Good morning, Saylorville! If you brought a copy of scripture with you this morning, you can find 1 Corinthians chapter 11. 1 Corinthians chapter 11.
I’d like to start by asking a couple of questions. What was the last thing Jesus looked forward to doing with His disciples before He died? — And what is the first thing He looks forward to doing when He returns? The answer is the same… the Lord’s Supper. Here’s what He said in Luke’s Gospel:
Luke 22:15, “I have earnestly desired (strong verbiage even in the original) to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.“
And then Matthew records … He said:
[Matthew 26:29] “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.”
There you are bracketed… His death and His return. The Lord’s Table has been called “the Missing Jewel” in our worship, and I think that’s true. Our Lord Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper. The synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all record verbiage which is nearly identical. Here’s how Matthew puts it.
[Matthew 26:26-28]
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.”
Ironically, the clearest teaching we have in the New Testament on this moment to the church is from the most messed up church in all the New Testament, the Corinthians. The context of this instruction on the Lord’s table is sobering, but the content is deep. Here’s the context beginning in verse 17 where Paul writes:
1 Corinthians 11:17-22
17 But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. (Can you imagine that being said?)
18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. (That’s the Greek word, “schismata.” It literally means “to tear.”) And I believe it in part,
19 for there must be factions (different word… carries the idea of heresy here) among you in order that those who are genuine among you (and we never assume everybody’s genuine) may be recognized.
20 When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat.
21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk.
22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.”
The Corinthians were celebrating the most self-less act in human history with some of the most selfish behavior in church history! The Lord’s table, among so many other things, was meant to symbolize unity, and they were divided, in fact, so much so, verse 20 says what they were doing was null and void. They were just going through the motions. The Lord’s table, verse 21, was/is meant to symbolize oneness, and yet they were acting elitist. The rich and the poor were separating out. That’s the ugly setting. Now here’s the beautiful supper words you’re very familiar with. Let’s re-familiarize ourselves with them, shall we?
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread,
24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, “This is My body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.
25 In the same way also He took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.“
Familiar words… Amen? — Not necessarily understood words. One of the clear purposes of this moment that we get is this is a moment of remembrance, right? Not once but twice, “do this in remembrance of Me.” We get that. We remember those elements, the bread representing the perfect life of Jesus, the juice representing the sacrificial blood of Jesus. We get that… I think. And we also get the fact that this is a time of self-reflection, self-examination, the self-testing. And again, we pick it up in context in verse 27.
1 Corinthians 11:27-34
27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.
The word unworthy there, the Greek word is axio?s, but it has a negative prefix… axios means “worthy,” [“anaxios”] means unworthy. It’s the only time this word is ever used. And if you are here today and you’re not a Christian, this is not a time for you to partake, because you would be unworthy. And if you’re a Christian living in sin, unwilling to confess, you would be partaking in an unworthy manner. And how serious is that? Well, let’s let Paul tell us how serious it is. He says:
28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the [Lord’s] body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
(This was not a church of 1500 people. This was a church of maybe 40, 50, 60 tops. And he says many of them were sick, many of them had died because of the abuse of this moment)
31 But (he says) if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged.
32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
33 So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another—
34 if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—(That line alone tells us that the Lord’s supper was not meant to be a meal in and of itself. There might be a meal preceding it, there might be a meal afterwards, but it’s not the meal) —so that when you come together it will not be for judgment…”
I’ll stop there. So what are we doing here? The elders of Saylorville Church have determined that each month this year beginning today, we are going to look deeper into the message and the meaning, the history and the mystery, the theology and the doxology of the Lord’s Supper.
Now I know what some of you’re thinking. ‘Did he say mystery?’ Yeah, I did. I mean, you saw some of it right here. First, I mean… the word unworthy. Again, this is selfish in consideration approaching… this disqualifies you… or worse! Verse 27 says:
1 Corinthians 11:27, “When you eat or drink in an unworthy manner, you’re guilty concerning the body and blood.”
In 1 Corinthians 11:29, you’re doing so, “without discerning the body.” If that isn’t mysterious enough, turn back a page to chapter 10. We didn’t read this, but I’ll read one verse there.
1 Corinthians 10:16 says: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?“
Tell me if this is not mysterious! And it’s the very reason that this ordinance has been so hotly debated in multiple denominations down through the centuries. And while history is always important… and we’ll be looking into a number of historical moments throughout the year around this table… While history is important, history is not our hermeneutic. And by that, when we talk about hermeneutics, we’re talking about scripture interpreting scripture. What does the scripture say? That’s the question we always ask. Amen? This is what we are. We are bible people. And yet down through the centuries, godly theologians and bible expositors have wrestled over these two phrases, and you know them. “This is My (say it) body…” And the other: “This is My blood.” There they are.
