Supper - Take Bless Break Give Mark 14 v 22 Rev. Simon McLeay Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to his disciples. In those 4 words you have the liturgy of communion, you have a reminder of Jesus miraculous feasts, you have the story of Jesus life and you have the heart of discipleship. Today let s start at the end, at the conclusion of all the scholarship, at the so what does all this mean for me? Take, Bless Break Give. That s what God wants to do with you and with me. Take, He wants to claim us, to hold us in His hand and say you are mine, I love you and I made you and you are more good and lovely than you can ever imagine. Unlike the fashion industry, we are not lovely because of who we are, we are lovely because we are loved. Take, God wants to claim you for His own. He wants to extend citizenship of His Kingdom to you, with all the rights and privileges of the eternal city. Yes! Bless, or give thanks God wants to celebrate you, to make you holy, to set you apart to His kingdom and His family, to bless, to embrace you. Then, and this is the sharp one, He wants to break you not in the negative sense, but to break you open to His spirit, to break your bad habits, and to break your heart for the things that break His. Last week I was talking about being offended by the right things. And lastly He wants to give us, to use us, to make us a blessing. Like Abraham, I have blessed you that through you all the nations of the earth might be blessed. That we might be Soul for our City. 4 powerful words. We are all about Jesus in this church The first thing to notice is that there are actually two events that are being celebrated at the time of Jesus death. The feast of unleaven bread and the Passover. These two are integrally connected, Passover is 24 hrs within the 7 days on the festival of unleaven bread, but there are two elements of the remembering. Both come from when God rescued the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. Passover remembers the killing of a lamb and the smearing of its blood over Jewish doorways which
caused the angel of death to Pass over those households when the first born of Egypt all died. This was a massive judgement against Egypt in the biblical story, Pharaoh would not let God s people go and so after being warned, God killed the oldest son in every Egyptian household. And the oldest son in every Jewish household was spared because of the blood of the Passover lamb smeared on their door post. As a Christian I believe that God ordained this feast to pre-figure the death of Jesus that allows his followers to escape eternal death. The unleaven bread is the next element in the story. Pharaoh says Go, and God says go quickly, don t wait for bread to rise, cook it unleavened, 20 minutes baking unleavened bread rather than half the night. Because Pharaoh will chase the Jews. We find these festivals set down in the Torah as festivals to celebrate with family, and by Jesus time there was quite a formal model about how to do this. You can read about it in Exodus 12 and then Leviticus 23. Passover has quite a liturgical feel, a formal remembering of a great salvation. Let s travel forward to Jesus time. The disciples ask Jesus where are we going to eat the Passover, what follows is quite a secretive way of getting the meal prepared. I wonder whether Jesus was concerned about the authorities, whether he had a network of underground helpers who he wanted to protect. Maybe, because he wanted to celebrate the Passover before he would be arrested, and maybe because he wanted to protect the man who lent him the room from unnecessary attention. Then I was reading one comment that noted that Judas would have been with Jesus. Maybe it is as simple as Jesus not wanting Judas to get the address of the last supper too early. Judas had just agreed to betray him. (verse 10). A man carrying water, that was unusual, sorry to say it was woman s work generally, so a man carrying water wouldn t have screamed out rebellion, but would have been noticeable. The man carrying water takes the 2 disciples, I ll bet that Jesus didn t choose Judas for this task, to an upper room. Someone was generously lending their upper room to Jesus. I wonder whether this was a man of considerable wealth or perhaps even connections to the powerful? The disciples got to the room and prepared for the feast, maybe they organised the lamb, the herbs the bread all those sort of things. A bit of mood lighting, maybe some soft music. They made preparations.
