29 ~ "But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine,

until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom."

When we celebrate the Lord's Supper, WE REMEMBER CHRIST OUR COMING KING.
We remember who He is, and what He did for us. We remember that He is our King. We
remember that He is coming. We look forward to "the marriage-supper of the Lamb" – just
as the Table of the Lord in the Old Testament was a foreshadowing of the Table of the Lord
in the New Testament, the Table of the Lord in the New Testament is a foreshadowing of
the eternal communion that the church will enjoy in heaven.

30 ~ And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives.

Jesus knew what was coming. The pressure, the betrayal, the band of soldiers that
would meet Him on the Mount of Olives. But He still went. And we still remember
the love that He showed: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And that is
something worth remembering. That is worth remembering, not only when we
gather at the Lord's Table, but every moment of our lives: as Paul says, "Always
bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus
might be manifest in our body." (Second Corinthians 4:10)

Maybe there is someone here who has never manifested the life of Jesus, because
he has never taken on the identity of being part of the body of Christ. As we sing a
hymn this morning, we extend the invitation to do that: the Bible says, "As many of
you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." If you want the
assurance that you stand before the Lord's Table ready to enter the Promised Land,
that assurance can be yours. You can confess Christ as your Lord and Savior today,
and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. We invite
you to come.

(Proceed with Invitation Hymn)

26 ~ And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it
to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is My body."

This passage is like a cup that is filled to the brim with meaning from the Old Testament
– the Old Covenant – the old agreement between God and His people. It was a Passover –
a time of sacrifice. Jesus was expected to say the usual thing: "This is the bread of
affliction which our fathers ate in the land of Egypt." All the Israelites were instructed in
Exodus 12:7-11 to eat unleavened bread, along with roasted lamb, and bitter herbs.

The Passover lamb, in the Old Testament, had to be a lamb without defect. Its blood was
put on the doorposts of the houses, to remember the night in Egypt when God had said,
"When I see the blood, I will pass over you."

The bitter herbs were a reminder of the bitterness they had experienced in Egypt. They
had suffered the effects of imprisonment.

That was the shape of things to come in the New Testament: similarly, we acknowledge
that we were once in the bondage of sin. We were once imprisoned. When we gather to
partake of the Lord's Supper,

WE ACKNOWLEDGE OUR NEED FOR DELIVERANCE.

The unleavened bread was a symbol of purity and of readiness – the Israelites were to
eat the Passover standing up, ready to go on a journey. This bread was a sort of bread
that could be made quickly, and could be easily carried. Eating the unleavened bread
meant that they were committed to follow Moses out of Egypt. It meant they were ready
and willing to go to the Promised Land. It also meant that they had examined their
houses, and had not found any leaven.

Likewise, WE EXAMINE OURSELVES AND RESOLVE TO BE READY TO ENTER
HEAVEN.

Every year, the Israelites gathered together to remember their deliverance at the Feast of
Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Passover. And every week, in the Tabernacle, the priests
offered bread upon the Table of the Lord. Turn with me to Leviticus 24:5-9.

"And thou shalt take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof:

two-tenth deals [about four or five quarts] shall be in one cake.

And thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the LORD.

And thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row, that it may be on the bread for a
memorial, even an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

Every sabbath he shall set it in order before the LORD continually,

being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.

And it shall be Aaron's and his sons'; and they shall eat it in the holy place:

for it is most holy unto him of the offerings of the LORD made by fire by a perpetual statute."

The ceremonies of the Old Covenant, that the Israelites were commanded to follow,
foreshadowed things that we are to follow in the New Covenant. No one is obligated
nowadays to visit the Tabernacle that was set up in the wilderness, because it is not
there anymore. No one is obligated to visit the Temple that was in Jerusalem,
because it is not there anymore. The shadows have gone, and the substance has
come: the priesthood of Aaron has stepped aside to make way for the priesthood of
Christ.

First Peter 2:9 describes the entire church as "a chosen generation" and "a royal
priesthood." And when we look in the Old Testament prototypes of things to come, we
see that inside the Tabernacle there was the priestly "Table of Showbread," where bread
was placed Sabbath after Sabbath: this was a pattern of the Lord's Supper. Without
the weekly observance of the Lord's Supper there is no fulfillment of that pattern – it
stops being what Leviticus 24:9 describes it as being: a "perpetual statute."

WE RECOGNIZE OUR BROTHERHOOD, OUR PRIESTHOOD, BEFORE GOD.

We discern the Lord's body -- not only remembering when His physical body was
crucified, but also remembering that each person in whom the Holy Spirit dwells
is a member of the body of Christ, called to be a holy representative of Christ.
None of us are just a little forgiven. We are all priests, serving our high priest
Jesus Christ. This is why Hebrews 13:10, referring to the altar of the New
Testament and the tabernacle of the Old Testament, says, "We have an altar,
whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle."

That was a pretty big idea for the disciples to grasp. But the revolutionary
statements keep coming in verse 27.

27-28 ~ And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, "Drink ye all of
it; For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of
sins."

This was not what the disciples were expecting Jesus to say. And what made it so surprising
was not that it was unclear, but that it was clear: he was saying that He was the Passover
Lamb. He was saying that the Law was being fulfilled, and the era of the Law was drawing to
a close. He was saying that He was the mediator of a new agreement being instituted by
God – the agreement God had described in Zechariah 9:9-11.

There are two passages there in Zechariah 9 that we will focus on: first, "Rejoice
greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto
thee. He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon a donkey." That was fulfilled
by Jesus on Palm Sunday. And then in verse 11, "By the blood of thy covenant I have sent
forth thy prisoners out of the pit." That's the deliverance Christ accomplished for us when
He shed His blood. And suddenly the disciples realize that this isn't going to be just
another Passover in Jerusalem. This is the climax of the history of the nation. Jesus says
one more thing, then, in verse 29.