Luke's Gospel

So if you'd like to open your bibles to Luke chapter 22, we're picking the story up after Judith has agreed to portray Jesus and we're in verse 7 of chapter 22. Then came the day of unleavened bread on which the passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John saying, go and make preparations for us to eat the passover. Where do you want us to prepare for it? They are.

He replied, as you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters and say to the owner of the house, The teacher asks where is the guest room? Where I may eat the passover with my disciples? He will show you a large room upstairs all furnished. Make preparations there.

They left and found things just as Jesus had told them, so they prepared the passover. When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And he said to them, I have eagerly desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again. Until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.

After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, take this and divide it among you. For I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave to them saying, this is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way after the supper, he took the cup saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Is poured out for you. But the hand of him who's going to betray me is with mine on the table. The son of man will go as it has been creed, but woe to that man who portrays him. They began to question among themselves, which of them it might be who would do this. A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be the greatest.

Jesus said to them, the king of the gentiles, the kings of the gentiles, lord over them. And those who exercise authority over them call themselves benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be the youngest. And the 1 who rules like the 1 who serves.

For who is greater, the 1 who is at the table or the 1 who serves, is it not the 1 who's at the table But I but I I am among you as 1 who serves. You are those who have stood by me in my trials. And I confer on you a kingdom just as my father conferred 1 on me so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones. Judging the 12 tribes of Israel. Simon, Simon Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat, but I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.

And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. But he replied, Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death. Jesus answered, I tell you Peter, before the cock crows today, he will deny 3 times that you know me. Then Jesus asked them, when I sent you without purse bag or sandals, did you lack anything? Nothing they answered.

He said to them, but now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag. And if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy 1. It is written. And he was numbered with the transgressors. And I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me.

Yes. What is written about me is reaching its fulfillment. The disciple said, see, Lord, here are 2 swords. That's enough. He replied, Chris.

Well, good evening for me. My name is Chris Tilly, and we're gonna be looking at the next passage in Luke tonight. So if you were with us last week, then you would have heard Dean preaching to us from the beginning of loop chapter 22 where we hear about Judith having his meeting with the high priests. And agreeing to betray Jesus. And tonight, we get on to a a very famous passage, a passage that lots has been written about.

Paintings have been painted and all sorts has has been said about this passage. And it's been used many times in popular culture as well. So I'm sure that wherever we're coming from, we're gonna we're gonna be familiar in 1 way or another with with this passage tonight. And it is of course. The last supper.

And what I wanna say about the last supper, something that's really stood out to me as I've as I've been preparing this sermon and reading through it, is that nothing is as you would expect it to be here. Nothing seems to happen as you would expect it to happen. It's split into 3 pretty distinct sections. So you have you have a pre dinner preparation section. Then you have the actual dinner itself, and then you have some post dinner conversations.

So, it's quite easy for us to follow it through in in 3 quite distinct. Acts. So without further ado, let's get into the the pre dinner preparations for for this scene. So where they're at, that Jesus and the disciples, they've been in and around Jerusalem for a couple of days now. And they're staying outside of the city.

And it's got to a point in the week where it's hit a major major festival in Jerusalem. And that festival is the festival of unleavened bread, which is also called the Passover. And what would be going on in Jerusalem, this time of year is lots of activity. So you would have had Jews from all over the Roman Empire coming back to Jerusalem. To celebrate this passover festival.

And along with them would come all of the merchants plying their wares. It it was it was party atmosphere. It was festival time, 1 of the biggest dates in the Jewish calendar. Now, the significance of the passover, of course, is tied in with events that happened some 1400 years earlier in Egypt. So if you're familiar with that story, you have the story of 10 plagues, and it culminates in in in the tenth plague, which is the passover, which is where God said to Farrow through Moses, let my people go.

