Luke 21:29-22:30

Read along as Matthew guides us through the Gospel of Luke. In these verses, Jesus and his disciples are in Jerusalem in the last days before the Passover. Jesus is warning his disciples about the apocalypse, the changing of the times. He tries to teach his followers to not lose heart, to keep watch, to rely on his trustworthy words. One of his closest followers, Judas, agrees to betray him when no crowds can see the twisted plot that is winding together. Then Jesus gathers around the table with his disciples in what will become known as "The Last Supper." He breaks bread, shares the cup.

Matthew Schmidt is the Pastor of St. Paul's United Church of Christ, located in the beautiful small town of Grand Haven, MI. Discover more about St. Paul's today. www.stpaulsgrandhaven.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, friends, welcome to Bible study today. We are reading Luke chapter 21, starting in verse 29. And last time we talked about the destruction of the temple and the signs of the end times. Um and it's hard, it's hard to discern uh what these signs um mean, when they happen. There's a lot of mystery. Um Jesus seems to be warning his followers that something terrible is gonna happen in their lifetime. And he's trying to prepare them to remain calm, to carry on, to be faithful, to uh to handle the great upheaval and w whatever form that may take, with some semblance of goodness and grace. You know, he doesn't tell his disciples, when you hear the drumbeat of war, pick up pick up your weapons. That's the time to go to war. He tells them, let them arrest you, and I'll be with you, and I'll even I'll even make sure you know what to say when they put you on trial. Um and of course, all this conversation about violence and arrest and destruction and desecration of the temple, i it's no coincidence that it's happening in Luke here in verse or in chapter twenty-one before Jesus himself experiences those exact things. That Jesus' body is in some way the temple, and Jesus' body is going to be destroyed, and that's not the end of the story, but it's certainly a harrowing part of the story. And uh so scholars like N. T. Wright like to like to say that Jesus here is partly talking about himself. And how do we handle that when we think about God's own beloved son being subjected to such violence? And how do we interpret the signs? You know, people get anxious about the signs of the times, and the times are changing, and there will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars. Nations will be in anguish, perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. I was up north in Michigan last week and I saw some roaring and tossing of the sea. There was a big storm that came on down, and we had loved ones out on the lake, and it was really scary because all of a sudden the winds kicked up 70 mile per hour winds enough to take a cooler full of stuff and just hurl it off the porch, you know, to take the chairs and collapse them, and even the rug got whipped off the porch. I mean, it was like a tornado, and we've got loved ones out on the water, and we're thinking, do we have to call the Coast Guard? And we're all in our vans driving up and down the coast hoping to spot them, and it was terrifying. Is that the sign of the roaring seas and the end of the world? When Twitter goes aflame with viral tweets, is that the sign of the times of the end of the world? How do we know? And that's that's a bit mysterious. And part of the thing something Jesus keeps saying is when that stuff happens, try to remain calm. I mean, there's literally a story in the Bible where you know Jesus is sleeping in a boat during a storm, and the disciples get anxious. Maybe human beings don't make their best decisions when we're anxious and afraid. Maybe there's some wisdom to try to breathe through it. Not make rash decisions.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Yeah.

