Luke 22 (Part 2)

All right, we're in Luke chapter 22 as we're studying through the Gospel of Luke here on Sunday morning, and this is our second part. We're going to read the first—well, let's see—we're picking it up in verse 7, and then we're going to read down through verse 13. But we'll get farther than that. I want to go just that far before we pray. It goes like this:

Let's just stop there for a bit. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we always pause whenever we dig into Your Word because we know that it is through the power of the Holy Spirit that we are awakened to an understanding of what Your Word has to say. Lord, You make it make sense, and we pray that You do that today. We also pray that You help us to apply Your Word to our lives. We thank You, Father, in Jesus' precious name, amen. This section of Luke that we're looking at here thus far begins with the saying, "7 Then came the day of Unleavened Bread…" So this would have been the 14th day of the month of Nissan. This was the day, according to Exodus chapter 12, when the nation of Israel was to observe the Passover. It was on this day that the people of Israel would begin to eat unleavened bread. On the very afternoon of this day, from about 2:30 to 5:30, they would sacrifice the Passover lamb. That evening they would gather in their homes—or wherever the families would come together, some sort of suitable place—and they would observe the whole Passover meal, which, of course, was a reminder of God's deliverance of the people of Israel from their bondage in Egypt. ---

And, of course, you remember at sundown, it would start a new day. We forget this sometimes in the Jewish reckoning of time: sundown was the end of that day and the beginning of a new day. Anyway, it is now the day when the Passover lamb is sacrificed and the evening meal is taking place. So Jesus told Peter and John to go and prepare a place. They said, where would you like us to do that? Remember, Jesus had no home in which to live at this time in His life. So He told them to go into the city and look for a man who was carrying a water jar. You might think to yourself, well, that's a strange thing to look for because wouldn't there be a lot of people carrying, potentially water jars? Well, the answer is no, because women carried water jars. That was not something that the men typically did. To see this would have been a rather uncommon sight. They were to see this thing and then follow the man. I love this. He tells them, just go right into the house, wherever he goes. You and I would call that trespassing, but I guess it's cool, sort of a thing. So they follow him right in, and they are to search out the master of the house and say, where can the Teacher prepare Passover? He says, you will be shown this upper room where you will go. You'll find everything all set up for such a thing. It is there you are to prepare the meal. So they were to have Passover. At this point, I feel like we need to pause for just a moment and take in this very strange picture that is given to us here in the Word of God: about these men gathering to observe Passover hours before the fulfillment of Passover takes place, with the very Man who is the fulfillment of Passover. The Passover Lamb is sitting among them, and yet they're observing these rituals and traditions that go along with the traditional Passover observance. Here is Jesus sitting in their midst, and I think they were oblivious. They came to understand it later. There were a lot of things they were oblivious about. We'll actually talk about that more next week. It goes on in verse 14. If you look with me in your Bible, it says that,

I think most of you know that they sat at tables that were very low to the ground at that time, and they would usually lean on their left elbow and stretch out their legs away from the table, then use their right hand to eat. This is the traditional way of the Jews: reclined at the table, sitting on cushions. And Jesus begins to speak to them here. I want you to take note of what He says to them in verse 15 because it's very significant. He says,

These are good words to pause over for just a moment because whenever we're dealing with the issue of fulfillment, there are some great pictures and insights for us to see. He says here, "...I have earnestly desired (earnestly desired)…" The Greek word translated as earnestly in English refers to a passionate longing: I have passionately longed to spend this Passover, this last Passover, with you. This is the opportunity that Jesus is taking now because He is just hours away from being sentenced and crucified. He wants very much to use this final time to connect the dots for His disciples: between all the things that are happening here, all the things that have happened related to His ministry, and all the things that Passover signifies with what is about to take place. So, in order to bring it all together, we're told in verse 17 (again in your Bible), it says, "And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”” This was the cup that Jesus raised as part of the original Passover. I'm just going to tell you here, Jesus is observing Passover with His disciples. But in just a moment, He's going to move from Passover to the Last Supper. Everything up to this point the disciples would have recognized as part of the traditional Passover celebration. But in just a moment, Jesus is going to finish out the traditional Passover and move into—what we call the Last Supper. This probably raised a few eyebrows among the disciples in the room. As I said, they were used to Passover celebrations. Now Jesus is going to take this in a completely different way. He’s going to reveal to them that this is all about Him, all of this observance and all of this tradition, all of this ritual, points to Him. At this point, He's raising a cup. This is one of four cups actually raised during the traditional Passover celebration. He raises the cup and says, I want you to all partake of this. This is important. But I want you to know this—I won’t drink again of this. I’m not going to drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom comes. What He's basically saying here is that until the fulfillment of these things comes to pass, Jesus will not partake again of that cup until the marriage supper of the Lamb. That is a term given to us in the Scripture, particularly in the book of Revelation, where we hear about this taking place. I want to show you this on the screen from Revelation 19. Check it out here. John writes:

--- Revelation 19:6-7, 9 (ESV)

And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, (it was) like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, (look at this) for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride (and that is the church) has made herself ready; And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” Here we see in this chapter of Revelation this reference to the marriage supper of the Lamb, when Jesus will once again raise the cup with His bride in celebration of this coming together. He speaks of this as a future event in the final fulfillment of God's redemptive plan. As we read on here now, beginning in verse 19—this is where I was telling you, Jesus is going to change—switch gears, if you will, a little bit and going from Passover to what we call the Last Supper—now, He begins to apply these elements. The same bread and the same cup that had been applied in the Passover now He begins to apply to Himself. You'll notice He begins in verse 19, and it says,

Most of you, I'm sure, probably not all of you, have gone through a communion service. You've heard us repeat those words. We know that Jesus began the Last Supper at this part of that Last Supper showing the bread as a symbol of His body. What we don't often realize is the significance of the body of Christ in bearing our sin. I think about the disciples during this night and again how clueless they were about all these things. They were used to Passover. But now Jesus is saying things that don't seem to make sense. He takes this bread, gives thanks, breaks it in front of them, and says, "...This is My body..." They had to have been wondering, what? What do You mean by that? Of course, they would come to understand the fullness of what Jesus was saying. Peter would actually go on to write about the significance of the body of Jesus in the whole concept of bearing our sin. Let me put this on the screen for you from 1 Peter, chapter 2. Peter writes: 1 Peter 2:24 (ESV)

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree (meaning the cross), that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. (And those beautiful words quoted from the Old Testament.) By his wounds you have been healed.” We’ve been healed of this sinful condition that sentenced us to death. The writer of Hebrews also makes reference to the body of Christ when he says: Hebrew 10:5, 7 (ESV) Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me.: Then I said, ‘Behold. I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’” And by that will have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but (look at this) a body have you prepared for me.” Then I said, ‘Behold. I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’” And by that will have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” And then, concerning the body of Jesus, there’s this beautiful statement made by the Apostle Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians, where he says: 2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)

For our sake he (God the Father) made him (Jesus Christ) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. I read that verse to you, but I confess to you at the same time, I don’t understand it. I really don’t. I mean, I understand the standpoint of someone standing in for me and taking my penalty. I get that. I know what it’s like for somebody to step forward and say, you can punish me, not them. That’s all good and fine. ---

I don’t understand how Jesus was made sin. I don’t get that, but it was a reality. He became sin to the point where the Father had to then look away. The Father could not even abide the sight of the Son. Darkness fell upon the land, and Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) For the very first time in eternity, a separation between the eternal Father and the eternal Son took place because Jesus was made sin for you and I. It blows my mind. Then we have this statement concerning the cup. Look at verse 20 in your Bible: “And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” I’m very happy to tell you today, Christians, that we are under a new covenant. It is not the old covenant. There was an old covenant—the last old covenant the Bible refers to is the Mosaic covenant that God made with Israel through Moses, right? But that’s not the covenant you and I are under. As much as for the last 2,000 years, Christians have been trying to cram parts of the old covenant into the new covenant. It’s not our covenant. They are very different covenants as a matter of fact. The new covenant is symbolized during the Last Supper in this cup. Jesus raises the cup, and of course, the cup being the symbol of His blood, He says, this is the cup of the new covenant. We understand that blood plays a very significant role in covenants throughout the course of the Bible. And this is given to us throughout the Word of God. Let me show you some passages from Hebrews, beginning in Hebrews chapter 9, verse 18:

Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of (in this case) calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.””