If you do not, then there's gonna be a plate worse than all of the ones that have come before. The firstborn of every single household shall die. But God told Moses to tell the Israelites, you are to sacrifice a lamb, paint the blood above your door, and the the angel of death that I send into Egypt will pass over I will pass over your houses. I will recognize the lamb's blood above your doorpost, and you will pass over. So that's what they're celebrating because after that event, Ferro, of course, does let the Israelites go.

And they do get to leave Egypt. They do get to leave their their lives of slavery there, and they then celebrate this festival every single year. So that's a very sort of watered down version quick abbreviated version of the events. You can read all about that next to this chapter 12, if you'd like to do that another time. And so it's into this it's into this scene that Jesus sends 2 of his disciples if you pick it up at the beginning of the passage with me.

It says, then came the day of unleavened bread, on which the passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John saying, go and make preparations for us to eat the passover. So what people were doing in Jerusalem is they were coming together and just like they did back in Egypt to the original passover, they would group together in families groups of about 10 people. So maybe 2 or 3 families unless you have a family the size of the dried ones and then you can just do it on your own. But you're a group together in groups of about 10, and that would mean that there was enough of you to eat the lamb that had been sacrificed because they'd sat replace the lamb, then cook the whole thing, roast the whole thing up, and eat it.

And anything that was left over, they had to they had to burn the the the before the following day. So what people were doing in Jerusalem is they were going in, they would they would for their preparations, go and find a merchant that's selling a lamb, then they would take that lamb up to the temple and at 3 PM on the day of Passover, the temple court doors would open. And this would happen in 3 shifts. As many people as would fit in would fit into the temple courts and then the doors would close. Then a horn would sound and then they would start sacrificing all of the lambs.

Each person sacrificed the land that they had bought themselves, and the priests are collecting the blood, flinging the blood on the altar, the blood's going over the people, which there's blood everywhere in this scene. And it's all washing away down into the kidron valley and the kidron valley and the stream of bottoms flowing red on this day. They they they estimate that thousands of lambs would have been killed on this day every single year in Jerusalem, all to celebrate the passover. They would then take that lamb to wherever they were congregating in their groups of 10 or or so, and they would also have unleavened bread. So they would have baked the bread without any any yeast.

They wouldn't have let it rise, and they would they would have their unleavened bread flatbread basically. So they've got the lamb, they've got the fatbread. They would also have some bitter herbs and some stewed fruit. They would set the table and they would all be there and they would be ready. And then they would be an eager anticipation for the for the explanation of the meal by the head of the head of the families.

So the head of the families would sit everyone down and then he would start to talk everyone through all of the different various aspects of the meal, the lamb that died, so that you would be recognized as 1 of God's people by the blood painted over your door. The unleavened bread, that was because they didn't have time to wait for it to rise. They had to be ready to go at a moment's notice when they were back in Egypt. So they just had to bake the bread as quickly as they could. So that it was just ready to to take with them.

The bitter herbs reminds us of the bitterness of our time in Egypt. And the stewed fruit is is it reminds us of the color of the bricks that we baked for pharaoh that that just caused us so much misery. Now, of course, The israelites have added a few things over the years to it like the stewed fruit and such. But the essence of it was still the same, and God had still told them to to remember this every year. Have this passover meal in remembrance of that event.

So, it's into that sort of situation that Jesus is sending, Peter and John. Go and make preparations for us to eat the passover. So that's what they've gotta do. They've gotta get the lamb, get it sacrificed, get it roasted up, get the bread baked, sit the table, And then Jesus and his followers are gonna come and join them at some point later on in the in the evening. Where do you want us to prepare for it, they asked?

Good question. Where do you want us to prepare for it? We don't own any property in Jerusalem. So what are we gonna do about this? And this is where things start to get strange.

Because we enter into a cold war era spy thriller here. With just the strangest set of instructions, not what they would have been expecting. Jesus comes back with this. He replied, as you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Okay?

Fine. Don't know the guy, but he's gonna be carrying a jar of water. Right? Follow him to the house that he enters, and say to the owner of the house, the teacher asks where is the guest room where I may eat the passover with my disciples. He will show you to a large upper room all furnished.