unknown 4:36

And she can actually become closer fully. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Yeah, and so every individual on planet Earth, including our loved ones, are constantly experiencing a kind of a different version of reality, and some of us are going through really hard times, whether it's fear or anxiety or depression or claustrophobia or insert any kind of phobia, and and you know when that happens to you or your loved one, it's really hard. You know, and you can't reason your way through that. You just kind of have to buckle down and endure and try to get help. And who would have thought that birthday could you would have thought this would have had like 50 times birthday? Yeah. Yeah. So so one thing that Carl Bart likes to imagine is that um, you know, what's happening to Jesus here is in a certain sense the summation of the human life. It's the center of all history. It's a defining moment in the life of God and the world in which God experiences profound catastrophe, a crisis. God dies, God's son dies, right? And and what Karl Barth says is when God touches the plane, the divine plane touches the earthly plane, when when God is incarnate, uh it's a special moment in history. It's the center of all time. And then when that God experiences crisis, it's a defining crisis for then backwards, forwards, up, and down in all of time space. And what he's trying to articulate is just the kind of classic Reformed view that God is in control. God is big and wide and beyond time. And what happens to Jesus here in this moment is defining for reality moving forward and going backwards. And so, if then what these disciples see happens to Jesus when he experiences crisis, and what happens when he experiences crisis, he gets through it, right? The crisis happens, and then the resurrection happens, and then happily ever after happens. I mean, Jesus is raised from the dead, and that's the whole reason Christianity becomes a thing. Not because God dies, but because God defeats death, because God rises from the ashes like a phoenix, because God is born again in a new exciting way, and and goodness and love and mercy actually win. And and and what if that is a defining moment for all of time space? That God, that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again. And if that's a defining moment for all time space, it does have some kind of power to creep into our individual experiences as we head towards crisis. Uh, I know that it impacted the disciples 20 years after Jesus when their society headed towards war. And all of a sudden, you see these disciples not feeling the need to go to war because war doesn't matter anymore. War has no determinative outcome on the future. God has already fought the war against death and won. God has already fought the war against sin and won. God has already fought the war against evil and won. And they're living on the other side of the resurrection in a new creation, and they're just trying to urge people. As the world is crumbling around them, they're trying to urge people, come live in this new age. Old is past. Here is the new. Come live in this new age. Come step into the goodness, come step into the life. And it spreads like wild, I mean, the Christianity spreads like wildfire in a world where there's an empire that's got its boot to the throat of poor people, and and people are miserable. And war and vi I mean in in under the context of the empire, it's not like a person with a sword under their bed can do anything against the Roman soldiers, right? There's no battle you can really fight. Some sometimes tribes to the north, the Germanic tribes, or you know, eventually other nations kind of help break up the Roman Empire. But in this season, the Roman Empire is just so powerful. There's nothing you can do. And the idea that there's a God that endured and is more powerful than that is pretty profound. And you don't have to conquer that empire in order to win. You just have to say yes to this death and resurrection, this God crisis event, this defining moment in time space that says, Love wins. Life wins. God wins, and I'm gonna step into God's new age. And that's what these you know disciples are gonna end up doing. For now, Jesus is talking about the signs of the times, though. We're back on the other side of it in Luke 21, and Jesus is warning his disciples, it's gonna get hairy, it's gonna get stinky, it's gonna get sweaty and gross and bad and mean and violent, and what do we do? And how do you know when it's really happening versus when it's kind of happening? What are the signs of the times? And that's what he's talking about. So let's pray, and then we're gonna read in verse 29. Dear God, we come to you today, and like those disciples so long ago, we're confused about the signs of the times. There's so much profound mystery about when the age is coming to a close and when the a the new age is coming to a count, and and here we get this story that just inserts itself into our life today, and we pray that you would speak, great God, a word of hope, a word of clarity and wisdom, a word of goodness. A point our flimsy, fearful, worried, anxious