their heads around the fact that Jesus was going to die. He had told them early on that the bridegroom was going to be taken away, that his temple, his body, was going to be destroyed. At one point he said that the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Three times he told them point blank that he was going to suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. But they didn't want to hear it.
And that's no surprise. Who wants to hear their loved one talk about death? When our aging parents or grandparents say those kinds of things we say, "No way! You're not going to die. You're going to get better. Don't talk like that. Stay positive." And that's what the disciples had been saying all along or at least thinking all along.
But now Jesus takes a new approach. He introduces symbols that will remind his followers of the meaning of his death from now until he comes again.
Look at verse 22, While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take it; this is my body." 23Then he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 24"This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many," he said to them. 25"Truly I tell you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God."
Bread and wine were important parts of the Passover meal. Four cups of wine were drunk during the meal and for each one there was a scripted saying. And unleavened bread, of course, was the bread that was used to eat the lamb.
But Jesus takes these common, age old elements and fills them with brand new meaning. He departs from the script that was repeated at every Passover meal and says that from now on the bread represents my body. Earlier on in his ministry he had called himself the bread of life. And just like the unleavened bread was pierced with holes, so Jesus' body would be pierced with nail holes the very next day. Luke adds the phrase, "Do this to remember me."
The cup, he says, represents the blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. There could be no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood. In the Old Testament it was the blood of bulls and goats, lambs and pigeons, that was needed to cover the sins of God's people. But now it would be the blood of Jesus, the perfect Lamb of God that would take away the sin of the world. And the cup reminds us of that brand new arrangement.
The bread and the wine were two elements of the Passover Seder, but also two common elements of almost every meal that his disciples would eat. So Jesus I believe is saying, "Remember me and my love for you not just at Passover time, but every time you sit down to eat a meal. The bread is my body and the cup is my blood and let them remind you of the full extent of my love. I'll eat and drink with you tonight, but I won't drink again until the kingdom of God comes in all its fullness."
This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
And for centuries, all over the world, the Lord's Table has reminded the Lord's people of God and his great love expressed in the sacrificial death of his Son on the cross for our sins.
Verse 26 says, When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
The singing of hymns was also an important part of the Passover feast. The hymns came from Psalms 113-118 which are known as the Hallel Psalms. Hallel means "praise to God." And all of them were sung or recited at various points throughout the meal, but Psalm 136 was used to end the Passover. It was called the great Hallel and most likely the hymn they sang before they went out that night.
And on this Valentine's Day when love is in the air I can't think of a better way to end this teaching then by reading the great Hallel. But I'm going to need your to help. I'll read each of the 26 verses, but after each you can respond with the phrase, His love endures forever. If you want to follow along, Psalm 136 is on page 426 or else you can just listen.
1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.
4 to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever.
5 who by his understanding made the heavens,
His love endures forever.
6 who spread out the earth upon the waters,
His love endures forever.
7 who made the great lights—
His love endures forever.
8 the sun to govern the day,
His love endures forever.
9 the moon and stars to govern the night;
His love endures forever.
10 to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt
His love endures forever.
11 and brought Israel out from among them
His love endures forever.
12 with a mighty hand and outstretched arm;
His love endures forever.
13 to him who divided the Red Sea asunder
His love endures forever.
14 and brought Israel through the midst of it,
His love endures forever.
5 but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea;
His love endures forever.
16 to him who led his people through the wilderness,
His love endures forever.
17 who struck down great kings,
His love endures forever.
18 and killed mighty kings—
His love endures forever.
19 Sihon king of the Amorites
His love endures forever.
20 and Og king of Bashan—
His love endures forever.
21 and gave their land as an inheritance,
His love endures forever.
22 an inheritance to his servant Israel;
His love endures forever.
23 He remembered us in our low estate
His love endures forever.
24 and freed us from our enemies,
His love endures forever.
25 He gives food to every creature.
His love endures forever.
26 Give thanks to the God of heaven.
His love endures forever.