Make preparations there. So, clearly Jesus has made arrangements ahead of time. Clearly, he's decided to leave his disciples out of the out of the knowing of these preparations, and he sees bit, not only to make preparations, but to make them in some kind of code so that people's identities are protected. And only the disciples that he sends are gonna be able to ignize the the contact in the city. Why the need for so much secrecy Well, firstly, they can recognize the guy carrying the water jar because apparently, Men didn't carry water in jars.

Men carried water in skins. Women carried water in jars. So this guy would stand out to them. But it still doesn't answer why so much secrecy. Why couldn't he just say, we're going here off we go.

Well, if you remember last week, Judus has already agreed to betray Jesus and the disciples. And he's waiting for an opportune time. He's waiting for his opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present. That's how it ends in in verse 6 of chapter 22 before we get on to this scene. And Jesus knows this.

And so, he can't make it widely known amongst the disciples where they're gonna eat because this would be a perfect opportunity for them to be arrested. And Jesus wants them to have this meal. He really wants to have this meal with them. Because he says, I have eagerly desired to eat this passover with you in verse 15. This is something that Jesus is absolutely set on doing with his disciples before the events that were to follow the very next day.

So with everything in place, we we we get past our pre dinner preparations and we get onto the actual meal itself. So Peter and John have done everything required of them. The table's prepared, and Jesus and the other followers arrive, and they take their places around this table in this this upper room. The lamb's been roasted. The flatbread's been baked the wine's been poured and the disciples are eagerly settled in just like many families around them.

To listen to Jesus, explain the meal in the way that they knew. In the customary way, they want to hear what Jesus has to say about what happened in Exodus and the Passover and and so on and so forth. At least I imagine that's that's where they would have been with this, because that's what's happened all their lives. But it's not quite what they get. In fact, they get something well, they get something way way better than that, but definitely not the explanation that they were expecting.

Jesus sits down at the the table and begins by by taking the cup. In verse 17, he says after taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, take this and divide it among you. For I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And then again, at the end of the meal, he picks up the cup. And says, in the same way after the supper, he took the cup saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

Which is poured out for you. Now, it's just a cup. We have to get that clear. It's not the Indiana Jones what's the what's the like? Raders of the holy grail.

I've forgotten what it's called. The raiders of the Lost Stark, Yeah. Something like that. It's not that 1. It's not that 1 that's being guarded by a knight templar who, you know, it's all mystical and fantastical.

King Arthur is not searching for this holy grail. It is just a cup. There's nothing else to it. It's of no particular significance. And what it's filled with is just wine.

Again, of no particular significance, but it's what it represents. According to Jesus. And it's not what it used to represent. It's not just talking about lambs blood spilt in Egypt to rescue Israelites that this represents. Now Jesus says, this is This cup is the new covenant in my blood.

The new covenant in my blood, not the old covenant in lamb's blood. This is the new covenant. The old promise, if you remember, was that you put your trust in the blood of the sacrificed lamb, and paint it over your door posts, you will be rescued from death and from your slavery if you did that back in Egypt. And Jesus says, this wine represents his blood. He puts himself in the role of the sacrificed lamb back in Egypt.

The new covenant is not that a lamb will die, but that the son of God will die. And the 2 are just incomparable, aren't they? The 2 are so far apart. What's better? A lamb or the son of God?

A lamb or the son of God, the son of the living God giving his life for people, his blood, poured out. Lam's bud represents end of slavery, end of tyranny from pharaoh. And rescue from death, Jesus' blood represents so much more. The new covenant goes above and beyond way further than the the original picture that they were being given back in Egypt. Because his blood represents freedom from slavery to sin.

For all who trust in him. Not just his, relies for everyone who trusts in him. Freedom from the sin in your heart, an end of the tyrannical rule, not just the pharaoh, but of the evil 1 exerting his power and influence over your life. And rescue from death, which is the wages of sin. Jesus' blood covers so much more than that original picture of what the lamb's blood covered for the Israelites.