hearts towards Jesus Christ, who is our Lord and our Savior, the great King of the universe. Amen Verse twenty nine. Jesus told them this parable Look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourself and know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Now imagine that you live in the ancient world and you're an average peasant person, you don't have a calendar on your kitchen wall where you mark what you're gonna do today. Nobody has a calendar like that. There's no paper and pencil, right? Rich people might have papyrus, but you don't have any paper. You don't even have a refrigerator to put paper on a calendar. You don't have an iPhone, you don't have the internet, you don't have the morning news to tell you what the weather is gonna be like. You're not tracking the days of the week in the same way that you track the days of the week. But you do live in this world. You live on planet Earth and devoid of technology and devoid of electronics, how do you know that the seasons are changing? How do you know that it's the rainy season? How do you know that it's the dry season? You just you live. You know because it's absolutely obvious. You know if you're in a drought, all the neighbors are grumpy and people are suffering. You know if the rains are here because you look up and you see the sky change and the winds blow, and you and the moon and you and you watch the moon shrink and grow month after month. So you can track months, you can track time, you can track a sense of seasons, and and Jesus is reminding his disciples of just the obvious truth. You know, you'll know when you know. You know when you know because you see these trees changing. You know it's summer when the leaves are in bloom, right? And you know that it's winter in Michigan when there's snow on the ground. It's a bit of a duh, right? Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Now, this is this is that kind of verse where N. T. Wright is saying, well, how does this fit with the idea that some people are reading Luke 21 and they're saying this is the end of the world? This is the great apocalypse. N T. Wright reads this sentence here and says, Truly, this generation will not pass away until these things have happened. Well, how do you square that with all these cataclysmic cosmic events that Jesus is talking about? Well, what if he's talking about himself? And Karl Barth would swoop in and say, What if he's talking about the great cosmic moment in all of time-space history when Christ dies and Christ rises? And that's partly why they're interested in that conversation. I want to go back to verse 31. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. You know it's near when what is happening? What we just made the point, it's painfully obvious when uh the leaves are blooming, you know it's summer. But change summer to you know the kingdom of heaven is real and that it's near and that it's within you, and that it's around you. And what is the kingdom of God? That's the alternate reality that these disciples want to dwell in. That's where people hope they go when they die, to the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. That's the reign of God, that's God's perfect reality, that's God's space time, not our space time. So Jesus is kind of telling his disciples, look, you're living in two worlds. You're living in the kingdom of the Roman Empire on planet Earth, you're also living in the kingdom of God in God's creation. And both those realities are true. And how do you know that they're true? Well, you're seeing a big war break out over here, and it's impacting a lot of people, but also uh even in war, there's trees that bloom, and the sun rises, and the moon shrinks and grows, and the rain comes, or the droughts come, you're still living near the kingdom of God. And when you start to wrestle with that idea, you get to see that time might not be linear the way we would hope time is linear. Instead, the kingdom of God's nearness is about God being near to you. That God is near to you. You could be suffering in prison, and God is near to you. We'll read in in the in Acts, you know, Stephen is getting stoned to death, which I would imagine is one of the top five worst ways to die. A whole crowd is just screaming at you, throwing rocks, and they hurt so bad. And he's experiencing this profound physical pain, and you would say, That's hell on earth. He's being tortured. And yet, within his consciousness, he sees heaven open. He sees the glorious, shining, bright light of God. He's living in two different realities. As his body is wasting away, his soul is being taken care of. Now, what's interesting though is Jesus isn't interested in just taking our soul away from this planet. A lot of his metaphors are look at the trees. The trees are still blooming. You're at war, but the trees aren't. You know, you're trying to hurt each other, but the squirrels are just having a day. You know, the crows are living their crow life. There's a lot in this world that has already entered God's good new creation. And you're readily invited to enter into that as well. And you can you can kind of dwell there.

