So often, when you and I are facing a trial, our words are not, "I’ll see you when this is over and I’ve been victorious." Rather, its, "I’ll see you if I make it." Jesus had a single intent in facing the cross. He would defeat death! There would be no caving. Perhaps if you and I faced our struggles with a bit more of His spirit, we would see more victory.

In addition there are several passages that mention the Lord’s Supper incidentally. There really isn’t that much Scripture to wrap our minds around in grasping the meaning of the Lord’s supper. We really need not be confused, but in case we are, we don’t have to read the whole Bible to resolve the confusion.

This morning we’ll focus on only one of these passages: Matthew 26. Since Mark’s parallel and Luke’s are very similar, I will only refer to them when one adds something another did not. Of course I invite you to read them all yourself as soon as you have opportunity.

(Read Matthew 26:26-30)

To help us keep our place, I have divided this passage into three parts: (1) The Context of the Passage; (2) The Commands of the Passage; and (3) The Confidence of the Lord in the face of His death.

1. The Context of this Passage

Matthew writes in 26:1, "And while they were eating, Jesus took some bread…"

Jesus was eating a meal with his disciples. What was the occasion for this meal? If you look back at the verses that precede this, the answer is clear.

(Read 26:1-2, 17, 18, 19)

Jesus and His disciples were Jews. They lived under the Law of Moses. As such, they faithfully kept the annual Passover commanded by God through Moses.

Back in the days when the Israelites were in slavery in Egypt, around 1500 B.C., God sent Moses as their deliverer with a clear message for Pharaoh: "Let my people go." The king was stubborn and refused, so God brought a series of terrible plagues on Egypt, each one designed to discredit one or more of the so-called "gods" of the Egyptians. However, ultimately, each plague only strengthened Pharaoh’s resistance. He increased the bondage of the Israelites and made their lives miserable until God sent one last plague: The death of the firstborn sons of every family in Egypt. The Israelites were spared this loss with special instructions spoken to Moses and Aaron and recorded in Ex 12:1-15:

(Read Exodus 12:1-15)

God spared the firstborn children in all of the land of Egypt that night wherever the blood was on the door. He "passed over" the houses of those protected by the blood of the Passover lamb.

Now, 1500 years later in our text, we find Jesus and His disciples, along with all the rest of Israel, still observing that memorial - except that now Jesus was ready to fulfill the ultimate meaning of the Passover in his own death. With His arrest, torture, and crucifixion just hours away, He was ready to fulfill the role that John the Baptist had revealed. He was to be "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." (1) In the days of the tenth plague in Egypt, those who wished to be saved from death had to be under the blood of the Passover lamb. Today, those who wish to be saved from God’s Judgment on this world must be under the blood of Jesus. In fact, the correspondence between the sacrifice of the Old Testament Passover lamb and sacrifice of Christ is striking. Both were innocent victims. Both had to be unblemished males. No bones of either could be broken. Both gave their lives to save others. Paul would later say, after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, in 1 Corinthians 5:7: "For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed." Jesus is to Christians today what the Passover lamb was to Israel.

So the context of Matthew 26 and the others that describe the institution of the Lord’s Supper is the Jewish Passover, where Jesus was about to institute something new – something God had been planning since the beginning of time. That brings us to:

2. The Commands of this Passage

(Read v. 26-28)

Luke, in his description of this event, adds something Matthew did not record. He tells us in Luke 22:19, that Jesus also said, "do this in remembrance of Me." Paul also makes this point in his description in 1 Corinthians 11:24&25: "do this in remembrance of Me."

So already from this little bit of Bible we have read, we can learn a lot of truth. The eating of the bread and the drinking the cup were to be done in remembrance of Jesus. But before I talk further about that, let me ask and answer a few questions:

What kind of bread was on the table as Jesus instituted this new memorial? Well, what was the only kind of bread allowed by the Law of Moses on the Jewish Passover table? Remember what we read in Exodus about the Passover? It was in Exodus 12:15: "For whoever eats anything leavened from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel." Over the years there has been a lot of controversy about the nature of the emblems of the Lord’s supper. Leavened or unleavened bread? Fermented wine or unfermented grape juice? The answer isn’t terribly complicated. Jesus used unleavened bread, that is, bread without yeast. Had he used leavened bread during the Passover He would have been guilty of violating the Law of Moses and could be charged with sin. It seems to me that if that is the way Jesus did it, that is the way we should do it. After all, He did say, "Do this in remembrance of Me." We need to know what "this" was.