It was a picture they were to remember the picture until it comes to its fulfillment, and its fulfillment is now in Christ. For the disciples, this is mind blowing. All their lives, they've known about the story of exodus. They've known about the the passover meal. They've known about what happened back then, but they've never understood.

They've never understood that it was always always always talking about Jesus. And Jesus is saying to them, first listeners of this astonishing truth, this is what it means. Guys, are you listening? This is what this passover meal means. So he moves on from his first taking of the cup and picks up the bread as his next piece to explain.

In verse 19, and he took the bread and gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them saying, this is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Now again, this is this is just bread. It's probably significantly better bread than the stuff we use for communion, but just bread nonetheless. It would be flat bread, unleavened bread.

A bit like I don't know if you've ever seen I watched the Paul Hollywood thing where he was actually in Israel and he went and found some of the the bakers there, and they were baking unleavened bread. And they sort of it's almost like a pizza dough base and they whack it up on the inside on the wall of the oven and it bakes super, super fast. And then they whip it out and there you go. It's it's done. Flat bread.

And it looks super tasty. It's nothing like the the nice raised white loaves of bread that we have in the supermarkets. Bernadette over lockdown has been getting massively into baking bread. And you have to put the yeast in, you have to let it prove, and then you have to you have to re need it, then you have to do a second prove, and then you have to bake the stuff. And further on than that, she's been getting into sourdough.

You have to feed the stuff overnights, over days. And then there's proving process and all sorts again. It takes a long, long time to make that kind of bread. This stuff was unleavened bread. This stuff you could make almost immediately.

You just quickly knocked together the dough, bake it done. And it's like the wine. It's what it represents that's the important part. Under the old covenant, they ate the bread to remind them that when God rescued them from Egypt, they had to be ready. They had to be ready to go at the drop of a hat.

That's what the whole thing was about. You you ate the lamb, and then you have the unleavened bread. They ate it with the staff in their hand ready to travel when they're close into their belts. They were to be ready to get out of there at the moment's notice. There wasn't time to be letting bread prove and reneeding and doing all of this sort of stuff.

What God was trying to say to them back then was I'm gonna rescue you. Be ready to be rescued. That's essentially it. I will rescue you. So be prepared.

Be ready. And Jesus is saying, This spread here, this spread represents my body. I'm breaking this spread. My body is about to endure affliction. My body is about to be broken.

Be ready. Be ready. I am about to rescue you by shedding my blood. Be ready to be rescued. Be ready for when my body is broken.

And then once I'm gone, do this in remembrance of me. In other words, use this this simple meal, this wine and this bread to remind yourselves constantly of these truths because you're going to need reminding. We are going to need reminding regularly of the most simple truths Jesus is saying, if there's something you need to be reminded about regularly, it's this that my blood is shift you and my body is broken for you. You must remember that. That is the most important thing to keep on coming back to time after time after time after time.

And so I'm giving you this meal. I'm giving you this meal. And that's what the last supper is all about. That's when we take communion at church. If you've ever wondered, this is this is essentially why we do it.

This is why this is exactly why we do it because it reminds us of what Jesus was about to do physically the very following day moving on from this scene. It reminds us that Jesus Christ is the son of God. He's the lamb of God that he came to die to be the sacrificial lamb to shed his blood, so that we can paint it all over our lives, and be rescued by his sacrifice, be recognized by God when he looks at us and says, yes, my son's blood. Is over their lives, they're rescued by him. And he's also trying to tell his disciples that this is gonna happen very soon He keeps on repeating and dropping hints.

Verse 16. I will not eat again. I won't eat again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God. Verse 18. I tell you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.

I'm not gonna eat, I'm not gonna drink. And verse 21, the hand of my betrayer is on this very table with my own. My betrayal is close at hand. It's about to happen. He's saying this very night.

