Sermon Tone Analysis

*God’s Dinner Guests*

*Matthew 26:17-31*

*April 1, 2007*

 

Theme: We are invited to a dinner that reveals our hearts and feeds our deepest needs.

Introduction

* It doesn't hurt to take a hard look at yourself from time to time, and this should help get you started.

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director what the criterion was which defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.

"Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I understand," said the visitor.

"A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."

"No." said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug.

Do you want a bed near the window?"

April Fools!

* Subject – search your heart.

What will you find?

What will you need?

* Transition – Matthew 26:17-31 Communion—the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist—is a powerful experience.

It is a meal that touches the soul.

During this Lenten season we are focusing on Communion this morning.

We look at the story in Matthew 26 that gives rise to our observance of the Lord's Supper.

This passage helps us see what makes Communion such a uniquely significant meal.

*             I.

**We’re invited to a dinner where God’s recipes of salvation are served.

*

Jesus built Communion on the Passover: "On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, 'Where do you want us to make preparations for you to eat the Passover?'

He replied, 'Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, "The teacher says: My appointed time is near.

I am going to celebrate the Passover with my disciples at your house"' So the disciples did as Jesus had directed them and prepared the Passover" (vv.

17–19).

For 1,500 years, the Passover had been teaching God's people the flavors of man's great need and God's great salvation.

This sacred observance looks back to God's deliverance of the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt and the plague of death on all the firstborn in that land.

It was a meal of strange recipes and flavors—*salt water* to remind people of the tears of slavery; *bitter herbs*, like horseradish, so people would remember the sour flavor of bondage; a *fruit paste* with cinnamon sticks to remind people of making bricks of clay and straw; *a meal of lamb*, remembering how a lamb was killed for every household and its blood sprinkled on the doorposts, signaling the angel of death to pass over; *flat bread*, made without yeast, to remind God's people both that they are to be holy (no yeast—like sin puffing up their hearts) and ready to travel.

Such bread would travel well and wouldn't spoil; and then there were *four cups of wine* taken throughout the meal.

The custom was drawn from four promises made by God to Israel in Exodus 6:6–7: "1) I will bring you out … 2) I will free you from being slaves … 3) I will redeem you … 4) I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God."

The Passover was so precious to Jesus because it gave his disciples a taste for the ways of God.

It reminded people that sin is a life of bondage like Egypt had been, and that sin's slavery is like making endless bricks from clay.

It reminded them that *death will pass over every house *and our only protection lies not in our heritage or might, but in the blood of a sacrificial lamb.

It reminded them that God is a redeeming God, buying people out of slavery; and that he is a liberating God, sending them out victoriously and safe toward a land flowing with milk-and-honey promises.

These truths about life and God actually acquired a taste in Israel.

They learned their theology at a table.

And Jesus now wanted to teach his disciples that the Passover was the appetizer for the feast of salvation he would bring.

To this day, Communion is ever so much more precious to us when we realize that we taste the ancient recipes of God's redemption and freedom.

Jesus brings his disciples to the Passover meal on the eve of his death so that their taste for salvation would be piqued.

*          II.

**We’re invited to a meal that reveals our hearts.*

The story of this Passover feast is in Matthew 26: "When evening came, Jesus was reclining at the table with the Twelve.

And while they were eating, he said, 'I tell you truth, one of you will betray me.'

They were very sad and began to say to him one after the other, 'Surely not I, Lord?' Jesus replied, 'The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me.

The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him.

But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man!

It would be better for him if he had not been born.'

Then Judas, the one who would betray him, said, 'Surely not I, Rabbi?' Jesus answered, 'Yes it is you.'"

It continues in verse 31: "Then Jesus told them, 'This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written, 'I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'"

What a strange feast, that drives one guest away, leaves all the others unsettled, and the host with a broken heart.

Communion is not a safe meal.

What happened on that solemn night usually happens when this meal is eaten.

