Please turn with me and your bibles to Mark chapter 14. We'll look at Mark chapter 14 verses 22 through 25. We'll be spending the rest of the fall or most of the fall in the Gospel of Mark. Some of you might remember that. We had a series in Mark that we took a year or so break from to talk about servant leadership and now we're going to finish the Gospel of Mark. And tonight, this morning, rather, we look at the Lord's supper. The last supper with the Lord Jesus. Good verse 22 with me. Page 851 in the pew Bible. You're following along. And as they were eating, he took bread and after blessing it, broke it and gave it to them and said, take, this is my body. And he took a cup. And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them. And they all drank of it. And he said to them, this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many. Truly, I say to 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. So the word of the word is pray. Lord Jesus, would you teach us what this supper meant and what it means for us? Would you Holy Spirit search out the secret places that we all have in our hearts and our minds? And would you bring the truth of the Gospel to us? As we go to this table at the end of this service that you'd feed us and nourish us spiritually and mysteriously to live for you, to be nourished by you, to be authentic people, to beg you and ask that you'd come be present with us now and your power and your grace. It's in your name we pray. I'm in. It's a common scene in the scriptures and the gospel stories of Jesus having the last supper. You may or may not know that this last supper is actually during Passover which is a very important, maybe the most important thing that the Jewish people did on their entire calendar was observed the Passover. And so here they are having the Passover supper which was about the Exodus from Egypt. And Jesus and his disciples were there gathered in this room. And it was customary for the host of the Passover as he was reclining at the table that there were different parts of the Passover for him to stand and to speak. And that's what he's doing here. Jesus is hosting or he's leading the Passover supper and there were a series of prayers and scriptures that were read and recited. And so Jesus is he's redefining the Passover, something that they've observed for centuries and centuries. He's saying he's the fulfillment of the Passover and it's really it's really the climax of the gospel of Mark. Because the gospel of Mark is defined this way. Mark 1045 says this is what the gospel means that the son of man did not come into this world to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Scholars all agree that this is the summary statement of the gospel. And so the Lord's supper Jesus is saying here is what it means. Here's what I mean. And he's always giving illustrations you know like a good teacher or a good parent for a difficult concept to grasp. Jesus is always giving these pictures right. So he says things all throughout the gospel like I am the light of the world. So just define who he is and what he came to do. I'm the light. Everyone knows what a light is. And he said I'm the bread. The most basic thing everyone knew what bread was, every new one knew what light was. He would say things like I am the good shepherd. Everybody knew what a shepherd was. So Jesus is giving these pictures to understand who he is. And now at the moment where the bottom is about to drop out. Is that a saying that people use around here growing up in Arkansas this is something people used to say before a big storm would come. A bottom is about to drop out. You know a bottom is about to drop out when you see the look on the news and you see the green red orange purple colors flying. They're going across the screen on the satellite. And you know that just like last night there's going to be a serious storm the bottom is about to drop out. Well the bottom is about to drop out for Jesus of Nazareth. And so what he does is he has his Passover and he passes this bread around. And Jesus is teaching them and here's what he says. Guys this is my body. This is me. Can I be any clearer to you that any simpler to you this bread is me. And then at the end of supper he gives it's the third cup. There are four cups during Passover and then the third cup. He blesses it and they go around and they drink it. And Jesus says okay this is my blood. We're so used to the Lord's supper in that language that it's almost like white noise to us. We don't even hear it but do you listen to what this man is saying about himself. Like this supper it's who I am and it's for you. And so the death of Jesus is something that we are to take into our lives. And this is the most important meal. This is supper that Jesus instituted that he started. This is the most important meal in the history of humanity. Because this meal what Jesus is saying about himself is what we really need. The peace, the transformation, the hope, the forgiveness, the deepest desires of the human heart are found in the death of Jesus. And so Jesus is stooping down like a second grade teacher or a kindergarten teacher, right? And he's coming down