The Lord's Supper

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Hebrews 13:15
• Hymn — Lift High the Cross (#287)
• Prayer of Invocation
• Catechism Reading — Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 50 (Q&A 125)
• Hymn — To the Hills I Lift My Eyes (#121B)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Sermon
• Hymn — Here, O My Lord, I See Thee Face to Face (#202)
• Benediction — Numbers 6:24-26

Sermon Title: The Lord's Supper

Scripture: Mark 14:22-25

I. The Lord's Supper Is a Passover Meal for His Sinful People

• A. The Lord's Supper is instituted during the third cup of the Passover — the cup of redemption — which commemorated the blood of the lamb spread on the doorposts so that the angel of death would pass over Israel.

  1. The four Passover cups: the cup of sanctification (Kiddush), the cup of deliverance, the cup of redemption, and the cup of praise.
  2. Christ institutes the Lord's Supper at the third cup, then leads into the fourth cup by singing one of the Hallel Psalms (Psalm 113–118).

• B. The Passover is not mere deliverance but redemption — God purchasing his people to himself as his firstborn son.

  1. Exodus 4:22 calls all of Israel God's firstborn son.
  2. Exodus 13:1 and 13:13 institute the consecration and redemption of the firstborn as a perpetual reminder that Israel was bought with the blood of the Passover lamb.
  3. The firstborn was the heir of the father's blessing and inheritance — redemption brings God's people into that inheritance, not a slavish relationship.

• C. The firstborn theme runs throughout the New Testament and points to Christ as the true Passover.

  1. Hebrews 1:6 — God brings his firstborn into the world.
  2. Romans 8:29 — Christ is the firstborn among many brothers.
  3. Colossians 1 — Christ is the firstborn from creation and from the dead.
  4. Unlike the firstborn in Israel who are redeemed, the Father's firstborn faces the wrath of God in our place, making us co-heirs of the kingdom united to Christ.

• D. At Gethsemane, Christ asks the Father to let the cup pass over him — Passover language — acknowledging himself as the Passover lamb for whom there is no substitute (Galatians 4:7).

• E. At the table, believers feed on Christ by faith as their substitute and propitiation; they come not as those who are good enough, but as empty sinners whom Christ earnestly desires to feed (Luke 22:15).

  1. Fencing the table is necessary (1 Corinthians 11), but the table is not for the self-sufficient — it is for sin-sick sinners hungry for grace.
  2. Coming worthily means coming empty, ready to be fed by a host who longs to give us his body and blood.

II. The Lord's Supper Is a Covenant Meal for His Covenant People

• A. In Scripture, covenants are often ratified and sealed by a shared meal between the covenant parties; Christ's words in Mark 14:24 — "This is my blood of the covenant" — invoke this pattern.

• B. Christ is the fulfillment and substance of every covenantal administration in Scripture — the one covenant of grace.

  1. Christ is our circumcision (Colossians 2), our Passover, the fulfillment of the Davidic promise, the law written on hearts by the Spirit (Jeremiah 31), and the hope of groaning creation (Romans 8).
  2. The covenant formula — "I will be your God, you will be my people, and I will dwell in your midst" — finds its fulfillment in the Son, in whom the fullness of deity dwells (Colossians 2).

• C. Exodus 19–24 is instructive: the covenant enacted between God and Israel is ratified when Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu go up the mountain and eat and drink in God's presence (Exodus 24:11); immediately following come the tabernacle instructions — God dwelling in the midst of his people.

  1. The covenant meal confirms and seals God's covenantal condescension to dwell among his people.
  2. Exodus 20:24 — "In every place where I cause my name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you" — is the background for "Do this in remembrance of me."

• D. The Lord's Supper is not a bare memorial of an absent Christ but a covenant remembrance in the presence of the living Christ — more like a birthday celebration with the person present than a memorial service for the departed.

• E. When believers gather at the table, they ascend not Mount Sinai but Mount Zion (Hebrews 12), eating and drinking in the presence of God through the face of the Son by the Spirit, just as the elders did in Exodus 24.

  1. The torn curtain signals that the covenant promise of God's dwelling is fulfilled in Christ, who is himself the curtain through whom we now have access to the Father (Hebrews 10).
  2. The chief end of the supper is not merely assurance of forgiveness (though that is included), but covenantal dwelling — enjoying God and his presence through the Son by the Spirit.

III. The Lord's Supper Is a Spiritual Meal for His Wilderness People

• A. Stephen calls Israel in the wilderness the "church in the wilderness" (Acts 7:38); Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 says they ate spiritual food and drank spiritual drink from the spiritual rock, which was Christ.

• B. There is continuity between the spiritual feeding of the old covenant church and the new covenant church: the same substance and source — Christ — feeds his people in every age (1 Corinthians 10:16-17).

• C. Calling the supper a "spiritual meal" (as the Reformers following Calvin did) does not diminish it but enhances its sanctity.

  1. What the blood represents is the life of the sacrificed one; what sinners need is not a physical portion of Christ's blood or bones but the whole Christ — his very life poured into dead souls.
  2. The Spirit feeds the life of Christ to souls dead in sin; we drink in all of Christ at the supper by faith.

• D. The Lord's Supper is a wilderness feeding for a sojourning people (1 Corinthians 11:26 — "until he comes").

  1. The Spirit is the down payment and seal of the inheritance (Ephesians 1); the meal is one of the means by which the Spirit reminds us of the fullness of that inheritance still to come.
  2. Like Israel in the Sinai wilderness, the new covenant church sojourns toward the fullness of the kingdom, longing to see Christ face to face; meanwhile the Good Shepherd spreads the table in the wilderness and feeds his people with himself (Psalm 23; Psalm 63:1).

• E. The supper is the appointed place where Christ himself meets his people — word and sacrament on the Lord's Day is the main event, the primary means by which God feeds and dwells with his covenant people, and ought to be the starting point rather than an afterthought in the life of the church.