unknown 17:37

So if we follow in the man, you'll be in that world, in that world.

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Yeah. And what we're gonna watch is Jesus then do this. Jesus is gonna have his friends betray him. Jesus is gonna have his friends abandon him. Jesus is gonna practice a kind of loneliness, and and then people are gonna get mean to him. People are gonna put him on trial. And how does he behave when he's put on trial? He behaves in a way that quite frankly none of us could behave. He's incredibly calm because he knows the truth. He knows that these people in charge are just in charge for a moment's time. They are mortal beings, they are finite. The pain that they can afflict is only a certain kind of pain, and God's kingdom is everlasting. And God is more real than the world they are living in.

unknown 18:35

So this is all that matters for us.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

It is. That's what he's trying to teach his disciples. Follow me, live like me. All this stuff is gonna happen to Jesus, and Jesus is showing his disciples how to endure with faith, hope, and love.

unknown 18:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Truly, I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. I mean, that's a scary concept that the skies will be torn open, that the earth will shake, but that the word, the eternal, everlasting word of Jesus Christ is this firm foundation, is this profound truth that can get you through the shaking of the heaven and the earth. I mean, that's why I read the Bible. That's why I start my Monday mornings reading the Bible. Because I believe whatever happens, there is a kind of firmness and steadiness and truth and goodness in this word that I need to stir up and keep at the forefront of my mind. And Sunday morning is a great time to do that for a lot of people. But as a pastor, Sunday morning is also a time where I'm thinking on a kind of different level. What this is, is we're reading. We're just reading together. This steadfast good word. My words will never pass away. Be careful or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. How do people handle a society collapsing in many different ways? Some people are gonna go to the pub because you know what? Eat, drink, and be merry, because tomorrow we die. You know, some people will become cynics, some people will become hopeless, some people will just be anxious. And he's saying, be careful. As society's heart, collective heart grows cold and cynical, be on your guard. Because God has beautiful plans for this creation, because human beings matter, you know, because the new creation is on its way. It just hang on a little bit longer. For it will come on all those who live on the face of the earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man. You know, that that phrase that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man is an interesting phrase. You know, some people say it's that they that they survive this apocalypse so that they're alive when the Son of Man comes back and then they're able to stand. Other people would say, live live in good conscience, so that your conscience enables you to stand in good faith before the Son of Man. You can at least look him in the eye and say, I tried. I wasn't perfect, but I tried. You know. So what does that mean to stand before the Son of Man. Each day Jesus was teaching at the temple, and each evening he went out to spend the night on the hill called the Mount of Olives. That's across the Kidron Valley. It's the next mountain over in a grove of olive trees. And all the people came early in the morning to hear him at the temple. Why do you think people are so eager to hear this Jesus speak about these things on the week leading up to Passover two thousand years ago? Yeah. It really is a new way. He's offering a new path. While it's happening, he's offering a new path. It's almost like if you had a had a politician emerge and they're not talking like those people talk over there or those people talk over there. Instead, they're talking about something entirely different, but it cuts to the heart. It's like, oh my word, those are actually the issues. This is what we've all been desperate to talk about. How to be human beings in God's good world. That's he's just cutting to the heart. Things are gonna get nasty. But trust that the God who made this place is not gonna give up on it. You know. Chapter 22. Now the festival of unleavened bread called the Passover was approaching. And the chief priests, and and what is the festival of unleavened bread and the Passover? That's the other just depth to everything Jesus is saying is the embodiment of Passover as well. It's the fulfillment of Passover. And what is Passover? What was happening at Passover? There's a big chunk of slaves under the boot of an empire, right? And is the empire good to these slaves? No, they're slaves. They whip them and force them to build things and yeah. So the empire is oppressing a huge group of slaves, and this huge group of slaves in the Exodus get to exit the empire, they get to leave the empire, they get liberated from the empire. They are saved from the boot of the oppressor. And and how does that happen? Do the slaves take up pitchforks and fight and defeat the giant Egyptian army who in the Old Testament fights that battle for them? God, Yahweh. Yahweh, the desert deity, comes up from the desert area and kicks Pharaoh in the teeth with crazy signs and plagues and movements from heaven. Water turns to blood and animals flock in and destroy crops or jump out of the rivers, and he disrupts their entire ecosystem, their entire climate, their entire, I mean, with these mighty powerful acts. And the people are liberated. And the Passover is the time is now to go. And there's this opportunity for them to flee. And they can't wait long enough for what to happen before they have to leave. They can't even wait for the bread to rise before they have to go. It's like, now is the time. Part of the point of Passover is stop waiting. Now is the time. It's happening. Go and be free. And that's exactly what Jesus is embodying as he's walking through this story incarnate. He's an incarnational version of Passover. Now is the time. This is the crisis moment where God is stooping into history and saving humanity. Now the festival of unleavened bread called the Passover was approaching, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus. For they were afraid of the people. I mean, all this stuff is happening that Jesus is doing. And what are the chief priests and the teachers of the law worried about? They're worried about him changing anything about their current reality. When in fact, everything about their current reality is shaking. And they're worried about just don't change, don't change, don't change, don't let this guy bring about liberation. And everything is trembling. And their idea is we'll get rid of the guy who's bringing about the new create, you know. Let's let's stop him. And yet, all the people are hungry for something new. And if they don't get it through Jesus, they're gonna go after it on their own terms, and soon enough, 20 years later, they do, right? So while that's all happening, the chief priests and the teachers of the law were looking for a way to get rid of Jesus, and they are afraid of the people. And then don't forget that there's another cosmic force behind the scenes. The great enemy, the Satan. Verse 3. Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the twelve. One of Jesus' closest allies and friends is going to be tempted by Jesus the same way Jesus was tempted by the Satan earlier at the beginning of the story, only this time he gets all the way in his heart. Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus. They were delighted and agreed to give him money. He consented and watched for an opportunity to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present. That's the play. Jesus needs to be betrayed when the people can't see that he's being unlawfully arrested. That way rumors can spread. It happens at night. Nobody really saw it. Did he do something crazy? They can make up lies? Nobody knows. Do any of the disciples know that Judas is going to betray Jesus? No, this is literally a stab in the back. Judas is an important member of the Jesus movement. He is a, I mean, if we're gonna you don't want to say like high-ranking leader, because that's precisely the opposite of what Jesus movement is always about. Jesus is constantly saying, these children are more powerful than John the Baptist. But from a human level, from like a human institutional level, Judas is in the in the room where it happens. He's at the Last Supper, right? He's a high, he is a close follower of Jesus. And it's a stab in the back.

unknown 29:39

Yeah, but what made him do it?

