Metz 08/04/19

The Last SupperMatthew 26:17–30

This morning, in our journey through Matthew, we come to the Last Supper, that special and significant time that Jesus had with his disciples on the night before he died.

If you have your bibles, let’s get the text in front of us. I’ll be reading from Matthew 26, verses 17-30. Matthew 26,verses 17-30

17 Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where will you have us prepare for you to eat the Passover?” 18 He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’ ” 19 And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover. 

20 When it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve. 21 And as they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” 22 And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, “Is it I, Lord?” 23 He answered, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. 24 The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” 25 Judas, who would betray him, answered, “Is it I, Rabbi?” He said to him, “You have said so.” 

26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” 

30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. ____________

{Let me alert you to something here as we begin. We’ll be taking the Lord’s Supper in the middle of the sermon today. I’ve chosen to do that because it communicates an important reality--that our monthly Lord’s Supper experience flows out of the annual Passover experience that the Jews were involved in every year and are still involved in. So don’t be surprised when I up and say, “Would the men come forward?” in the middle of the message}

Verse 17 in our text tells us that it was the first day of the Passover feast and the disciples came to Jesus to ask where he would like to eat the Passover. Jesus replied “Go into the city to a certain man and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I will keep the Passover at 

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your house with my disciples.’ ” 19 And the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover. 

Now it’s ‘not clear whether Jesus made previous arrangements to use this anonymous man’s Upper room or whether he called on supernatural knowledge’1 to make it happen.

Mark and Luke give us some extra details, that in my mind, tilt the balance to the whole arrangement toward being the result of Jesus’s supernatural knowledge. Listen to Mark 14:13-15.

13 And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, 14 and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” 

So the two disciples are told that they will encounter a man carrying a jar of water. Since drawing and carrying water was usually done by women at that time, a man with a water jar would have been easy to spot but very unexpected. And how would the entire rendezvous have been coordinated? How do you arrange in advance to meet an unnamed man carrying a water jar? “We’ll text you when we get there?” Or did the owner of the house tell his servant to wander around with a water jar, to kind of hang out in a conspicuous place in the public square, and to make his water jar conspicuous until two men walked up needing to use a nice room for their Passover dinner? Maybe Matthew hasn’t given us all the details. I don’t want to make too much of this.

But it’s easiest for me to think that Jesus is letting his disciples (and us) know that the future is stunningly in His hands. Jesus looked into the future; he saw the perfect room for His final meal with his disciples; He saw the servant carrying water back to this particular house; He saw the heart of the owner of the house and knew that he would allow his room to be used. And then He sent His disciples to arrange for the event that night. And, as always when God is involved, it all went as planned.

In verse 18, Jesus gave the two disciples the very words they were to say, “‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand.  “The Greek word for ‘time’ here in verse 182 often refers to “a decisive moment in the course of history or an individual’s life.”3  But Jesus’ words are deliciously ambiguous aren’t they? To the disciples and the owner of the house, they seem to have implied that it was the appointed time to celebrate the Passover meal. But in light of Good

1 Carson2 Blomberg, kairos3 Blomberg

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Friday and Easter Sunday that would soon follow, the words “must refer to the fulfillment of Jesus’ ministry”4 through his death on the cross.

_____________

Let’s step back from the text and talk about the Passover feast for a few minutes. The Passover feast is discussed in Exodus 12 and 13. And as I’m sure you know, it was to be a yearly commemoration of God’s redemption of His people out of slavery in Egypt.

Let’s read a bit from Exodus 12 just to remind ourselves of the background…turn with me there if you will…. We’ll read verses 1-6 and then verse 8.

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. 4 And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6 and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. 

So each family was to choose a lamb on the tenth day of the month. If the household was too small for a lamb they were to take the Passover with a nearby neighbor. And the lambs were to be sacrificed on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight.

And then verse 8… 8 They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it.   So verse 8 is a reference to the Passover dinner that originated those many years ago--over 3400 years ago now--which became what we know for Jesus and his disciples, The Last Supper.

The Passover feast was closely associated with the Feast of Unleavened bread. In fact in Jesus’ time they were considered to be one feast.

This slide has some of the particulars.