This very night, imminently, this is gonna be my last night with you. Tonight, I'm gonna be betrayed and arrested. And tomorrow, I'm gonna be tried and executed. In not so many words, but these the hints that he's dropping. Now, this as I'm sure you can imagine drop a bit of a bombshell on the disciples.

They've just had this incredible revelation in the teaching of what the passover really means. And then they get hit with this news that there's trader amongst them. And it leads us into the the final act of of this scene, which is the post dinner disappointments and the post dinner conversations. It started out so hopefully. It went on even better.

And it ends crashing down in a series of disappointments with the disciples. And they obviously begin by beginning to argue amongst themselves. Well, it's not gonna be me. I would never do that. It's not gonna be me.

It's definitely not me. I'm no traitor. But of course, we know who the traitor is, don't we? We know that it's gonna be judas. We know that Judas has already sold himself for 30 pieces of silver.

He's made his arrangements, and he's just waiting for his moments. And Judith is sitting there at table, listening to all of this going on, knowing that he's about to do what he's about to do. And Jesus knows it too. Jesus absolutely knows that it's Judith that's about to betray him. And yet, he shares the cup and the bread with him still.

And yet, he invites him to term from his current course. You see, The the mercy of Jesus is just extending and extending to Judas here. He still included him in this. He didn't cast him out and send him off on some errands so that he couldn't be part of this meal. He's there at the heart of everything.

As he has been for the last, 3 years. And Jesus even goes so far as to give him the, I guess, the final last ditch warning. Whoa. Woe to the man that betrays the son of God. Woe is about the strongest warning you can give.

Judus had every possible opportunity to stop what he was doing, but he chose poorly. He chose not to. It was choices that he made that led him to betray Jesus. And as we hear in other gospels in John, that had been in his heart ever since the beginning. He had always loved money, and it caused him to turn against his savior in spite of everything.

Now that argument about who was gonna be the traitor, sort of morphs and develops as arguments often do. Have you ever noticed this? Sometimes an argument morphs into a a sort of old unsettled arguments, where things get brought up from the past and you're not quite sure what the heck's going on here. We were arguing about this. Now, we're arguing something entirely different.

And they they they revert to to type really the disciples here. They go back to their old classic favorite argument about who is the greatest. They are constantly arguing about who the greatest disciple is all the way throughout the gospels. And and it just never seems to go away. I guess it probably happened something like, oh, well, we're arguing about who the traitor is.

Well, I'm not the traitor because I'm the greatest of us. It's probably you over there because you're the least great of us. No. I'm greater than him, and it probably was going around something like that. Utterly childish.

Utterly ridiculous and utterly disappointing. Just just nonsense in light of what Jesus has just been saying. At at this meal. They're just so quick to lose themselves. And Jesus turns around and says, what what are you talking about, guys?

He says to them, the kings of the gentiles, lord it over them, and those who decise authority over them, call themselves benefactors, but you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the 1 who rules like the 1 who serves. Jesus says you are it's it's not about who is who is greater, who is physically greater, who is intellectually greater, who is got a better job who's who's got better standing in society. It's not about any of those things. It's not about any of those things.

That's what the rest of the world does. That's what the the the kings of the gentiles. They lord it over them. They they make themselves benefactors, beneficiaries of other people's service, of other people's hard work. You're not to be like that.

You ought to make other people a benefactor of your love and service and hard work. That's greatness. That is true greatness. And he goes on in verse 27. For who's greater, the 1 who's at the table or the 1 who serves.

Is it not the 1 at the table? Well, yeah. I mean, sure. I mean, usually, the person sat at the table was greater than the servants. Right?

And then Jesus goes, yeah. But Yeah. But I I am among you as 1 of the servants, as 1 who serves. And you, you are those who have stood by me in all my trials. And I'm gonna confer on you my kingdom.

It's just incredible, isn't it? He's he's saying Why on earth are you talking about? Who is gonna be the greatest? It it makes it's In eternity, it's going to be just so cringing to think back on this moment and this argument. Because what I'm going to give you is just incomparable.