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah. What made him do it? I think he lost faith that Jesus was going to do what Jesus says he's going to do. I think he's hearing all these stories. He's he's understanding what's at stake. And he's thinking, yeah, right. Not this guy. I think he loses faith that he's the Messiah. I think that Satan, part of what Satan does is make you cynical, make you say, that's you know what? That's a ridiculous path forward that God's gonna do something grand and fantastic. Instead, use your reason. You know, do something more reasonable. If your movement had more money, maybe you could have some legs to outlast this Jesus. Clearly, he's toast. Who's next in line? What are you gonna do after him? So he's he's making a play, I think, to to coup the movement. And he's I think he's using his what he would call as his best judgment. I also think it's possible that he's just pure evil at this point, that he's just pure evil, and it's another play where evil is going to do its best to halt God, and that kind of cosmic battle is at stake. That God and evil are going toe to toe, and evil is going to warp and twist and try to crumble the movement. So maybe it's part Judas, it's definitely part Satan. And we're gonna watch how Jesus handles that. How does he handle the stab in the back, you know? So he consented and watched for an opportune time to hand Jesus over to them when no crowd was present. Verse 7 Then came the day of unleavened bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. So this is the great big moment. You know, it's the Passover lamb being sacrificed at the temple by the high priest. You know, the most number of people are gathered to watch this event. It's the high point that the whole week has been leading to. Jesus sent Peter and John saying, Go and make preparations for us to eat Passover. Well, where do you want us to prepare for it? They asked. And 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? And he will show you a large room upstairs, all unfurnished, and make preparations there. I don't know exactly if they know exactly which room this is, but when I was in Jerusalem, we went to an upper room, and it's you know, it's in the city. It's just uh it's a room on top that's large enough for a group of people to gather and you know, and and have a meal. It's a guest room, it's a guest apartment above a little shop. You know, it would be kind of like if you went downtown Grand Haven and somebody said, you can use this spare room up above Patricia's chocolates, and you'd go up there, and it's on a certain level, it's kind of an ordinary room, right? So they left and found things um just as Jesus had told them, and they prepared the Passover. You know, it is kind of fun that um when Jesus is born, or excuse me, when when God is first starting this movement and saying, I'm gonna incarnate myself, and he impregnates Mary, and Mary and Joseph have to go to Bethlehem. Is there a room for them? There is not. And and I think there's a way of reading this saying, some look at some progress that has been made. Now there's room. There's room for this God, for this Jesus to have his last supper, to make his big play. This is the goodness of humanity, you guys. I am going to give myself to you a meal. I mean, it's on one level, it's as simple as a meal. I love this. What wins the war? It's this moment of eating a meal. That's part of it. You know, the sacrament of grace. We we lose what it means to be human when we send our troops out with meals ready to eat, and we we maneuver and connive, and we and here Jesus, there's room for God to inaugurate a feast, even while the world is crumbling around that room. They left and found things just as Jesus had told them, so they prepared the Passover. When the hour came, here's that, you know, Karl Barth and N. T. Wright, they're interested in time. When is the time? What is the time? This is the fullness of time. So we're going to start hearing more and more and more the drumbeat of time is getting louder. When the hour came, when the time is now, here it is. So when when the hour came, Jesus and his disciples reclined at the table. And why do they recline at the table in the ancient world? I like to sit at the table, thank you very much. Why do they recline? They didn't have chairs. Yeah, these tables are like horseshoe shaped, they're low to the ground, and they're horseshoe shaped so that you know a servant or or one of the women that are feeding them could come in and clear the dishes or offer the next bit from the center, and you'd all sit, in this case, these 12 men would sit around on the outside reclining together. And and there's one person who sits at the the head of the table, and and then the next best sits next to him all the way around to the opposite end of the table where the worst person sits, and we can guess that's Peter. Peter is sitting at the back of the line, and Jesus is right at the front, and John, his beloved disciple, is right next to him, and Judas is in there somewhere in the middle. Nobody knows he should be at the end, right? So they reclined at the table, verse 15, and he said to them, I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. And they're looking at each other like, What? You've eagerly desired to eat this before you suffer, you're gonna suffer? What are you talking about? They don't, they still don't understand what's about to happen. They're sitting there thinking, this Passover feast must be the high