Notice the similarity of language between how Moses declared the blood of the covenant under the old covenant and what Jesus declared at the Last Supper, although it’s a new covenant. Then in Hebrews 9:22, he goes on to say,

Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, (in fact, he goes on to say that) and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. There can’t be forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood. Why? Because the wages of sin is death. There must be a death. There must be the shedding of blood. The shedding of blood is that symbol, if you will, of the giving of life. The blood is—well, we call it our lifeblood for a very good reason, right? Without it, you’re not alive. And then finally, as we look at verses 11 and 12, it says,

…when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greeter and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing and eternal redemption,” I absolutely love the book of Hebrews because it so beautifully ties the string, the golden string of reasoning between the ceremonies of the Old Testament, and the things that happened particularly at Passover and the Day of Atonement, and brings it into the New Testament to help us to understand how God was foretelling, if you will, the coming of Jesus and the work He would accomplish on the cross for us. It says here that Jesus, unlike the high priests of the Old Testament, didn’t go into a man-made structure to pour out the blood of a goat or a lamb or something like that. He went into a structure, if you will, heaven—not made with human hands—and poured out His own blood upon the mercy seat of God, thus securing our eternal redemption. Cool, huh?

I mean the blood of Jesus, and how these things, I’m sure again for the disciples, were just a fog. I mean, they understood the blood from the standpoint of the Old Testament, but connecting all of the dots into what Jesus was about to do on the cross here, I’m sure this came progressively. But Jesus takes this cup now, again the symbol of the blood, and He speaks of the new covenant. This is the blood of the new covenant. One of my favorite passages in the whole Bible is one of the most beautiful and, I think, powerful prophetic passages which speaks of the new covenant. It’s given to us in Jeremiah chapter 31, and I love it because it’s so beautiful. Look at what it says:

Don’t let that weird you out—that God says He’s going to make the covenant with Israel and Judah, and it doesn’t mention the church there. The church isn’t mentioned in the Old Testament, first off. Second of all, we are grafted into the vine. Remember, gentiles are grafted in, right? Actually, contrary to nature. That’s why the whole concept of the covenant is initially and always originally spoken to Israel. So God says, I’m going to make a new covenant with them. But I want you to notice the next words—they’re so important. He says, “...(It will) not (be) like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt…” So we know exactly what covenant He’s talking about: the Mosaic covenant. He says, it’s not going to be like that covenant, okay. He says, “...(it’s a covenant) my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.” Then He goes on to describes how the covenant will be, He says:

"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the Lord: (And He starts this way) "I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts." And these people, right there—we’re going to keep this passage up for a bit—this right here is one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible because it prophetically foretells the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell the believer. He’s talking about for those who put their faith in Jesus receive the Holy Spirit, and through the Spirit, God then begins to write His law and His Word upon our hearts so that it is no longer external to us; it is internal. What a beautiful picture. He goes on to say, if you look with me on the screen:

And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD.” Stop there for a moment. I remember reading this passage once and thinking, oh, I don’t think teachers are going to be involved in the New Testament church because it says right there, no longer will a man teach his neighbor, saying, "...Know the Lord…" But this passage isn’t saying that teachers aren’t necessary under the new covenant. Actually, we see in Ephesians chapter 4 that Paul says teachers are a gift to the church along with apostles, prophets, evangelists, and so forth.

--- What He is saying here is that there is an intimate knowing of God that cannot be taught by any human teacher. That is a work that the Holy Spirit will accomplish when the Spirit comes to indwell believers. You see, as a Bible teacher myself, I can teach you about God. I can teach you about the Bible. But I cannot teach you how to know the Lord. That’s not possible. It’s something no human teacher can impart. Only the Holy Spirit can impart that experiential, intimate knowing. What’s interesting—and you’ve probably heard this before—is this statement from the passage in Hebrew, in Jeremiah rather. The Hebrew word for that says that they will know Lord, is the same Hebrew word used to describe intimate sexual relations between a man and a woman. Now, there is no sexual connotation going on in this passage, but the intimacy of the word is very much involved in the understanding of what it is to know the Lord. This is not an intellectual/academic knowing. This is an intimate, experiential knowing. Okay. This is not something you learn in a book and pass on a quiz. What God is saying here is that when the coming of the Holy Spirit takes place under the new covenant, they will know Me intimately, personally, experientially, right? No teacher can impart that, right? Then, the last part of this passage is so beautiful. He says, "For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." Wow. That beautifully wraps up a description of the new covenant, doesn’t it? I will—God says, I will forgive them. I will forgive them of all their sins. I was reading a passage just this last week in my own Bible time, in the book of Micah, and I happened upon Micah 7:19:

Isn’t that beautiful? Corrie ten Boom used to say in her book: So don’t go fishing. Don’t go fishing where God has taken your sin and cast it into the depths of the sea. Don’t let the enemy dredge it up either, because he likes to do that. But you know that your iniquities have been trodden underfoot, and the

Lord says, I choose to remember them no more. That is such a beautiful, beautiful sentiment. So we see this picture in the Old Testament of this new covenant that Jesus is now inaugurating here at the Last Supper. When He lifts the cup, He says, this is the cup of the new covenant that is established—or ratified, if you will—in My blood. Whenever we’re talking about the Lord’s Supper, one of the key passages we usually focus on is actually given to us not in the Gospels, but in one of the epistles—Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Again on the screen here from 1 Corinthians 11, Paul wrote this:

Let’s leave this up on the screen for a moment because I want to bring out a couple of things from this passage—two primary messages that are really important for us to see here in the observance of the Lord’s Supper. First of all, are the words that Paul quotes Jesus as saying: "...Do this in remembrance of Me." Remembrance. Communion is meant to be a memorial, and we all know what a memorial is. When you go to a memorial, when someone has passed away, you get together with other people—friends and family—to remember, to remember that person. The memorial that Jesus is encouraging us to do is a reminder and a remembrance of what He did for us when He gave His life on the cross for our sins. ---

--- Remembering the cross is something we very much need to do because the whole Gospel is founded on it. If we get away from the cross, we get away from the Gospel. You might think, well, who’s going to get away from the cross? Oh, let me tell you how many times in the history of Christianity we have deviated from the cross. The cross must remain central. I’m not talking about a symbol of a cross; I’m talking about the fundamental embrace of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross. It must remain central to all of our theology, or the Gospel literally crumbles in our hands. He says, do this. Then He also says, "...Do this in remembrance of Me." That’s the other thing. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (ESV)

There seems to be this tendency among human beings—particularly religious ones, and I think you know what I mean by that—to get away from the person of Jesus Christ. Somehow, we lose sight of the centrality of Jesus Christ, and we get involved in all kinds of religious, irrelevant details—which to me is the definition of religion. It’s the things that are irrelevant. Again, we have this uncanny tendency to forget about Jesus. I was telling the kids in our senior high school group, which I meet with twice a week for a Bible study, I tell them regularly, guys, when you get into conversations with people who are asking about your faith or asking you about the Bible, or something related to that, I keep telling them, keep it on point. Keep talking, don’t let them talk about anything but Jesus. They’ll ask you all kinds of questions. yeah, well, what about...? And they’ll ask you things you don’t know—and frankly, they don’t know either—but they’ll do it to deflect the importance of what really needs to be discussed. It’s important to come back and say, I don’t really know the answer to that question, but let me tell you what Jesus said, right? Let me tell you what He said. And let’s keep the conversation on Him because He is the focal point. We don’t have a religion, per se; we have a relationship with a person. We’re not putting our hope in theology or doctrine. We’re putting our hope in a person, you see. It’s a very personal sort of thing. Jesus said, "...Do this in remembrance of me…" It’s very personal. Jesus is very personal, and He needs to be very personal. So, we’re not talking about religion right now. We’re talking about a person. The second reason for the observance of communion, given by the apostle Paul in that passage still up on the screen, is the statement where he says: 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 (ESV)