What was in the cup that Jesus used? Volumes have been written about whether or not Jesus used fermented wine when He instituted the Lord’s supper. Examining all the possible issues involved is beyond our scope here. (2) I’ll simply say a couple of things. First, the word "wine" never appears in any of the Biblical accounts of the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Two Greek words are translated "wine" in the New Testament: oinos and gleukos. Neither is ever used in the context of the Lord’s Supper. And it isn’t as though these couldn’t have been used. The New American Standard New Testament uses the word "wine" 49 times, but never once in the context of the Lord’s supper. The King James New Testament uses the word "wine" 37 times, but never once in the context of the Lord’s supper. The New International New Testament uses the word wine 40 times, but never once in the context of the Lord’s Supper. Instead, the gospel writers reported that what was in the cup was "the fruit of the vine."

(Read Matthew 26:29)

Conversely, this phrase "fruit of the vine" is used in the New Testament only in the context of the Lord’s supper and never in a clear context of intoxicating wine. This is true of the NASV, NIV, KJV, NKJV, RSV, ASV, and the NASV Update.

"Yes," someone says, "but maybe ‘fruit of the vine’ means fermented wine." Maybe. But if that’s true, why didn’t the New Testament writers just say "wine" as they did everywhere else? Why use this phrase only here unless there were some distinction intended?

Further, God was so strict about leaven during Passover that He ordered the people to even sweep their houses so there would be no possibility of leaven present. Is it then reasonable that He would command the use of something fermented? The process of leavening and fermentation are very similar.

"But didn’t the Jews of Jesus’ day use fermented wine in their observance of the Passover, and thus, wouldn’t that have been what Jesus had available on the Passover table when He instituted the Lord’s Supper? Even if the Jews of Jesus’ day did use fermented wine during Passover (and there is evidence that they did not always do so), that is still no sure indication that Jesus used it. He often went against their traditions in those areas where they had abused God’s intent. He refused to honor their traditions in the areas like fasting, hand washing, and burdensome Sabbath keeping. Even if the Jews did a certain thing not in harmony with the Word of God that doesn’t mean Jesus also did it.

Samuele Bacchiocchi, in his book, Wine in the Bible: A Biblical Study on the Use of Alcoholic Beverages, has made a convincing case that the Jews of Jesus’ day were mixed in their Passover practice. (3) Sometimes they used fermented wine. Sometimes they used unfermented grape juice or juice reconstituted from a boiled grape paste by the addition of water.

Proverbs 23:31-32 says this: "Do not look on the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly; At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like a viper." That is a clear warning against the use of fermented wine. Jesus knew that verse. His Holy Spirit inspired it. So is it reasonable that He would now command the use of a fermented beverage as the central perpetual observance in His church? I don’t think so.

That is why you will not find fermented wine in these little cups we use to remember the blood of Christ. That is also why, if you have a background of struggle with alcohol, you won’t have to come here week after week and be tempted to "fall off the wagon" amid this most important memorial of the death of our Lord. (4) People who struggle with alcohol are welcome in this congregation as long as their intent is to overcome it, and I promise you we will not make your struggle greater than it already is by passing cups of fermented wine among us.

Getting back to our text in Matthew, we also see that Jesus took the bread "after a blessing" and the cup after He had "given thanks." It is always proper in the context of the Lord’s supper to give thanks for the bread and the cup. Those of you who serve the emblems should always remember to give thanks. Not surprisingly, 1 Corinthians 10:16 refers to the cup in the Lord’s Supper as "the cup of blessing" (NAS) or "cup of thanksgiving" (NIV).

Another question of concern is what Jesus said about the bread and the cup. Of the bread He said, "This is my body..." Of the cup He said, "This is my blood…" What He meant by those two statements is another battleground.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that Jesus meant these words literally. In other words, during communion (which they call Mass), the bread miraculously changes into the actual body (or flesh) of Christ and the cup also miraculously changes into the actual blood of Christ. The doctrine is called transubstantiation. ("Trans" meaning "change" and "substantiation" referring to the "substance." It means that the actual substance changes.) After all, didn’t Jesus say, "this is my body" and "this is my blood?"

But is that what Jesus intended to convey with His words, or is there something else here? I think Jesus was simply using a metaphor. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another." Jesus said, "I am the door." (5) He didn’t mean that he was made of wood and had a doorknob. He was using a metaphor. He called King Herod a fox. (6) But Herod didn’t have a bushy tail or pointed nose. Paul said that Jesus will slay the man of lawlessness with the breath of his mouth in 2 Thessalonians 2:8. That doesn’t mean Jesus is a blast furnace. It’s a metaphor. Metaphors appear all the time in common language and they are very common in the Bible.

Back in Exodus 12:11, which we read earlier regarding the roasted Passover lamb that they killed, "you shall eat it in haste-- it is the Lord's Passover." Is that literal? Was the lamb the Passover? No. "Passover" was what the angel of the Lord was going to do outside all the houses that had the blood. The lamb was inside. The lamb represented or symbolized the Passover.