It's so much more. You're gonna be you're gonna be judging the 12 tribes of Israel. In other words, you're gonna be you're gonna be representative of all of my people. You wanna talk about greatness. Well, greatness is something that's yet to come in my kingdom, and greatness here on Earth is about serving and giving yourselves and loving people.

Now, that kind of seems to put that bit to bit because there's there doesn't seem to be any comeback from the disciples. Although, you can kind of confer from the verse 31. That that Peter might have been piping up at this point or making some sort of rumblings or getting agitated. Because Jesus immediately switches say Simon. Simon who is Peter.

It's Simon Simon. Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. And it moves us onto the next thing.

So we've had betrayal. We've had the disciples just nonsensical self centeredness. And now we've got utter failure about to happen here. Peter's utter utter failure. Jesus is saying that that Satan has asked to sift you as weak Peter.

You you think you're strong but satan's out for you. He's gunning for you. He wants you. But I'm standing in the way of that But it doesn't mean you're not gonna make a mistake still, but I am standing in the way of that ultimately. And Peter being Peter, of course, strongly denies that he's gonna do this.

He's got I will die for you. He goes it's classic Peter going all the way I will die for you. They can torture me. They can do whatever they want. I don't care what it is.

They can pull out all my fingernails. I will go all the way for you Jesus. It's nothing's gonna stop me. And Jesus says, I'm not even gonna argue this 1 with you, Peter. I just tell you today that before the cock crows, you will deny me 3 times, deny that you even know me.

1 of my best friends, 1 of my closest disciples, and you're gonna deny that you even know me. Before the sun even comes up tomorrow morning. You're gonna do that, Peter. You're gonna fail me. Yet another disappointment that comes out of the post dinner conversations.

And then they round all of it off. By just abject stupidity and dullness. Just to add, this appointment on disappointment. Jesus tries to switch this and and starts teaching them. Starts starts giving them some teaching about things that he's asked them to do in the past.

So if you look at verse 35, then Jesus asked them, when I sent you without purse bag or sandals, Did you lack anything? Nothing they answered. Well, he said to them. But now, if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag. And if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy 1.

Now, if you remember, there's previous times in the Gospels where Luke records that Jesus sends out disciples. And when he does send out his disciples back then, he sends them out literally with nothing. No sandals on on their feet. Literally, no money, nothing. Just go.

Just go and I'll be with you and everything will be fine and these are your instructions when you get to places. If they accept you, stay with them. If they don't, you know, wipe the dust off your feet and and move on to the next place. But don't take anything with you, you won't need it. It's it's fine.

But now now, it's gonna it's gonna be different. It's not gonna be like that anymore Jesus is saying to them. This time, you're gonna have to prepare yourselves from now on. You're gonna have to make adequate preparations. You're gonna have to you're gonna have to think ahead.

You're gonna have to gather all the equipment necessary because From here on out, you're gonna face some serious opposition and you need to act accordingly for it. So get what you need to get together. You're gonna have to go on longer journeys. You're gonna have to face harder trials. The authorities are going to be gunning for you.

They are gonna be out for you. But they just don't really get what he's saying at all, they they get hung up and excited about 1 thing and 1 thing only. Did he just say we can now carry swords? You can always feel the palpable excitement amongst the disciples. You say, get a sword.

Did he did he just say get a sword? They're so quick to interpret things their own way so that they can sort of just satisfy their own desires, their their own violent urges, I guess. Because Jesus is saying, like, you know, if you if you need a sword, get it What he's saying is, I mean, a sword is part of the equipment of someone that travels back in those days. It's just another tool like anything else. What Jesus isn't saying is right.

Now it's time to arm yourselves to the teeth, rise up against the Romans, kill the chief priests, and establish a new kingdom here on earth. That is that's just not what he's saying. Patently, it's not what he's saying. We know that from later on. When Peter does actually cut off the chief priests servants here, and Jesus is is aghast at it and heals heals the guy.