to us and he's saying this is who I am and this is what it means for me to change who you are. This is what I've come to do. And so we need the death of Jesus to transform us. We have to understand what it means. The death of Jesus means three things. These are our points today. The death of Jesus is a sacrifice. It's a gift and it's a promise. The death of Jesus is a sacrifice. It's a gift and it's a promise. So we must receive the death of Jesus into the center of our lives and let it change who we are. It's a great mist. There's tremendous amount of mystery to this but that's how God works. So let's look at the first point. The death of Jesus is a sacrifice. When we say sacrifice, maybe the one of the first images that pops into your mind is blood, right? Because the sacrifice is a violent thing. It's a violent bloody affair. Can you imagine the experience that Jesus had? I was thinking about this this week. As Jesus was giving this supper, he was carrying the Passover. He broke the bread, the unleavened bread. He broke the bread and you know the moment that he broke that bread. He knew what was about to happen to him. Just think about this. It's just as a human being. He broke the bread and he tore. He broke this bread and he realized that this bread that was being passed around, that that was about to happen to his body. What is psychologically emotionally? How do you process that? Well, we know we see a little bit later in the Garden of Gethsemane that he is distraught in a way that he can't put into words. He is sweating drops of blood. The stress that that causes. He broke the bread. He was talking about his own body being broke. It's a violent thing that he's talking about here. It's a painful thing. So all these ideas of this sort of metaphorical death of Jesus or this figurative death of Jesus that Jesus. Now this is a horrible nightmarish, violent death this man is facing. Then he passes the cup around and he says, this is my blood. So behind this violent sacrifice is Isaiah 53. In fact, in order to really understand the gospel of Mark, you have some basic understanding of the book of Isaiah in particular the servant songs or called the servant songs of Isaiah. Particularly Isaiah 53 that talks about the Messiah being the servant of God, this messenger from the stump of David, the one that was going to come, that he was going to be a man who was familiar with sufferings, right? He was going to be a man who didn't have any attractiveness to him. In other words, Jesus wasn't a good looking person. He was saying, hey, it must be an important person. He said there was nothing about his looks that made us attracted to him. There was no comeliness as the King James says. So the servant in his identity was a servant who would suffer. In Isaiah 53 verse 5, it says that he was, you've heard this verse many of you, he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastisement that brought us peace was upon him and with his wounds were healed. Now we often think about the other side of that. We think about the healing or we think about the peace, we think about the forgiveness that comes through this. But think about it from the perspective of the servant. It says that he was pierced, that he was going to be pierced and realized that Jesus knew the scriptures like when he was 10 or 12, better than anybody that he could debate with rabbis. He understood Isaiah 53. And so as Jesus is breaking this bread and giving this cup, he knew that he was going to be pierced through. And this word Hebrew word for pierced through means to be pierced through from the front of your body through the back of your body. That's what it means. Jesus knew that at the end of his ministry, someone was going to pierce his body through. He knew that it was his destiny to have a violent of violent end. So keep that in mind when we're talking about this last supper, is that Jesus knew exactly what he was going to endure. I don't know about you. It's kind of a weird thing with blood. Some of you just can give blood all day long. I don't really like seeing my blood. It's just, I have one of those things. Even when I'm at the hospital, the doctor, and they're just taking just a little bit of my blood and putting in one of those little bitty, tiny, sterile, those little vials or whatever this thing. It makes me nervous and the nurses always laugh at me, but just seeing just a little bit of my blood. I was like, there's my blood. There's my blood. It's outside of my body. Just to have my blood drawn in a sterile environment. And Jesus, see, Jesus is a sacrifice. He had his blood drawn from people who were making fun of him, who were spitting in his face. His enemies that followed him as whole entire ministry that hated his guts were sitting there smiling as his blood was being drawn from it, poured out on the ground outside of Jerusalem. The first thing you understand about a sacrifice, this is a violent death. Why do I say that? The first thing that I just said is just to appreciate the faithfulness of Jesus and facing the unthinkable. But the next step to understand the sacrifice is to understand it as a substitution in order to understand the