There is nothing in this passage that indicates that Jesus intended this to be taken literally. In fact, it would have been ridiculous for Him to say, "This is my body" and hold up a piece of bread as though He meant it literally. He was still in his body! The disciples knew that, and certainly, had he meant it literally, it would have taken some additional explaining. The bread represents His body. The fruit of the vine represents His blood. The Lord’s Supper is, among other things, a divinely instituted object lesson with visible, touchable, and in this case, tastable reminders.

(Pick up communion tray.)

The bread on this tray represents the body of Christ. This fruit of the vine in these cups represents the blood of Christ. This is only unleavened bread, made especially by one of the ladies in this church. This is only unfermented grape juice, probably bought at our local Safeway. Its chemical composition did not change as we partook of the Lord’s Supper this morning. Hopefully, that partaking helped you to remember Christ. I’ll have more to say specifically about that remembrance in a later message in this series.

But was this supposed to be our command? After all, He was speaking only to His close disciples. How do we know He intended for us to do it, too?

The answer is simple if you know your Bible. Matthew 28:18-20 says, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you…"

One of the things they were to teach the disciples they made in all nations was this command to remember Christ in this memorial.

We come finally to what I have called,

3. The Confidence in this Passage

I say "confidence" because of Jesus’ confidence against the future. Remember that when He picked up that loaf from the Passover table on that evening so long ago, He knew that He would be dead soon. He knew who His betrayer was. He knew of the suffering that would soon be His and His alone in all the frailty of His humanity. Yet against all this, He said these words:

(Read v. 29)

So often, when you and I are facing a trial, our words are not, "I’ll see you when this is over and I’ve been victorious." Rather, its, "I’ll see you if I make it." Jesus had a single intent in facing the cross. He would defeat death! There would be no caving. Perhaps if you and I faced our struggles with a bit more of His spirit, we would see more victory.

Here is a question for you: How long would it be before Jesus would partake of the fruit of the vine again with His disciples? The answer to that is both easy and hard. The easy part is, "when He would take it new with them in His Father’s kingdom." That’s what He said. But when was His kingdom to come?

Your answer will depend upon your view of the kingdom. If you view it as something yet to be established in the future, then Jesus is not present so as to participate when we partake of the Lord’s Supper. If you view the kingdom as something that is already established and here, then you understand that Christ is present with the church when we partake of Communion.

I believe the kingdom is here. I believe the kingdom is the church. Before the cross, John the Baptist and Jesus spoke of the kingdom as very near. They both said, in their day, "The Kingdom of heaven is at hand." (7) Jesus said in Mark 9:1 that the kingdom was to be established in the lifetime of His first disciples. After the cross, Paul spoke of the kingdom as something that already existed in his day. In Colossians 1:13 he wrote, "For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son…"You don’t transfer people to something that does not yet exist.

What is the upshot of all this? It means simply that if you believe that the kingdom is already here, you also believe that Jesus is with us whenever we partake of the Lord’s Supper. If you believe that the kingdom is something in the future, I guess you believe that He is absent. Why? Because He said He would not do it again until He did it in the kingdom.

When we come to this place and partake, we come to meet Christ in Communion. We commune with one another and we commune with Him. It’s an important appointment we shouldn’t intend to miss.

Conclusion

Three times a month, Jermaine Washington and Michelle Stevens get together for what they call a "gratitude lunch." And they have good reason! Jermaine donated a kidney to Michelle, whom he described as "just a friend." They met at work where they used to have lunch together. One day Michelle wept as she spoke about waiting on a kidney donor list for 11 months. She was being sustained by kidney dialysis, but suffered chronic fatigue and blackouts and was plagued by joint pain. Because Washington couldn’t stand the thought of watching his friend die, he gave her one of his kidneys. When you’ve got something great to be thankful for, having a "gratitude lunch" is a great way to celebrate. (8)

As Christians, we have available to us, a "gratitude supper." And it’s a great way to celebrate!

More on the subject next Sunday…

Footnotes: Please use your "back" button to return to your place

1. John 1:29
2. For a fuller discussion of this issue, I suggest the Article, "Jesus and Wine" at the following URL: http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/books/wine_in_the_bible/4.html
3. http://www.biblicalperspectives.com/books/wine_in_the_bible/4.html
4. For a compelling case against the use of fermented wine for communion by one who has struggled with such temptation, read I Smell the Cup, an article by one who has struggled with temptation in this area. Find it at:
http://www.religion-online.org/cgi-bin/relsearchd.dll/showarticle?item_id=1605
5. John 10:9
6. Luke 13:32
7. Matthew 3:2; 4:17
8. Today in the Word, November 14, 1993

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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