Next we are faced with a startling contrast, Judas is preparing to betray Jesus. He has been a follower for 3 years, he s been trusted to look after the money, he s heard the great sermons and seen the miracles and yet he is planning to betray. What is going on in his mind? The gospels are written by his former friends so they don t have a lot of time for him. Also they don t pretend to understand his motives. What I think we encounter with Judas is a mix of disillusionment and of control, I wonder whether he genuinely thought that he could force Jesus hand. Or in a time of great pressure does he just buckle and make some terrible decisions. Well our contrast is Jesus, who is up front about his concern, he puts it out there. One of you is going to betray me. I think Jesus is hurt, but deeply honourable, you might not recognise the quote one who dips bread into the bowl with me. John describes this event as Jesus actually showing that it was Judas who would betray him, but Mark perhaps has picked up a subtler meaning about shared bread making a connection to Ps 41.9 Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me. If we can connect this psalm and these events, they give us a great deal of insight. Here is Jesus struggling with a close friend, not the bad guy we tend to think of, but a close friend betraying him. Jesus has not turfed him of the family, he gives an opportunity for Judas to change, and Tom Wright suggests that actually Jesus is deeply sad for Judas, it would have been better if you hadn t been born. Tom sees these words as pathos not anger. Again a contrast scheming, controlling; vs upfront conversation and deep concern for the man. There is no passive aggressive in Jesus. Anyone who has been in ministry of any sort will know the pain of having been let down in some way, here Jesus is modelling grace and love to the betrayer. Take, bless, break give. This is to me the centre of the meal. Let s turn back to Mark 6.41, this is the story of the miraculous feeding with the loaves and fishes. See if you can hear these words. Remember I m substituting bless for giving thanks. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. This
was Jesus model. Mark 8.6 another miraculous feeding listen again He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people, and they did so. There is a clear pattern to Jesus actions, and I think clearly Mark has made that connection in his writing. Alan Cole makes this lovely connection to Jesus life ministry. Jesus put on flesh, he became human, he blessed or sanctified human flesh by his birth and life, then he allowed his body to be broken on the cross and finally he gave the holy spirit and eternal life to all those who will receive. I like liturgy, prayers well prepared to honour God, and at the heart of the communion liturgy are these four words. I don t mind if you are Orthodox or Catholic, Presbyterian or Baptist, Pentecostal or Charismatic these four words sum up communion. And as I said at the start I think they are an invitation to us. To be claimed by God, to be embraced by God, to be broken by God and then to be given by God. The Mission of the church is to continue the mission of Jesus, the mission of Abraham, blessed to be a blessing. Jesus took the cup, secondly but I want to talk about it first because it is the easier connection that Jesus makes. He took the cup which symbolizes the blood of the Passover lamb. Jesus is referring to the blood of the lamb that was killed on Passover night. The blood was smeared on the door of the Jewish households and the angel of death passed over that house. This is similar to the sacrificial system of Moses, where an animal is killed and God over looks our sins. It s not a direct purchasing of forgiveness. Leviticus tells us that God had given the people this action to reflect his forgiveness. So Jesus is saying to the disciples and to us. When I die on the cross I will be your sacrifice, I will take your sins upon me and you will be forgiven and free and clean. In communion we remember and re-enact this sacrifice of Jesus. Jesus is not sacrificed again, but we connect with his sacrifice and we benefit from his forgiveness. Jesus said this is a new covenant, not one where sacrifices are repeated, but a once for all sacrifice where the son of God sacrifices himself for us and for our forgiveness. Think of that idea of cutting a covenant. God is making what I believe is an eternal open offer, forgiveness and eternal life for those who will follow him. This is where covenant is such a helpful phrase, God is making you and open offer but you have to accept it. He is offering to forgive you, and adopt you as his child; but you have to give your life to him.
Before that Jesus took the bread. Now bread and wine both symbolise Jesus death on the cross. His body was broken so that we can have our bodies healed one day in heaven. But let s pause for a second, especially if you are very familiar with the story. I want to suggest that the bread relates to the feast of unleaven bread, it is Passover but it s also broader. Jesus could have taken a piece of lamb meat and made a double connection with Passover and the lamb but he chose the bread. This bread is my body. What is distinctive about the bread? Well it s was usually cooked with stripped marks on it, connecting it to the flogging and crucifixion, and to Isaiah by his stripes. But also the bread was known as the bread of affliction, bread of escaping slavery. And for us Jesus died so that we can escape slavery to sin. I want to suggest that the bread relates to the feast of unleaven bread a feast of rescue and the wine to the Passover. Forgiveness and freedom. Don t worry if you don t see any difference, I m not trying to be too clever. But I do want to suggest that Jesus was using two different symbols from two simultaneous feasts to show the breadth of God s salvation, forgiveness and eternal life. Or strength for today and hope for tomorrow. Let me finish as I began. God wants to take hold of you. He wants to sanctify you. He wants to break you open and he wants to give you as a blessing. The communion is a very different call to Christian life than thinking that it is all about me and my benefit. Christ does not promise all the worlds riches and an easy life, he does not say come and believe whatever you like, and behave however you chose quite the opposite, when Christ calls you, he calls you come and die to your old ambitions and live to my purpose for you. Isn t that fabulous, God wants to make something, beautiful and useful out of our lives. If you have never given your life to Christ, why not now.