sacrifice of Jesus and his death. The understand is a substitution. It's at the Passover meal. So the Passover was all about substitution. It was all about a substitutionary atonement, something or someone else atoning. And so the background of the Passover is, Pharaoh was oppressing God's people, and God was going to bring divine justice upon Egypt. Right? And when God's divine justice comes, it's God's divine justice. It is the real deal. And frankly, it's not just for a set group of people. Divine justice means that all humanity in its rebellion deserves divine justice. Because, as One Theologian put it, we all participate in the brokenness of the world. Every single person in your own way participates in the brokenness of the world. We are trapped in a interrelated web of our sin and their sin and the past generations. It's just this big mess. And so divine justice is aimed at all rebellion and dysfunction in this world. Right? Humanity. And so here's the big picture of Passover, the big picture of Egypt, is divine justice is coming against every human breathing. God makes the rules not us. And so divine justice is coming. It's just a preview. Like the Passover is a really scary thing because it's a preview of the judgment day. Right, we wouldn't write this. We wouldn't make this kind of stuff up. And so you had one of two options. Either your firstborn son was swept away in the terror of death that night, or you and your family were spared of divine justice. I want to sign up for the spared one. What is that? Here it is. You had a lamb. God said, take a little lamb. A lamb. Cute little lamb that your kids would... No, it's not. You have to eat this little pet. Yes. This little cute lamb. It's a lamb, not a sheep, kind of ugly. A little lamb that you killed, you cooked, and you ate, but that's not it. You spread its blood above the doorpost. And when they did that, the Jewish people did that. They were spared of God's divine justice. Because of the blood of the lamb that was covering their doorpost, this bloody affair, covering their doorpost, their family was spared when other families weren't spared. Divine justice came against everyone, but they were spared because of the blood of the lamb. Not one gospel writer in the last supper mentions a lamb being eaten at Passover. Did you notice that? Not one of them mentioned the lamb. Why don't they mention the lamb? It's because Jesus is lamb. What does that mean? The death of Jesus is a substitutionary sacrifice for all those that rest of him. It is the hiding place. It is the only way that humans can ever be in relationship with a holy God. It is the substitutionary gift of God. I think of one of my favorite hymns. It's called poor sinner dejected with fear. That's a good title. That's the top of the chart, isn't it? Poor sinner dejected with fear. But there's one line that has ministered to me. It's so blessed me because it says, come just as you are with your woe. And fall down at the feet of the lamb. He will not. He cannot say go. He surely will take out your stain. A fountain has been open for sin and thousands its virtues have proved. He'll take you and plunge you therein and wash you from filth in his blood. See, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not only a violent death, it's a death of substitute because that's why he came. And so you're here today and you're thinking, I don't really know how I stand with God. The people of God, this community of God, are those who have come under the blood of the lamb. Do you remember what John the Baptist said about Jesus? John the Baptist was some of his followers and he sees Jesus walking through town and he says, look, there's the lamb of God. It takes away the sin of the world. So do you have sin? What are you doing with it? Remember when I was younger? I remember I sort of thought of my sin as kind of like, oh, check list, that's a bad one. Sorry God, I'll work on that one, I'll work on that one. Okay. And then I've got this sin but then something happened around 22 or 23 where it just snowballed. Where I realized I had a much bigger problem than I think I had, right? When you realize it like not only do I do sins but like, I can't stop. And not only can I not stop, I just feel like the more I try to stop, the more guilty I become. And so sin is not a problem with just these actions that I do. What I need is, what I need is, I need someone to stand between me and a holy God forever and ever. And here's the good news at the end of the Bible. Do you know what Jesus is called? The lamb. This is the best news in the world. So we're all in this restored heavens and earth and we're all like throwing a big party and dancing and singing. There's no more cancer, there's no more crime, there's no more broken hearts, there's no more divorce, there's no more bunkiness in our relationships. And we're all enjoying this. And guess what we're singing it to. Guess what we're singing it to? The lamb. The lamb who gave himself for us. In other words, even an eternity. Ten billion years from now we will never forget that the reason we're there is because a lamb was slain. That's Christianity. It's only by faith and trust in the