That's this is not the way. But the disciples are so eager. He says sell sell what you have in BioSource. They're like, oh, it's alright. Don't worry.

We've 2. 2 swords just appear out of the out of the woodwork out of nowhere. What have they been carrying these with them the whole time? Just itching for an opportunity. I I don't know.

But clearly, they've misunderstood. And Jesus goes, that is enough. I've had it with you guys here. I'm trying. I've just given you earth shattering truth.

And all you can come back with is disappointment on disappointment. Now, let me try and draw this all together here a bit as we close. What's what's really going on here? Whilst it's it's fairly tragic and frustrating at the end, we can see. Actually, that should be of enormous comfort to to us to you and and to me.

Because Jesus is revealing to his disciples that he is gonna do absolutely everything that's required for them. And they are proving to him that they need him to do absolutely everything for them, because they are so rubbish. Why is that a comfort to us? Well, because we're exactly like them, aren't we? We are just so so like them.

I mean, it's really easy to read all of this and to listen to all of that. And to sit here and judge the disciples for their behavior and say, Judith, he was a scumbag. Peter, he was a coward, They they were they were full of selfishness. They only thought about themselves, and and they they didn't even understand the scriptures. It it would be so easy for us to start judging them like that.

So so easy. And yet, all they are really is just a reflection of us. There's a reflection of us and we get 4 different reflections in in that post in a conversation of what we're like and why we need our sacrificial lamb in Jesus Christ so much. That's really what this whole passage is about. I mean, if you look back on Judus' betrayal.

Let's take that for starters. Can we really say that we have never done something whilst knowing completely and utterly that it was wrong. That it was completely simple, that it was a total betrayal of Jesus' sacrifice. And yet, we've done it anyway. Sometimes we even sit and plan it.

Can you honestly say you've never done that? Can you really say that's got no part of you? We're we're so quick to sell ourselves for a mere 30 pieces of silver army to get whatever quick fix, whatever it may be. We're so easily led into that, so easily tempted by those things. And Jesus says, whoa, woe to that person.

Now in Judith's case, he went all the way. He sold Jesus out. He turned his back on him. He said, I don't want anything to do with him anymore. Here he is.

I'm handing him over. But, you can see the heart actions that were eating away at Judith, all the way up to that point. Throughout all of the ministry and all the time you spent with Jesus. And it leads him to a point of utter betrayal. It should be a moment for us to pause for sober reflection.

If we're finding ourselves being led away from Jesus regularly by anything at all, we need to soberly reflect because, well, you can see the devastating consequences here for yourself. And I know there was other things going on with Judith. I know there's many other things that you can talk about with that, but you cannot deny that there's the heart issue all the way along with Judith. We need to soberly reflect on that. Or how about our our self centeredness, just same as the disciples.

Who is the greatest among us? How often are we even if we don't say it outright, but how often are we more concerned with being admired? Having people recognize us, having people praise us. How often do we like to be benefactors of other people's service, even if we don't outwardly admit these things. What we should be ready to admit is that serving others, making them benefactors of our love and service doesn't come very naturally to us.

It doesn't come very naturally to us. It's something that takes an awful lot of effort and self awareness. Actually. You you you cannot just do this naturally. Naturally will tend to lay back.

Naturally will tend to let other people get on with doing things. Only once. Really only once, we admit that and fix our eyes, and remember the 1 who served us ultimately with his his death. Because Jesus is saying, this this is this is my ultimate of service coming up. My ultimate act of service is gonna be to die for you tomorrow, to shed my blood, to have my body broken, to pay for your sins, to die for you.

That's my ultimate act of service in my death. And by remembering that constantly, we can then start to shift our focus off ourselves and our own pathetic ideas of self importance and all the rest of it and serve people like he did. It's a wonderful thing, but it's only really through constantly remembering what Jesus did and how far he went that we can begin to do that for other people properly. Well, how about Peter's utter failure in the in the making here? He's gonna deny he even knows Jesus, has that ever happened to you?

