Sermon Tone Analysis

RECORD

This morning we celebrate Palm Sunday when Jesus entered into the Holy City of Jerusalem riding on a donkey, which is also known as the triumphant entry

It’s a beautiful story of the fulfillment of prophecy which actually takes place over several days and not just one day as we often picture it

Each day for several days in a row Jesus would enter into Jerusalem take care of His business for that day and then head back out to Bethany probably to stay with Lazarus and his sisters for the night

But then came the Thursday which started off a little bit different

Instead of the normal walk to Jerusalem with His disciples this time Jesus sent 2 of them ahead with a task to do

Luke 22

The time had come for the passover meal, the reason why Jerusalem was so swollen with travelers, for it was incumbent upon the Jewish people to try and get to Jerusalem for the feasts of God if they could

Passover was the biggest and most important event on the Jewish calendar and played a central roll in the spiritual and physical lives of the Hebrew nation

In God commands His people,

Deuteronomy 16:5

So often a small village where not everyone could afford to make the journey would take up a collection and designate someone to go and make the passover on behalf of the whole town

Passover was the biggest and most important event on the Jewish calendar and played a central roll in the spiritual and physical lives of the Hebrew nation

It was and is central to everything that Judaism is about but this morning as we make our own preparations for the passover meal this Friday I want to demonstrate for you how and why this feast of passover is also central to everything in Christianity as well so that we can make the necessary preparations in our own lives

The first thing I want you to see is the plan as we look at the first few verses of our text in beginning at verse 7

Luke 22:7

Now you may be wondering why Jesus was being so covert about where they would be partaking in the passover

I’m not trying to be sexist that’s just how it was so a) why wouldn’t Jesus just

It was probably because of what Luke records earlier in the chapter,

Luke 22:3-

But God wasn’t going to allow the enemy to get in the way of His plans for the hour was not yet at hand and it was important that Jesus do this with His disciples

tells us that Christ is “…the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world” so it was always God’s plan to have this happen but it was going to happen in His time and His way

When you go back to Matthew’s account

But what makes this really exciting is that not only was it God’s plan from the very beginning to offer His Son as the perfect atoning sacrifice, but His plan also included reaching out to you with salvation and everlasting life and as we can see nothing can thwart God’s plan

Ephesians 1:3-

You have to understand tha

That’s right, not only

And when talking about this same thing in Paul continues on to say,

Romans 8:

But there’s one more thing that I want to point out about God’s plan, Peter and John were to look for a man carrying water

Now what you need to understand is that men didn’t do that, It was the woman’s job to carry the water for the household

So what’s the big deal?

The big deal is that God’s plan may already be in place but it is brought into being by you and me

Ephesians 2:10

This man had to do what would have been considered a demeaning and embarrassing job but I bet that the last thing on his mind was what roll this would play in God’s bigger plan

You may never understand what roll you are being asked to play in God’s plan and you may never see the result of it but I can assure you that you are playing a roll

It may seem small and insignificant, or it might even seem demeaning and embarrassing but God created that moment just for you, don’t pass on it or begrudge it

As Nike says, “Just do it!”

So if the first thing that we see in our text is The Plan, then the second thing that we see is the Precedent

Actually it is very hard to see this point in our text because all Luke says is,

Luke 22

But if we skip over to John’s account of the meal John says,

John 13:

John 13:

Perhaps you have seen this meme on social medial before

It’s probably too small to read so I’ll read it for you, “The word ‘Leader’ is mentioned only 6 times in the Bible (KJV) ‘Servant’ is mentioned 900 times!

So why do we have so many leadership conferences”

Well you can’t believe everything that you read on the internet and so I did my own study based on the NIV and my results were a little different but still just as stark

In all of the NIV the word “leader” is used 78 times but all of those are Old Testament, the word “servant” on the other hand is used 477 times of which 56 are in the New Testament

The actions of Christ in the upper room that evening set the precedent for what He expects of us His followers

Now the tradition of foot washing has long since gone away but what in what ways can you serve others in the body of Christ?

Jesus not only taught us that the last shall be first and the first shall be last but He lived it and He requires it of any person who would call himself/herself a follower of the Messiah

Philippians 2:5-

(The Message)

5–8 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself.

He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what.

Not at all.

When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!

Having become human, he stayed human.

It was an incredibly humbling process.

He didn’t claim special privileges.

Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.

Which brings me to the third and perhaps most important thing about this meal, The Purpose

Your probably thinking to yourself that we already covered that, the purpose of the meal was to fulfill Jewish passover rituals

But this was so much more than that

In verse 15 of the text Jesus told the disciples that He eagerly desired to eat “This Passover” with them

The word for this is a very specific word meaning not just any but this specific one

Why was Jesus so eager to celebrate this particular passover with His disciples, what made it more special than previous passovers that they had shared together?

Because of the purpose that this passover had, for this passover was to serve as a transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant

Why did God command Israel to observe the passover all those years?

Yes it was so that they would remember where God had brought them up out of and His faithfulness to them.

But even more important than that was the passover served as a symbol and a reminder to the Hebrew nation of the blood covenant that they had with God

God brought them out of Egypt and He made a covenant with them that as long as they obeyed His covenant they would prosper

And to show that they were doing their part they were to follow through on the passover feast sealing the covenant in the blood shed by the lambs chosen just as it had been on that night in Egypt

And this covenant was s

But this passover with Jesus and His disciples because Jesus would use this opportunity to fulfill the words of the prophet Jeremiah

Jeremiah 31:31-

Back to our text and we see this very moment in history happen,

Luke 22:19-

I’m not sure if there are any more important or more powerful words in all of the Bible than those 9 words that Jesus spoke as a part of that passover meal, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood”

No longer would the blood of animals have to be shed every year

No longer would our sins just be covered over but they would be forgiven

No longer would God be a mystery to His people for the curtain would be rent in 2 and all would be able to have an intimate relationship with Him

In that very moment as Jesus spoke those words the passover transitioned from being all about the old covenant to being all about the new covenant

That’s what Paul was really getting at when he wrote to the Corinthians and told them,

1 Corinthians 11:

In the modern day we have shortened the passover down to what we know as communion which we celebrate once a month give or take but there is really so much more to it than that

And in that “last supper” that final passover Jesus celebrated with His disciples we can see some of the more

For in that passover we can see God’s plan, His plan for dealing with sin, His plan to save and redeem you and I and His plan to use us to accomplish His greater purpose

We also see the precedent set by Christ that we too should serve one another in humble obedience to the Lord

And we see the very purpose of that “last supper” when it transitions us from the Old Covenant into the New Covenant under Jesus

And in this way the passover, and especially THAT passover is central to everything in Christianity and as such should impact everything that we do as Christians

Let’s pray

Let’s pray