lamb that we live. While there's peace there, isn't there? There's joy there. The third thing we know about this sacrifice is that it's loving. Tim Keller. Y'all know who Tim Keller is. Most of you have not turned on your computer. He's just a pastor in New York. He wrote a great book on this gospel. He said that the sacrifice is loving because all love, all real life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice. You have never loved a broken person or a guilty person or a hurting person except through substitutionary sacrifice. And so we think why does God have to sacrifice? Well because God is love and this is the greatest example of love. This is how God is going to love His people. It's through substitutionary sacrifice. It is the crown jewel of love. And so the way God redeems His people, in fact the way God recreates the entire world, is through giving Himself. It's the most loving act that you know. It's the most loving act we can conceive. I think of mothers. Mothers. What a beautiful picture of substitutionary sacrifice. You had dreams for your life, I know. Some of you even had hobbies or things that you wanted to do or one day you're going to write that blog or you're going to do X, Y, and Z. And now you're surrounded by diapers. Now you're up in the middle of the night. Now I'm not saying that you don't love doing this. But here's what's happened is the way you have to love this little baby who just comes into the world and says like, if you don't take care of me I'm going to die. And I'm going to cry all the time and I'm going to be a total mess. And how's that for you? And so in order to love, in order to love this baby, see it's a true act of love, you have to give up yourself. You don't get to drive a convertible. You have to drive a van. And so you give yourself, and Tim Keller in his book, he gives this illustration, a national geographic. There was this big fire in Yellowstone National Park. And after the fire was over, park rangers were going and they were assessing the damage and looking at different things. And one of the park rangers came upon this eerie scene and this bird that was just a petrified shell, just a bird body was a petrified shell. And it was just standing there, sitting there at the base of this tree. It was just carbonized by the fire. And this park ranger kind of grossed out by it. And sort of, he hit it with a stick and broke this shell of a bird thing. And baby birds came out. That's the meaning of the world. Is that God would enter into this world and take his weakness upon him. Take your weakness upon him. That he would trade his life for your life. That he would substitute himself for you. So that's what sacrifice is. Here's the second thing about the last supper. The death of Jesus is a gift. Verse 22, as they were eating, he took bread. And after blessing it, he broke it and he gave it to them. And he said, take. This is my body. Just an imperative. Take. This is my body. And he took a cup and when he'd given thanks, he gave it to them and they all drank it. And he said, this blood, this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many. And so it's this familiar scene of a meal. The most basic thing. In the Middle Eastern culture, a meal was, that was the place where relationships were played out. We were only friends if you and I had a meal together. This was symbolic. It was extremely important. And so they came together in this meal. And so he reminded them of this meal that they're going to share with him. But he does, first of all, by saying, there's a gift I'm giving you. The first thing you have to understand about a gift is that you have to receive it. Do you notice he says, take. Take this. Take. Take my body. The food is, I'm so glad it's food because food is to be consumed. Maybe some of you live with people that like to take pictures of food before it is consumed. You were growing up in a home where before you could eat, thanks, giving is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, don't touch it. I'm going to take a picture of it while it gets cold. No, don't touch it. I'm going to take a picture of this food because it's so pretty. It's almost so too pretty to eat. Don't touch it. Or maybe I grew up in a home where my mother would have books on the shelf that were decorative books. Right? Decorative books. And how dare I take one of those books and read it? How dare I use that book as for its intended purpose? And so we understand this. When Jesus is talking about giving Himself to you, He is saying the only way that this can change you is if you take it into the center of the world. That the death of Jesus will only transform you if you consume it. And by faith, what does that mean? Which kind of sounds like preacher talk? It means that the Jesus story has to become your story. It means that the death and sacrifice and the love of Jesus has to be for your sin. It's that you actually connect your guilt and your shame with the death of Jesus. You actually begin to connect those two things. In other words, Jesus and His death will always stand outside of you if you just think it should be taken, you just take a picture of it. But it