So for a few moments… the different views of the Lord’s table. It’s important that you know them. The first two we reject out of hand, because the bible, itself, would reject them. But we have to mention them, because they are so prominent in some denominations with well-intentioned individuals. The first one is transubstantiation. That’s the Roman Catholic view. That’s the view of my personal upbringing. Now even though the first 1200 years of the Church there was a lot of bantering back and forth… ‘What do these elements mean? What do they not mean?’ Many believed, and still do, that these elements turn into the very body and blood of Jesus. That’s called transubstantiation and that’s the Roman Catholic view. It didn’t become dogma, that is, law, in the church until 1215 AD. But what that belief is, once again, is the bread and the juice become the literal body and blood of Jesus. And thus they worship the host, because the Catholics do not distribute the juice. They don’t distribute the wine. That’s a different… that’s for a different time of conversation. They just give the host. But because they believe the host turns into Jesus, they worship the host. Makes sense. Jesus becomes an ongoing, un-bloody sacrifice at every single mass. And thus, this becomes a means of grace. And that led, especially in the latter medieval time, to all kinds of superstitions, like people… farmers taking the bread and giving it to sick cattle, or burying it in the ground so that their crops would grow better. The view, transubstantiation… is not found in the Word of God, and we categorically deny it.
On September 6, 1982, my brother led me to the scripture in Hebrews chapter 10, where it says:
Hebrews 10:11-12
11 “… every priest stands daily and ministers repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.
12 But this man (speaking of Jesus) after offering one sacrifice sat down at the right hand of God…”
Amen! And that’s literally when the veil came off for me.
The other view we reject outrightly is the Lutheran view of consubstantiation. Now they would rather it be called… because that’s what they originally called it… Now they call it sacramental union or some such thing. It’s the same, and this is the belief… It’s differentiated slightly, but… it’s the belief that Christ’s body and blood are present in, with and under the elements. So, in this view, Christ comes into the elements without becoming the elements. And there’s your differentiation right there. Now, this too is an unbiblical understanding of this moment. These two views refuse to see the clear metaphorical meaning of phrases, “This is My body… this is My blood.“
A couple of reasons to reject it. I mean, for one thing, when Jesus said that, He was there. They weren’t chewing on Him. He also said, “I am the door…” [John 10:9] And we don’t picture Him as something swinging on hinges. We understand what He meant. Metaphorically, He is the way to heaven. He’s the doorway to heaven. And there’s only One. Amen? John the Baptist said, “Behold, the Lamb of God…” [John 1:29] And we know what a lamb looks like. We don’t picture Jesus as a lamb. We understand that He is the One who would be sacrificed for our sins.
So what does, “This is My body… This is My blood,” mean? It means that Jesus is the food of our faith and the sacrifice for our sins. That’s what it means, which leads to the two views that make the most sense.
The third view is memorial. This is historically the Baptist view, Western civilization, Western evangelical view. And this view sees these elements of the bread and the juice as clearly, not simply, but clearly symbolic. These elements represent, they don’t become the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
About the time of the Reformation in 1517, that’s when you had the split… followers of Luther and from Roman Catholicism… Martin Luther put the Bible back into our hands… Hallelujah! Thank you, Martin! And now the bible’s in our hands, and they’re wrestling through all these doctrines, and a contemporary of Martin Luther was Ulrich Zwingli. They were virtually born within like a year of one another, and about 12 years after the Reformation, they came together for the Marburg Colloquy… a debate at the Marburg Castle. It was the first Protestant conference to ever take place. And it was designed and aimed towards unity. They had 15 doctrines… doctrines that we hold precious to this day… To discuss the 15 doctrines, they agreed on 14 out of the 15 areas of doctrine. Sounds really good, doesn’t it? But it was here, this was a bridge too far. Ulrich Zwingli understood what we understand, that these elements are symbolic. It is a holy moment, but they don’t become holy in and of themselves. He saw this as more of a time of unity and community for the Church with these precious elements and what they represent. They went around the table… went back and forth… and Martin Luther, who held to the the consubstantiation position literally carved it into the table! He may have written it with chalk. We don’t know for sure. I wasn’t there…. The words in Latin, “This is My body!” And he would not move! He would not budge! And that’s the way it ended. That was the division. There were tears. It was a hard moment. The memorial view is that while these are not merely symbolic, they are holy symbolic. This is a holy moment, and this view comes closer to the truth if not the truth itself.
