Published: December 24, 2023 | Speaker: Mark Freitag | Series: Gospel of Mark - Part 97 | Scripture: Mark 14:22-26
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pray our father again we do ask that you would speak to us by your holy spirit that you would help us to meditate on these words that we might
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see the significance of this event we might understand and we might by faith walk in it and so we ask father that you
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would continue to to build us up to build us up in the faith and in Grace and we ask that you would do these things for your honor and glory in
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Christ's name amen all of the narratives of the Lord's Supper in the gospels are are brief uh John of course does not even
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record the Lord's Supper even though he has as we have it four chapters of the upper room discourse and the
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Beautiful words that he speaks to his disciples on that night um as I've said before I'm still not convinced that the supper that we
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have it is around the time of the Passover but I am not convinced that it is actually the Passover supper I believe this is not the Thursday night
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going into Friday but Wednesday night going into Thursday because that was the day that the Lambs were slaughtered but what we see here is
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Jesus whether he is as as many of the commentators do they're trying to put in where in the the Seder where in the
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traditional Passover Jesus would have handled the bread and the cup and I'm not going to try to do that I'm not going to try to reconstruct all of the
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phases of that seder meal as it's come to be to be called but we want to focus on the Lord's Supper what this was about
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and what I think is the emphasis in it Luke it Luke prefaces his narrative with an an important statement from the Heart of
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Jesus that we'll mention and Matthew adds at the end I think again an important reason for Jesus shedding his
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blood but it's notable that in Mark there is no phrase like there is in Luke and later when Paul being instructed by
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his encounter with Christ says do this in remembrance of me but I believe that we'll see in Mark in
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the interpretation that Jesus gives to the supper there is definitely do this in remembrance of me and Mark's gospel emphasizes two
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things first the elements of the bread the unleavened bread he says this is my
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body and of the wine in the the cup he says this is my blood but blood but secondly along with those elements is
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the emphasis on the command to partake of the elements take it drink they show us the new
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elements the new symbols that Jesus gives for an old Feast the Passover but it does not sign
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ify that this is a Calamity about to happen that that Jesus has come to this night with all his three years of instructions with his disciples and all
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the Miracles and all the works that he did and all the things that he taught of God his God his father it's not a night in which he's saying well I I have failed in my
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purpose it's a night of fulfillment and this supper is not as many call it simply a memorial
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meal it is much more than just that and it is a Perpetual ordinance for believers till that great marriage
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supper of the lamb but how do we interpret the Lord's Supper how do we interpret the Lord's death well remember remember that the
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Passover meal to the Jews was a day of remembrance a day of remembering the Deliverance out of Egypt from the bondage the slavery that they had in
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experienced in experienced in Egypt but it was also day a day of reflection a reflection on one the the birth of the nation there there was a
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new nation formed I think that night and it was to be to them a joy ful day a a day of rest a day of security a day of
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Hope for the future and as they reflected on that day they were to remember the lamb that was slain and the blood
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painted on the doorpost and the lentil as a sign of their obedience and a sign to God that they were to be
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delivered and the unleavened bread they were specifically told to prepare that bread because they were about to travel they were about to begin a New Journey
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Into the Into the Wilderness but Jesus seems to say the events now that you are
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remembering Point toward my death My death My Sacrifice my
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crucifixion the bread is broken a symbol that his body is to be slain the wine is poured out in the
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words of Mark his blood is to be shed he says it is the blood of the Covenant he is now ratifying a New
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Covenant by a sacrifice so it points to his death and his is willingly laying down
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his life for his own he he seems to cry in this even though he Mark doesn't write it do this in remembrance of me but he seems to cry
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out remember out remember me but not as we remember people in history at least in our modern world we
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we commemorate presidents and uh composers and artists by remembering the day of their birth the classical music
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station I listen to every December I believe it's believe it's 17th is Beethoven's birthday and it's all Beethoven all the time we have Washington's birthday or at
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least we used to we celebrate their
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birthdays but as ironic as it may seem as as as as we are here on Christmas Eve Jesus seems to say it is not the day
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of my birth that is most important but the day of my death or in the better words of one of the authors AB Bruce it's as if Jesus
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says to his disciples my birth into this world was marvelous and momentous but still more marvelous and momentous is my
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exit out of it by crucifixion yes as our brother said unless we had the Advent there would never be the day of the
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Cross but I think Jesus is saying remember me remember my death remember my body broken for you remember the blood
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that was shed for you but but why why why would Christ's death be singled out like this why would the scriptures point us to his
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death was it just to show that that here was the passion the of of a holy man who wanted to please God by getting people
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to to worship him or was it to show the shame of these cruel and wicked people who falsely accused him had him arrested
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and then murdered him on the cross or or was it because he held so firmly to the cause of
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truth that the horror of the Cross became his became his glory or was it because as a
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prophet he now joined the line of the martyred Prophets in this most singular Act of
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obedience well I believe Jesus was fulfilling the old Covenant as important as it is to remember the significance of the
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Passover the Lord's Supper supersedes it because of the deeper significance of those symbols in it the bread and the
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blood and blood and because its because its initiator the one who initiates the supper Jesus was the head and host of
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the meal hence I think accurately we call it the Lord's Supper The Supper The Host was the one who served the meal who
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led the prayers who led the eating now certainly what Jesus did the saying of a solemn Thanksgiving over the
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Daily Bread was was normal that's what they did when they sat when they broke the bread they gave thanks and we it's not recorded in any of the gospels what he
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said but that would have been something that the head of the household did on that night the tearing or the breaking of that bread into small pieces was for
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distribution around the table that was customary again the host would do that and the bond of table Fellowship the way they reclined around the the