is intended for you to bring it into the center of your life. And here is my fear for us. Is that we're surrounded by the table. We're surrounded by books about Jesus, but we're starving. And that maybe if you look at it and it's something, you know, when I graduate from college and I'll become serious about Jesus, but until then I just, you know, I kind of just don't think it applies to me. Or when I get that promotion or I get that good job or whatever it is, I'll keep it up. But here's the point. You can starve surrounded by food unless you take it into you. And here's what Jesus is saying. Get off your high horse. Stop trying to convince yourself that you're okay and feast. And so the question here is, have you really received and are you receiving the work and the life and the person of Jesus in your life? Or is it still outside of you? And here's what I mean. You can believe in the death of Jesus. Believe it. Right? I believe that he did that. I believe that. Even that in a concept that he died on the crossroads, you can believe it. And that's not the whole gospel. The gospel is when it's actually freeing you from shame. The gospel is when the death of Jesus actually begins to cleanse you. You actually feel as though you commune with Jesus. That's the gospel of Jesus. And what it's doing is it's changing the way you see him and it's changing the way you see other people and it's changing the way you see your life. In other words, it's feeding you. And so the second thing about a gift is that it has to be appreciated, right? It's intended to nourish us. Maybe you're one of those people that you receive a gift and it's maybe a gift that you really don't want and you never take it out of a box, right? And you're really scared for that person who gave you that gift to come to your house and find out that it's not outside the box, right? Anyone? So it has to be appreciated and you have to take it and use it for it to change you. You know, places and events shape us. Places and events. That's the way we're made. Places and events shape our identity, the way we see ourselves. You know, I think about that. That can be negative. You know, when I smell the hand sanitizer at hospitals, it brings back really bad memories. And I think about how those memories affected me and how they shaped me. I think about death and I think about loss a lot of times. That's just me. But on the flip side, you can actually have some experiences that transform you and make you feel great like going back to your grandmother's or for some of you going to your hometown. When you go to your hometown, it's like putting on an old pair of jeans or old pair of shoes. And you're reminded of who you are, right? Because those places and those events, they shape you. It's like this narrative that shapes your identity. Well, that's exactly what I'm talking about in the last supper. And that's exactly what Jesus used something as basic as bread and as wine, because every time that these disciples took the bread and the wine, every time they sat down, not just once a month, but every time they sat down, they were looking at each other going, he did it. Every time they put a piece of bread in their mouth, they reminded that the bread of life hung out with them for three years. Every time one of them breaks bread, they're reminded that Jesus broke his body for them. When you come to this table, when you come and you hear the gospel, are you reminded of who you are? Gift. This is a gift, folks. Here's the third thing. It's a promise. So it's a promise. Let's do this real quickly. So he calls it the new covenant in his blood, or he's the cup of the covenant, and then he says, truly, I said, you all will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. So what is he saying? It's when I say it's a promise. It's a promise that Jesus promised to rescue and to restore, but that's the gospel that he rescues his people, and he restores them in the entire creation. The gospel is not just rescue. It's not just get out of hell. The gospel is rescue for restoration. That's the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so this promise, which is the greatest promise, that's what humans really want. This great promise has been sealed with the covenant, and a covenant's a really big deal in the Old Testament. It's a really big deal in the Bible. Because you made a promise that you were going to do something, and it was sealed in blood. Two parties sealed something in blood. So you know what happened in a covenant. Someone says, I'm going to do this for you. Okay? This is the way it's going to be. We're going to have this kind of relationship. Okay? Let's cut a bull in half. That's what happened. Let's cut various animals in half, and then we're going to hold hands, and we're going to walk through the two pieces together. The reason we're going to walk through the two pieces is because if I don't do this for you, I hope I've become like this bull. That's what a covenant is, right? May I be slaughtered if I don't keep my end of the covenant. Now, the greatest picture of this is the covenant with Abraham. So God makes this covenant to bless Abraham, and make him the