The Meal of a Lifetime

[HKHaugan]

The Meal of a Lifetime

 

There is a common form of behavior in almost every culture when you want to know people better, understand who they are and even approach the possibility of relational intimacy. It’s a shared meal. Conversation can start with the most mundane topics, ‘That jacket, where’d you get it? “, “Did you see that game last night?”, “I really love how you decorated your dining room.” “I didn’t realize we came from the same town.” 

For Jesus and His disciples, it was no different. After they met three years before and became a roving home group, they ate together, worked at being teacher and disciples together and had developed close relationships with each other. But one thing was certain. It was Jesus that held them together and there’s one thing we want to make clear as we enter that upper room where Jesus brought His disciples for the Last Supper, His Supper, the Lord’s Supper. This was a defining supper that defined the basic human experience of food. It was a spiritual meal with physical symbols, bread and wine, conveying a spiritual reality, Jesus Himself. The key insight He gives us is that everything begins spiritually. It is an ‘In-the-beginning’ meal, a ‘Word’ meal for every next moment, a meal that feeds the spirit of a believer to be faithful in that moment. It could very well be called “The First Supper,” because every next moment is a new moment. 

Therefore, this particular meal they will eat together is a spiritual meal which is exactly what Jesus intends. Again, it is no longer a meal to get them to rehearse a past but to know and feel that it will lead them forward. He is setting them free to experience every next moment in the Holy Spirit; to see everything in a spiritual context because that is what He did. Each Passover He experienced would be a guidepost to progress in the spiritual reality from which He had come and was bringing them into. The bottom line is that Jesus is preparing us to see every next moment as a Passover moment. Every next moment is a moment that is always full of the unknown, the unexpected, the unanticipated. Hebrews puts it like this: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things unseen (11:1).”

 Faith is a quality of God. He is faithful (1Cor.1:9). Faith is when life really happens. Here’s how: it makes every next moment brand new, thus dependent on God, it presents us with an opportunity to show God’s mind and love and it gives us the only true way to be good and right. As Paul rightly observes, “That which does not proceed from faith is sin (Rom.14:23).” Anything less than faith is self-centered.

 Look again at the meaning of the three Passovers Jesus celebrated after He was baptized. Each had a ‘looking-forward’ theme.

 The first Passover shows the shift from the natural life to the spiritual life- Nicodemus represents institutional and ethnic membership crossing over to spiritual relationships with God and one another. (Jn.3:16), the shift from religion to relationship

 The second Passover moves us from physical feeding to spiritual feeding. The bread and fish are symbols from the past (five loaves-the 5 books of Moses and the two fish-the writings and the prophets) fulfilled in Jesus as the new living Word of God (Mt.4:4, 5:17).

 The third Passover bring us forward from physical death to spiritually eternal life – (Lazarus’ physical resurrection pointing to Jesus being the Resurrection to eternal life) – Jesus, Cross to Crown (Jn.11:25, Rev.1:17-18)

 Now we come to the third and last Passover beginning in Chapter 13. Here starts a series of teachings that will extend through Chapter 17. Chapters 13-14 take place in the upper room. Chapters 15-17 cover Jesus and the disciples walking to and through the Kidron Valley to an olive grove where Judas will betray Him, with Jesus teaching along the way. These are Jesus' last teachings before His crucifixion. They are capped by His prayer in which there is a clear assurance for the disciples of the Father's love and care not only for them but for all future believers. You might say that these chapters are the ‘Gospel in a nutshell.’

 We'll look at these in some detail, but they begin with a special occasion. Having withdrawn from public exposure, Jesus brings His disciples into an upper room to have a private celebration of the Passover, His third since His baptism and the undertaking of His mission. Here He will be present Himself as the once and for all Passover for all people for all time. He is preparing them for His Cross and the one they will take up in their lives on a daily basis, faith.

 

       Faith in Jesus in every next moment and event is the cross He has called us to take up.

 

For us the first faith step is to be Jesus conscious in every next moment and event.

The second faith step is to praise Him and then thank Him as we look forward to the opportunities to share Him in those moments and events.

The third faith step is to follow up the experiences we are given in any moment bringing that demand.

 Now back to Chapter 13 specifically. It presents four events that set the stage for Jesus' teaching: the Passover meal itself, Jesus washing the disciples' feet, the betrayal by Judas and the prediction of Peter's denial. These were to show “the full extent of His love (vs.1).”

 The Passover Meal

He has assembled His disciples for a personal celebration of the Passover wherein He will be the actual Passover in person; in grace, truth, faith and love. He moves us to see the deeper meaning of Passover. He will be the new Passover celebration. Here are a few of the transforming experiences He will move us into:

passing over from following the world’s standards to following Jesus,

passing over from being led by sin to being led by the Holy Spirit,

passing over from the ‘dust’ life to the abundant Spirit life,

passing over judging by appearance to seeing everyone as an image of God,

passing over from wrong to right,

passing over from despair to hope,

passing over from ‘me first’ to others first,

passing over from deceit to honesty,

passing over from lust to trust,

passing over from anxiety to peace,

passing over from fear to faith,

passing over from compromise to truth,

passing over from world conformity to Spirit conformity,

passing over from success in the world to success in the Spirit

     and all the 'Passover’ opportunities the Lord brings in each next moment.

It will be a passing over of the sinful mind to Jesus' mind, the lonely sinful heart to the pure relational heart of Jesus and the devil’s spirit of fear to the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith.

In all, a redeeming process bathed in Scripture.

 The way we celebrate the new Passover comes from His direction (Mt.26:26-28, Mk.14:22-24, Lk.22:14-20, 1Cor.11:23-26, Jn.6:53-58). We have given it different names---the Lord's Supper, Holy Communion, Holy Eucharist, Mass and the Divine Liturgy. It's the reminder of His continuing presence in our hearts as our personal Passover Savior and Lord. The promise is that on our final day on this earth we pass over from death to eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven. The bread eaten (His broken Body in our body), drinking the wine (His shed blood flowing in us), repeated with His words, “Do this in remembrance of me,” brings His presence into our hearts. It is a spiritual meal taken in faith, received in faith and lived out in faith. It gives us the pattern for our daily life as a believer. We take our bodies (mind, heart and spirit), give thanks for them, let them be broken away from sin and given to His Spirit to let them be directed by the Spirit in witness and service to the Lord. In essence, we are celebrating the Passover every day just as in Jesus every day is a Sabbath day cherishing the Lord in all we say and do.