Now let me just say something about all of this. Sometime In our effort to remove all the superstition, we end up removing all the mystery, and we just sort of sanitize this moment. I don’t want that. God doesn’t want that. The scripture doesn’t declare that. You should not want that.
That gives way to the fourth view, and I don’t set it up as the view. I think the truth lies somewhere between the third and fourth view. I’m just telling ya… and the fourth view is real presence, which has Baptist roots and Reformed roots to it. Real presence is the view that somehow in mystery form Christ is present at the Lord’s supper. Now I know what you think. ‘Well, He’s omnipresent already. He’s always with us.’ I get that. But there’s something holy and spectacular and powerful about this moment. That’s the idea here. This view says, ‘I don’t have to understand all of the mystery to experience all of the power.’ And while the differences between the memorial view and the real presence view are slight, there’s nothing slight about worshiping around the Lord’s table. And while the Bible doesn’t teach the elements become holy, this is a holy moment. So what are we doing here? What are we doing? Let me illustrate it with the very first time I visited the woman who would become my wife, Marilyn Swanson.
The first time I visited her in her home… She lived on an acreage, just a simple acreage and a simple home. Nothing fancy about it, but… she was walking me through the house, and I saw a picture, not a big picture, just a little 4×6 in a frame of a man… a handsome, strapping guy… (It wasn’t me) the profile of him grilling on a grill. And he had just a slight smile when the individual, Marilyn, had taken the picture. And I saw it and I said, “Is that Lorry?” (her first husband), and instinctively and very affectionately, she reached up and glided her hand across the top of the frame. She said, “Yeah, that’s Lorry. I love this picture!” Let me ask you. Was the affection that Marilyn showed in that moment to the picture itself? No. Her affection was for the person depicted in the picture, her husband, now in heaven. This is what we do when we come to the Lord’s table. We fall in love, not with the picture, but with the person depicted in the picture… His life… His love… and His sacrifice.
And so, follower of Jesus, I invite you this morning to come… to come to the Lord’s Supper, and fall in love all over again with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Will you pray with me?
Our loving Father, what a picture You have given us, and the Person in the picture is to be adored above all persons. Because of all that He did, You’ve given Him a name which is above every name. And we know that someday everyone will bow to Him. We pray today that some would right here, some who don’t know You, would, from their hearts, see that Jesus lived a perfect life, died for their sins on the cross, rose again from the dead, and trust Him as their Savior. Right now, Lord, as the Deacons will be distributing these elements in just a moment, we focus on Your life, the bread representing all of Your perfection, tempted in every way I was tempted, lived and experienced all the experiences I’ve experienced, but never gave into evil, never gave into sin. And that’s why He was the qualified sacrifice for our sins. And help us now in self-examination, contemplate the perfect life of Jesus against our own. We ask in His name, Amen.
You can distribute the elements. We’ll take them together. This is a moment for Christians. If you’re not a Christian, just let the elements go by you. If you are a Christian, take them and just hold them, and we’ll take them together. Now is the time of reflection.
What a life. What a life! — tempted in every way that you were tempted. But unlike you and me, never gave in to sin. And that’s why He could die for us. So once again…
Jesus, on the night in which He was betrayed took bread, unleavened bread depicting His sinlessness. He broke it. He gave it to His disciples and He said, ‘I want you to take this and I want you to eat it because this is My body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”
After supper, the Bible says He took the cup and declared that this would represent the New Covenant in His blood. When we hold this cup, this sacred cup, we think of His death, we think of His dying, of His bleeding, of His suffering, of His substitutionary sacrifice on our behalf. And when we contemplate this, we think of the hymn writer who said: ‘When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died… the very least I did is pour contempt on all my pride.’
This is the time to do that as you think about what Christ did for you. Contemplate the cup.
‘When I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.’ And Jesus said:
“This cup is the New Covenant in My blood. This do as often as you drink it in remembrance of Me.“
Will you stand with me?
Our Father in heaven, may the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts have been acceptable to You, our God and our Redeemer, Rock and Redeemer. We thank You for the Lord Jesus Christ and for this beautiful, albeit simple, celebration in remembering that perfect life and sacrificial death. May we have drawn near to You and stay there. We ask in Jesus name. Amen. [Music]