Have you ever found yourself denying an opportunity or denying that you've a part of something to do with church? You ever found yourself in a situation where you could witness to your faith in Christ and you utterly wimp out. Is that familiar? Is that a familiar feeling? Because it certainly is for me.

Where your courage fails you entirely and you you you just opt for the soft and easy conversation rather than the 1 that might bring ridicule your way. Whether that's even true or not, it might not. Who knows? But you wimp out anyway. Perhaps like Peter, you might be sat there thinking, yeah, but I'll never do that.

No matter how scary the opposition, I'll die before I do I've been thinking about I'm sure a lot of us have been thinking about what's going on in Belarus at the minute and it's ridiculous because you you even start to put yourself in these wild situations and fantasies and think, well, what would I do if the riot police were about to arrest me for maybe for just being a Christian? Would I stand? Would I would I go? You can take me. You can torture me.

I'm not gonna give you anything. I'm not even gonna make a sound. You'd like to think that you'd be able to bear up with it. Well, I think we all know what the reality of that would be. But then I also wondered, whilst reading this What if just before they arrest you, they give you an opportunity to get out of it.

They give you an opportunity to deny who you are. To get out of the torture and the beatings, to get out of the imprisonment, would you take it? I think like Peter, we would like to think that we wouldn't, but I think we all know what the reality of that situation may well turn out to be. Do not think for a second that Satan has not asked to sift you as wheat as he did, Peter. But here's the wonderful part.

Trust that Jesus prays for you and shed his blood for you in spite of your many failures. And finally, our stupidity is just the same as the disciples. Is it not? Our denseness when it comes to listening and understanding his word, and how quickly we get distracted from the point swords. Did he say swords?

Do you say it's okay to carry swords? Do you say it's okay to do violence to 1 another with swords? But you say I can cut off the high priests servants here with a sword. It's just nonsense, isn't it? And we I know I know that's dramatic, but that's what Peter did.

In the end. That's where he took it. That's where he took his misunderstanding of Jesus' word. It doesn't the same principle, just apply to us in all kinds of ways. When we come to the Scriptures, did he did he really say that?

Does it really mean that? Does it really mean I can't have sex before marriage or I can't can't start a relationship with a or shouldn't start a relationship with a non Christian or get married to 1, or or does it really mean that I shouldn't drink too much? Does it And we just apply that same sort of nonsense principle, wherever it suits in our lives, don't we? And we just erode things, and we get we get the wrong end of the stick, and we get distracted, and we get turned off down dead end side of these, and just totally miss the point through our dullness and our stupidity. That's us.

That's the disciples at the last supper, and that's us. But here's the wonderful, wonderful, brilliant point of this passage and this simple, simple meal. It's that we, those of us who know Jesus Christ as our lord and Savior know that by faith and trust in what he's done for us, his blood is painted over our lives, and his blood is payment for all of that nonsense. It pays and covers all of that ridiculousness. Doesn't mean that it's okay.

For us to do those things, not at all. On the contrary, because of what Jesus did, we should be actively fighting these things in our lives. That's the Christian battle and the Christian walk. But he gives us this meal so that we can remember and remember and remember. Because we will keep on being rubbish and rubbish and rubbish.

So we need to remember what he's done and come back to that meal. If you're gonna be joining us at the gathering on the sixth of September, we'll be having the lord suffer for the first time in 6 months, and that's gonna be an absolute joy. I actually believe that there's an opportunity to get lambs and roast them up and have flatbread and wine. I mean, lamb, flatbread wine, sounds like a good meal. To me, I I would have that any day of the week.

But out in the field, roast up some lamb. I I I think we might be able to get that organized even. Maybe, just dropping that bombshell. But that's for us who know Jesus as a savior. If you don't, Well, what a wonderful opportunity he's giving you here?

What a wonderful opportunity. He's just explained what this is all about. He's just explained what he's done for you. He's just explained how you can come to him, and you can trust in his sacrificial blood shed for you on the cross.