At this meal, the pretender cannot hide from the Lord's judgment.

Jesus saw in Judas's heart what no one else could see.

He saw the heart of a betrayer and a liar.

In 1 Corinthians 11:27–32, Paul issues the solemn warning that this is not a meal to be trifled with, to be taken in an unworthy manner, because it can literally kill you.

That doesn't mean that sinners cannot eat this meal—for it would be an empty table indeed!

But it does mean that betrayers dare not dine here; that fakes and frauds eating this food eat poison.

When I was a young Christian, Communion in our church posed a serious problem for me.

If I did not believe I was right with the Lord, and I heard the solemn warnings about partaking in an unworthy manner, I felt uneasy about receiving communion.

But I went to a small country church and it was very hard to avoid Communion without everyone wondering what was going on.

But I was right about the danger of this meal for the pretender.

At this meal, every disciple must invite the Lord's examination.

The stunning news that a betrayer was among them grieved the disciples greatly, but it has always been interesting to me that it also prompted them all to ask, "Surely not I, Lord?" or as the NLT puts it, "I'm not the one, am I, Lord?"

It was a question to which they each expected Jesus to say, "No, of course not."

But apparently he never replied.

And the fact was, that while only one there would betray Jesus, they would all forsake him.

He eventually told them as much in verse 31: "This very night you will all fall away on account of me."

John tells us that these disciples moved very quickly from their shocked question, "Surely not I, Lord," to an argument about who of them was the greatest.

There is a sense in which this meal is intended to bring out the worst in us—not to provoke bad behavior, but to reveal the worst about our fickle hearts.

Jesus' own profound suffering began at this table among friends.

This meal was terribly hard on Jesus.

There are a couple of things in these verses we might miss: First, in verse 23 Jesus said, "The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me."

The point is that they had *all dipped* their bread in that bowl of fruit paste as that part of the meal had come.

That's what friends did.

Jesus was saying, "My betrayer is one of my most intimate friends."

The other thing lost on us was that Jesus was *the host of this meal,* and the absolute essential of that culture was that no one would speak ill against the host—let alone betray him!

I puzzled for a long time over why the betrayal by Judas was necessary in the plan of God.

Jesus surely could have been arrested and crucified without a turncoat, had God planned it so.

I have concluded that in order for Jesus to drink the full cup of human suffering, the betrayal of a dear and trusted friend was part of the deal.

It was a heartache foreshadowed by David in Psalms 41:9: "Even my close friend, whom I trusted, he who shared my bread, has lifted up his heel against me."

Do not forget that Jesus loved Judas.

It was grief enough to be forsaken by all those he loved most, but to be betrayed by a dear friend, and to know that such a betrayal condemned that friend to fierce and eternal judgment—that surely hurt Christ beyond description.

Like you, I have read this account many times, but what I want to notice with you was the kind of people invited to this meal—the dinner guests of God—one who would betray and all the others who would forsake.

Jesus, you didn't have to eat that meal with guests who will all betray or forsake.

It is a meal, to be sure, that exposes each heart at the table, but most precious, it exposes the heart of Christ who found fellowship with the likes of us.

*       III.

**We’re invited to a meal that feeds our deepest needs.*

There is hardly a passage of Scripture with which we are more familiar than these next verses, which is as Christ wants it.

Verses 26–29 read: "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, 'Take and eat; this is my body.'

Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, 'Drink from it, all of you.

This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom.'"

This meal feeds our deepest hunger, *first, because we hunger for food that will sustain us through all of life*.

Jesus' broken body is food for our journey.

I wondered for this week why the Lord didn't make the meat of the lamb one of the elements of Communion.

There are probably many reasons, but two stand out to me now: *Bread made without yeast* is a biblical symbol of holiness, yeast being an image of all that puffs up and ultimately spoils.

Jesus is for us like dining on holiness.

He is a food for our souls that never spoils, that only strengthens us, nourishing righteousness and grace deep within us.