"...As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes." That’s another interesting phrase, isn’t it? Do you know that word, proclaim, is used most often in the New Testament to describe the telling of the Gospel to unbelievers? It’s not something we proclaim among ourselves—you don’t really need to proclaim the Gospel to people who’ve already embraced it. To proclaim means to announce. He’s saying that in communion, and by communion, we make a proclamation of the Lord’s death and what He accomplished on the cross until He returns. We’re to do this right up until the Lord comes for us. We are to faithfully proclaim His death and the work He accomplished on the cross. One other interesting point I want to make: Amidst all the instructions we have about the Last Supper—which Jesus, we’re seeing here in Luke 22, is doing with His disciples—and among all the information we have from the Word of God related to that, have you ever noticed that there’s not one single word given in Scripture about the requirement of a minister or a priest as the only ones who are allowed to serve the communion elements? Have you ever noticed that? Where did that come from? That’s called religion. That’s man-made religion. The characterization of man-made religion is: We come up with rules, you’ve got to keep them. ---

We make rules and say, well, here’s the deal. There are special people, and you’re not one of them. Only these special people can do this or that, or whatever. Where in the world did we come up with that? It’s not in the Bible. Communion is meant to be a simple memorial for believers. We gather however we may gather, with whomever we may gather, we do so, to remind ourselves of the power of the cross and the work Jesus accomplished that we never could. It can be done with anybody. You may think it’s irreverent, but I used to be on staff with a guy, a pastor up in Washington state, and he loved communion. I’ve told some of you guys this before, but he loved doing it with his kids. His kids are all grown now, but they’d be having pizza and pop, and he’d say, come on, guys, let’s do communion. He didn’t need special bread or a special drink—it didn’t matter. He didn’t care because he knew it wasn’t about that. It was about Jesus. It was about remembering Jesus. So he’d grab some pizza, give it to his kids, and say, here, we’re going to do communion. Remember the body of the Lord. And here— take your coke. Again, you might think, that sounds really strange. But you know what? Who cares? It’s about Jesus. It’s about Him. If you’re using water—who cares? You’re remembering Jesus, and that’s the point. Right? We have this great way of missing the point and getting all involved in all these details: It’s got to be done just right, or... I don’t know, He might send us to hell or something stupid! It’s like, come on: "Do this in remembrance of Me." The last few verses we’ll look at this morning—verses 21, 22, and 23—close with these words:

We end with this statement related to Judas. We know that Judas is the man who did that horrible thing—betraying the Lord into the hands of those who captured Him apart from the crowds. Jesus said He pronounced—you’ll notice —a woe upon the man who did such a thing. The word woe means great sorrow and distress. It is horrible, and we are reminded of that here. But we’re also reminded of something else that I want to leave you with, and that is the statement Jesus makes here, where He says, "..the Son of Man goes as it has been determined…" Very important statement because it reminds us there is a sovereignty in connection with all of these events. From the purpose and plan of the Lord to accomplish what He determined to accomplish, and that is the beautiful thing. One of the reasons I love teaching through the Old Testament on Wednesday evenings is because we’re able to see the redemptive plan of God as early as Genesis. Then we see it pictured for us through so many types and shadows foretelling the coming of Christ and the work He would accomplish on the cross through the Old Testaments. And then we start reading these prophecies, we are given specific information— like how He would be crucified, how He would literally have His hands pierced. Right? We read these specific details of crucifixion in the Old Testament, and we see the beauty of what we are left with is the understanding that Go had this thing planned from the very beginning. He knew that you and I would sin. He knew that we would never be able to attain the standard of righteousness He established. He knew, and knowing that the wages of sin is death, He knew He would send His Son to become a man and to bear your penalty and mine, for us. He knew. He had it planned, and His sovereign redemptive program is seen throughout the Scripture, through the whole of Scripture. It’s a beautiful picture, regardless of the difficulties that we see in some specifics—like Judas, this man who rose up to betray Jesus. Again, even in the midst of that, we see God had a plan, and it went exactly as God determined. The reason I bring that out specifically is not just that you would see the beauty of it, but that you would embrace the same understanding in your own life. That you know and understand that God has a plan for your life as well. It may sound trite, but it’s true. God has a purpose—even in the difficulties you’ve been experiencing, even in the pain, even in the problems, even in the tribulations. God has a purpose. God has a plan. There is a sovereign thread of purpose that runs through the course of your life and mine, regardless of what we may be enduring. The Bible gives you and me the wonderful promise that He is going to work all of those things together for His good—according to His purpose, according to His plan, and according to His great love for you. So those are some wonderful promises to lay hold of.