4 Carson

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You can see the Passover on Nisan 14 and the Feast of Unleavened Bread on Nisan 15-22. It’s not known when the two observances became one but as I said by the time of Jesus they were considered one festival as Luke seems to indicate in his gospel—Luke 22:1 says Now the feast of Unleavened Bread called the Passover was approaching.5 The two festivals had morphed into one festival called Passover.

So toward mid-afternoon of Thursday, the 14th of Nisan, the lambs (one per ‘household’ or family--or a convenient group of ten or twelve people… Jesus and his disciples fit the qualifications)….Well the lambs would be brought to the temple court where they would be sacrificed. It all started at 2:30 in the afternoon when large numbers of worshippers were let into the temple courts. When everyone was ready, a “shofar” blast signaled the beginning of sacrifices.6 Each worshipper slew his own lamb. The blood was caught in a bowl and passed from one priest to his colleague who then handed him back an empty bowl so more blood could be collected. And the bowls with blood were passed up to the priest at the altar who poured them out at the base of the altar. Well you can imagine that with all the lambs to be slain in Jerusalem on that particular day, that every priest was on deck in Jerusalem during the Passover. And clearly when Jesus later in our passage says, “This is my blood…poured out for many”….this scene from the temple precincts is in the background.

While this was going on, the priests were leading in the antiphonal singing of Psalms 113 to 118. In other words the priests would say a line from one of those psalms and the worshippers would answer “hallelujah”. The priests would say the next line of the psalm and the worshippers would again reply… “Hallelujah”7

After the lambs were sacrificed, the sacrifices were hung up on hooks along the courts, then flayed, the entrails taken out and cleansed, and the inside fat separated, put in a dish, salted, and placed on the fire of the altar of burnt-offering. To give you an idea of the number of the sacrifices offered at a typical Passover, one year, some 260,000 lambs were recorded slain at the temple.8

5 Luke 22:16 Hughes, Luke, page 3147 Edersheim, Temple, pages 222-2258 Edersheim, page 215

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Put yourself there for a moment. Thousands upon thousands of lambs slain … Words from Psalm 113 expressed…From the rising of the sun to its setting the name of the Lord is to be praised….bowls and bowls of blood poured out at the foot of the altar… more words from Psalm 113 sung…He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap.  And then a response from the worshipper….Hallelujah…Blood flowing throughout the Court of the Priests….Hallelujah shouted from the people after every verse of the psalms. 

____________

Well after sunset (i.e., now it was the 15th of Nisan on the slide behind me) Jesus and his disciples gathered to eat the Passover lamb, ‘which by this time would have been roasted with bitter herbs.’ 9

They weren’t gathered behind one long table as Leonardo DiVinci characterized the scene. They were gathered behind a u-shaped collection of couches called a triclinium…sounds like a dental procedure doesn’t it? We’ve talked about this before. Here is an artist’s representation of such a gathering…

This particular picture shows only twelve men present….so the artist, I suppose, is representing the time after Judas left the Upper Room. The only other issue I have with this picture is that the men don’t seem to be reclining. I’ve read that the attendees would “lean on their left elbow with the head toward the table and the feet away from it. The right hand would then be free to take the food.”10

This next slide includes a very abbreviated outline of what happened in the Passover meal.11

9 Carson10 Morris11 After Carson

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As I said, Jesus would have begun the meal with thanksgiving for the feast day and he would have prayed over the first of four cups of wine.

Once the meal began--and we don’t know where this would have been in the order of service-Jesus solemnly said, verse 21: “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”  There had to be shock in the room. The tension had to go up. And the disciples responded uniformly, one after another. Matthew seems to indicate that the disciples went around the room querying the Lord “Surely, not I, Lord?”….the Todays English Version translates the question, “Surely….you don’t mean me?” one by one they asked “Surely you don’t mean me?” and on around the circle. Their questions expect a negative response12. Judas seems to have covered his tracks because no one said, “Is it Judas?”13

23 He answered, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me.   Now it might seem that Jesus has sent a signal with his words to the rest of the disciples regarding who the betrayer is but considering the eating styles of the day, most if not all those present would

have dipped into the same bowl as Jesus.14 But Jesus is making a point. His point is that “the betrayer is a friend, someone close, someone sharing the common dish” 15 which heightened the treachery. It heightened the enormity of the betrayal.

Most students of scripture believe that Jesus is alluding to Psalm 41:9….