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table on their cushions and couches was something again that he had probably experienced many evenings with
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his disciples and perhaps this night of all nights was the most Bittersweet to him in that Fellowship around the
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table but for Jesus this was no common Passover this was no common
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meal as David Brown wrote it was to be the point of transition between two Divine economies and their respective
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festivals Jesus Takes the Passover and says the old Festival is now closed the new is a Perpetual ordinance until I
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return the passion that he felt this night for this particular night I think Luke brings out in the preface to his
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Narrative of the the Lord's Supper Jesus says I have eagerly desired or it's the strongest Desiring
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the strongest emphasis that the Greek can put on I I have desired desired to eat this Passover with you before I
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before I suffer Jesus was looking at this night as a different night this Passover supper this meal as different from the others I have eagerly desired for this
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night to come and eat it with you before I suffer he who was the antitype of all of the Pascal Lambs that had been
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sacrificed over the years for this Feast was now being offered
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up it was a feast of death the lamb was sacrificed but it was also Al a feast of life because it celebrated the benefits of that
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of that death the to the Jews the Passover signifies deliverance we have been saved and so when we partake of the
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bread and the cup in the Lord's Supper these these symbols that were ordained by Christ for us to partake of we're not repeating the SA
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sacrifice we're we're we're not crucifying Christ crucifying Christ again the sacrifice and I'm going to read a a quote here from Benjamin
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Warfield he seems to say that it's a not a sacrifice but it is a sacrifice but I think if you will listen
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carefully it's a rather lengthy sentence but listen to what he says about that word sacrifice he says quote the Lord's
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Supper as a sacrificial Feast is accordingly not the sacrifice that is the act of offering up Christ's body and
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blood it is however the sacrifice that is the body and blood of Christ that were offered which is eaten in it
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and therefore it presupposes the sacrifice as an act of offering and implies that this act has already been performed once for
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all it's not the sacrifice of the killing of the Lamb of God it's the sacrifice the sacrifice Jesus Christ
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that we are to partake as being offered for you we are Sy symbolically partaking of the victim offered the lamb the true
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lamb we are by this act professing ourselves participants in the benefits that this sacrifice brought to
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us G Jesus seems to be saying this is for you take it take the bread eat of it take the wine drink of
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it it is for you I offer myself to
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you he established this supper and commanded it to be celebrated as More Than A Memory of his sacrifice on the cross yes we remember it we we remember the things that he
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endured to go to the Cross there are many who who call it the Eucharist that literally it means Thanksgiving giving and it is a time of Thanksgiving but it is more than a
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Thanksgiving because Jesus emphasizes its application to the participants and in doing so Jesus was not only the host of the
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supper he is not only The Giver of the meal he is the
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food there are many false doctrines and teachings and practices of the Lord's supper and I won't go into all of those you've probably encountered some of
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them some believe that Jesus death is the death of a a he was a good and holy man and he left us an example to
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follow but if that is the case that then the Lord's Supper is just some unmeaning ordinance that we do by
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tradition some say it's a memorial to remember the Lord's death only and so we reflect and we meditate on that
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death and some say that the bread and the wine become the body and blood of Christ but I don't think the Greek allows that interpretation
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for unbelievers that if they partake of the Lord's Supper then somehow those elements will convert
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them but food is for the living food is for strength and for Health it is for the living Believers in Jesus Christ bread has long been a symbol of
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of quietness and and peace and here it's a symbol of the spiritual and Supernatural food spiritually we eat by
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faith we eat humbly we eat with gratitude and we eat with hope for the
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future as JC riy said the bread and the wine will remind us how sinful sin must be when nothing but Christ's death could atone for
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atone for it but we're not restricted to one benefit just salvation but all the things that we need for life and godliness for our growth in Grace we are
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saying that that Christ has come into our lives our lives in the sense perhaps that Paul says in Galatians 2 I have been crucified with
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Christ it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me and the life which I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me
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and gave himself up for me it's Christ in me the scripture says the hope of
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disciples this is the blood of the Covenant which is poured out for many Jesus says in his ministry I was sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel but we know from the scriptures
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that he was also thinking about those who would come to know him from other pastures in Mark chap 10 we read for even the son of man did did not come to
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be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many and even on the night in which he was betrayed when he took bread and wine
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with his disciples he tells them as we have read truly I say to you I shall never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new
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in the kingdom of God he's already thinking about that great and glorious day he's already thinking about that marriage supper when he will drink it
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new with us in the kingdom of God so even on the night in which he was betrayed he looks forward to that great
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feast when he will drink new wine with his own in the kingdom of God because on that
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day that night the hymns that we sing will not be followed by a trip to
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Gethsemane and Gethsemane and gabitha and golgatha there will not be for him a night of betrayal and
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betrayal and arrest of arrest of mocking of mocking of suffering of being nailed to the cross but on that night at that great
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feast all things will be made new let us
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pray Our Father we do thank you for the words of scripture we thank you for these words that speak of death and
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yet we know that they blossom into life that you have given us New Life In Christ by his body and
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blood and so we again thank you for your plan your Plan of Redemption for us that this night was the culmination
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of all of the scriptures to this point showing us your plan for your people to deliver them from the bondage
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of sin of sin and so we thank you we rejoice and we rest in them and we have joy as we walk in Christ's name we pray
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amen you please rise for the benediction perhaps not a what I might say
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traditional benediction but from John
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17 Jesus speaking to the father and the glory which thou Hast given me I have given to them that they may be one just as we are one i in them and thou in me that they
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may be perfected in unity that the world may know that thou did send me and D love them even as thou D Love Me