father of many nations. But by the way, Abraham doesn't have any kids, and he's old. This is an outrageous impossible, right? We're facing it. And so God says, I'm going to seal it with a covenant. And so they do the thing, they break the thing. But here's what God does. He puts Abraham to sleep. So God promises to rescue and to restore through Abraham. He puts Abraham to sleep. And here's what happens. God alone passes through the two pieces. The torch and the pot. They pass through the two pieces. Okay. In an upper room two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, Jesus Christ has come into this world, and he's saying, we're doing it. But what does that mean for you? You know what does that mean for you? It means that your salvation is certain, not because of how you feel right now. It means that your salvation is complete, and certain forever and ever amen, because God did it. God was the one who was split. He was the one who was broken. God kept the covenant. He kept his end, and he kept our end. And now we come and look, folks, we dance through the middle of those pieces of those animals. We can dance through the covenant because of what God has done because he has kept it. He wants us to come and rejoice because it's certain, folks. See if you've been... I've talked about church camp. I had some really... I'm working through that, okay? My church camp experience. Not camp Palmer. I'm talking about when I grew up. We went to church camp, and it was this week-long emotional manipulation of, okay, I'm going to recommit myself to God every single night and every chance that I get, right? I did that because I so did want to go to hell. I don't know how else to say it. I didn't want to go to hell. I knew that I was a bad person, and I knew that I was scared of God, right? I was scared. And so every single night, you're like, are you going to get your life together? I'm totally going to get my life together. I don't even know what that means, but yes, I am. Praise Jesus. And so I emotionally worked myself up on the way there, and on the way back. It's like, yes, I'm going to do it for you. God, I'm going to keep it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to keep my life together. I'm going to be good enough now. Well, my whole life has been marked by this upward and this downward and this upward and this downward. And what Jesus is saying here is that this is the new covenant in my blood. This is the covenant that I keep. Now, go and live freely and openly with joy and peace. And I think about the end of the camp that we would always have this, we would always have this share time, right? And always that it was just tear fast because everyone was exhausted and all I've been eating is skittles and mountain dew. Right? And so it's the share time we're all just pouring out our hearts and saying, I'm going to do it again. I'm so sorry. But here's what happened. I've never lived a life good enough to think that I could live with God. But what Jesus is saying here is, you don't have to. I lived it. It's certain, Richie. You can't. I'm the lamb. See, Jesus didn't see his death as a tragedy, as one writer said, or as an error, but it's the crowning act of his ministry. And here's how it ends. Jesus says, this is about a future banquet. I'm having the last supper because I'm going to give you the lasting supper. That Jesus Christ pours out his blood and dies and rises again from the dead so that we might spend eternity with God in fellowship with God and a fully restored creation. And now we're nourished. I don't know how else to say it. It's going to happen because of what Jesus has done. Do you see why this supper is so important? We're reminded that it's going to happen. I was going over multiplication facts with one of my kids this week. And you know, I'm not a math genius, right? But here's the way I learned. I just kept repeating, you know, 6 times 7 is 42, 6 times 7 is 42, and like 40 times, I would say it's 6 times 7, 6 times 7, 6 times 7. And I was reminded as I was hearing my child go and repeat this over and over and over again, like 3 times 6 is 18, 3 times 6 is 18. I was reminded of how certain that I am that 6 times 3 is 18. That there's nothing that can change 2 times 2 is 4. 2 times 2 is 4, 2 times 2 is 4, 2 times 2 is 4. And folks, I don't know how else to say it, but when you come to this table and you eat this and you recite the gospel, what I'm saying is something that is more certain than 2 times 2 equals 4. Jesus died for you. Jesus died for you. Jesus died for you. So next time you're overwhelmed with your guilt and your sin. And the fact that you're not fit to be a Christian, 2 times 2 equals 4, folks. Let's pray. Lord, we now come to this table and we ask that you would set apart these common elements for a sacred use and that by your spirit and by your power that you would bless and feed your people. And there are those that are here today that don't trust you, that don't follow you. Lord, I pray that you would capture them, that you would open their eyes and you give them faith to trust in you, and that we might be a community of hope and of joy and of peace. And Jesus' name, amen.