12 Handbook13 Ryle14 Carson15 Carson

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And then Jesus elaborates, verse 24, 24 The Son of Man goes as it is written of him16..in other words it’s all part of God’s sovereign plan…. but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” 

So in Jesus’s words about the betrayer we have the intersection of God’s sovereign activity and Judas’ behavior. It was a divine necessity that the Son of Man would die. But that didn’t excuse Judas’ crime of betrayal.

Carson writes: “Divine sovereignty and human responsibility are both involved in Judas’ treason the one…bringing redemption history to its fulfillment, the other answering the promptings of an evil heart…the one resulting in salvation from sin for God’s people and the other in personal and eternal ruin.”17

{Don’t Luke’s words in Acts 4:27-28 say the same kind of thing? In Acts 4 Luke summarizes how wicked men rose up and crucified the Lord’s anointed….for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place.} 

Well we wouldn’t have known it from our text but at this point one disciple has not chimed in--Judas

Verse 25 25 Judas, who would betray him, answered, “Is it I, Rabbi18?” He said to him, “You have said so.” 

16 Carson writes, “No OT quotation explains ‘As it is written of him’ but one may think of OT passages such as Isaiah 53:7-9; Daniel 9:26 or else suppose an entire prophetic typology is in view, such as the Passover lamb.”17 Carson18 Carson: “Judas uses rabbi…which was probably more unambiguously honorific than the versatile kyrios.

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You have said so…. Today’s English Version says ‘So you say’19 Evidently Jesus’ answer, dependent on the context, may be understood as either “a denial or an affirmation--it’s a bit ambiguous”20 So again we really don’t know what the other disciples understood by Jesus’ response.

But Judas knew. And it’s pretty certain that at this moment Judas realized that Jesus knew all about his treacherous plans. Carson says, “It was enough of an affirmative to give Judas a jolt without removing all the ambiguity from the ears of the other disciples.”21

But there is another interesting observation we can make when we compare verse 25 and verse 22….. Eleven of the disciples asked the question this way… Is it I Lord?…is it I, Master? But Judas couldn’t bring himself to call Jesus his master and in verse 25, he asked, Is it I, Rabbi, teacher?

Verse 26 26 Now as they were eating…we don’t know where in the typical Passover liturgy this was but…. Jesus took bread…we would suppose it to be unleavened bread… and after blessing it…he may have given the traditional blessing… “Blessed are thou O Lord our God, King of the universe, who bringest forth bread from the earth”22

He broke it…and that’s what you have to do with bread to share it but it clearly foreshadowed the violent death he would experience… He gave it to the disciples… And if this was the normal Passover liturgy, he would have said something like this, “This is the bread of affliction which our ancestors ate when they came from the land of Egypt.”23

But Jesus said instead….“Take, eat; this is my body.”    We really can’t appreciate how stunning an innovation24 this was to the normal Passover liturgy. Jesus interpreted the broken bread in terms of his sacrificial death. He could have said, “Hey guys, this feast is all about me”

One writer says this….

“As far as the disciples were concerned, this was a Passover meal. That’s what they had prepared. To this day, when Jewish families all over the world celebrate Passover, there is special food and drink, prescribed by custom going back thousands of years. And there are particular words to say.

19 Morris20 Handbook21 Carson22 Carson23 Keener24 Carson

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The words tell the story of how God’s people, Israel, came out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, leaving behind their slavery and going on to freedom in their promised land. The food and drink are carefully chosen to symbolize and express aspects of that great event, the Exodus. Thus, for instance, there are bitter herbs, which symbolize the hardships the Israelites suffered in Egypt. The head of the household must say the words, introducing the different parts of the meal.

All this, which is so strange to many in the modern world, would have been second nature to the disciples. They would of course have been expecting Jesus to take the part of the leader in this regular, annual celebration of God’s promised freedom.

And so he did. But, in doing so, he drew the meaning of the whole meal on to himself. He offered a new direction of thought which, for those who followed him and came to believe in him, took Passover in quite a new direction, which has likewise continued to this day. We can perhaps imagine the shock of the disciples as they realized he was departing from the normal script and talking about … himself.”25

Let’s talk briefly about the word ‘is’ in verse 26

Would the men come forward?

Pass out the bread….

Verse 26 again 26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”

Let’s take the bread together…

Have the men serving go sit down

Continuing in verse 27 and 28

25 Wright, T. (2004). Matthew for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 16-28 (p. 155). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

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27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

If Jesus were again following the Passover liturgy he would have prayed a prayer like this… “Blessed are thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, creator of the fruit of the vine.”26

But again Jesus goes a completely different direction… he interprets the wine as referring to his sacrificial and substitutionary death.

Which of the four cups of wine is Jesus referring to at this point in the ceremony?

Most think it’s the third cup, which is the cup of blessing. It turns out that the four cups were meant to correspond to the fourfold promise of Exodus 6:6-727.

I want to show you this…. Keep your finger here in Matthew and let’s turn back to Exodus 6:6-7…

Exodus 6:6–7 (ESV)

6 Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and (1st cup ) I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and  (2nd cup) I will deliver you from slavery to them, and  (3rd cup ) I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.  (4th cup ) 7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God,

and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 

26 Carson27 Carson

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So many, think it’s the third cup which is associated with redemption that Jesus is associating with his shed blood. As they all drink the wine, Jesus proclaims that the cup stands for his blood about to be shed in his death on the cross.28

Before we take the cup, let’s briefly explore the rich Old Testament allusions in verse 28.

First Jesus says 28 for this is my blood of the covenant…

Blood and covenant are found together in only two Old Testament passages--Exodus 24:8 and Zech. 9:11. Let me briefly remind you of what took place in Exodus 24. The scene there was the confirmation or ratification of the Mosaic covenant that God made with his people Israel. It’s an interesting story; let me summarize it for you. This is the first 8 verses of Exodus 24.

Moses reiterated the words of the covenant for the people. All the people answered with one voice, All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do. And Moses wrote down all the words and he built an altar at the foot of Mt. Sinai and twelve pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Burnt offerings and peace offerings were sacrificed to the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and half of the blood he threw against the altar. Moses read the book of the covenant to the people; they replied, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do.” And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said… here it is….Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words”How is that for an OT communion ceremony?...that would be low attendance day wouldn’t it?

So in our passage, when Jesus says in verse 28, for this is my blood of the covenant Jesus is introducing a new covenant with his people to replace the first covenant. Luke in his gospel makes this very clear. He records Jesus’ words at the Last Supper this way: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” 

So one Old Testament allusion is Exodus 24 and the ratification of the Old Covenant.

And you can’t hear the words ‘new covenant’ and not think of Jeremiah’s prediction of a new covenant in Jeremiah 31. Jeremiah 31:31–32 (ESV)

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers 

28 Blomberg

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on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. 

So Jeremiah 31:31-34 is another OT allusion

Second Jesus says in verse 28… which is poured out for many …clearly in the background is the sacrifice of all the lambs on the day of Passover and their blood being poured out. And the phrase ‘poured out’ shows up a host of times in Leviticus as the blood of sacrifices flows free and clear.

Third, Jesus says in verse 28, for the forgiveness of sins.  And again this points to Jeremiah’s announcement of the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31 which ends this way: For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Will the men come forward?

Pass out the juice

Verses 27-28 again, 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

Well we’re coming in for a landing….Vs. 2929 I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

So there are two key reasons we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. One reason looks backward; the other one forward. First we look backward and remember Jesus’ fruitful death. Secondly we look into the future and anticipate our great reunion with him in our Father’s kingdom.

Verse 30  And when they sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.  The hymn that was sung was probably again some portion of psalms 115, 116, 117, or 118.29 And again supposedly their singing would involve a leader/follower response. Jesus as the leader would sing the lines, and his followers would respond with “Hallelujah”30

______________29 Assuming that they had sung 113 and 114 earlier in the liturgy30 Carson

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So how do we apply this message this morning? If you haven’t trusted Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, do it now! Jesus Christ willingly went to the cross so that you and I could be forgiven.

Secondly, we’ve been taking some heat lately as a church that we are very busy….busy, busy, busy….

Well let’s rejoice this morning that as we move through Jesus’ passion in the coming weeks, we’re going to encounter only one person working--and that is the Lord Jesus.

And to take it a little further, all the people around Jesus that could have been helping him work were either betraying him or abandoning him.

Rejoice with me that at the foundation of our faith, the Lord Jesus is the only one working…Rejoice in the gospel--God on his own has joyfully solved our problem.31

Would you stand and sing with me?

31 A line from KBC board meeting

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