point, and then we're gonna head back up to you know Galilee and we're gonna keep doing our ministry. And I don't think anybody that is following Jesus really understands that this is the moment. This is the now, the crisis is at home. But Jesus totally understands it. I have eagerly awaited to eat this meal with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God. I mean, and the overtones to communion. Communion is this foretaste for us. It's our it's our version of a Passover feast, and it's this foretaste of of Christ having this meal in the kingdom of God. After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, Take this and divide it among you. Who's the cup for? It's for everyone at the table. Does Judas drink from this cup? Yeah, the betrayer is at the table. Does Peter, who will soon deny Jesus, does he get the cup? Yeah, the denier is at the table. It's so heart-wrenchingly beautiful that the church of Jesus Christ is made up of sinners and saints alike, and that in all the ways we will betray each other, and all the ways that we will deny each other, and all the ways that we will betray God, and all the ways that we will deny God, yet we gather at the table of mercy and Christ feeds us. It's really beautiful. It's why the table has to be open. There's so many Christians closing off the table right now. If you're gay, you can't come to this feast because you are living in sin. No, you can come if you're gay, but you're celibate. But if you're practicing gay, you can't come because you're living in sin. And until you are cleansed of your sin, then you can come to the table. And it's like, read the friggin' Bible, you guys. Just read the words. The betrayer and the denier are at the meal. And the we eat the meal to our death if we eat the meal where we believe we're pure before we eat the meal. We eat it to our death if we think that we're you have to be perfect before you come to this table. No, come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. You know? The meal is for those of us who are limping. The meal is for those of us who are sinners. The meal is for those of us who need welcome. It has to be. That's the magic of this meal. Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you, I will not drink it again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And some people say Jesus here is taking a Nazirite vow. That's possible. He he takes some of the cup and he gives it to them. And he and he's basically saying, I'm not going to drink wine anymore. And part of that is uh if it's a Nazirite vow, part of the Nazirite vow uh is you don't drink alcohol, but you also don't touch dead bodies and you don't cut your hair because your hair still grows after you die. And the Nazirite vow is this like wink at the God who still has energy coursing through the veins of dead things. Uh so the Nazirite vow is a little bit connected to resurrection. And so it makes sense that Jesus would say, you know what, I'm gonna take a Nazirite vow here. You know, I'm I'm not gonna go into this drunk. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna face my beatings and have anybody be able to say, Yeah, it didn't hurt because the dude was blackout drunk. Instead, he's gonna feel death to its fullness with the faith that God brings dead things back to life. That even when things are dead, dead, the way evil thinks, it can kill the physical body. God's spirit courses through the veins of that which is dead and can even cause fingernails and hair to grow on dead people after they die. Right? That God He's dedicating his body to. 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, which is poured out for you. Let's pause there and talk about these phrases. In our tradition we call these words the words of institution. I try to say these words as exactly as I can at every communion table about the the bread being broken, that this is my body broken for you. What does that mean? What does it mean that the broken body of Christ is for me? I think about when we did the the carpet in our sanctuary. For those of you listening online, you you don't know that we recently did new carpet in our sanctuary. And and we we needed help moving our pews. They were so heavy. And and these guys just did that for us. Uh now we hired them, they were movers, but they lifted the heavy thing that we can't lift for us. They did that for us. And that was a gift. When Jesus hands the broken bread to the people, says, This is my body broken for you. What he's saying is, I'm doing something for you. I'm doing something heavy, I'm doing something hard, and it's for you. It's for your benefit. And many are the benefits of Christ's activity. But one of the benefits of his broken body is that your body won't be broken in the same way as his, that you won't experience death in the same way that he experiences death. And you say, Well, what about his followers? They all die a kind of martyr's death. No, no, no. I'm talking about death itself. The experience of hell, the experience of total uh aloneness and total darkness devoid of God's presence.

SPEAKER_02 43:18

Jesus goes there. So that you don't have to.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

And I really believe that the death we experience will be different than the death Jesus experiences. I think that when Jesus dies, he descends to a place that is lower than I will go. And I don't know what that means. I mean, that's very mysterious. But I I believe that Jesus descends to the dead on a level that is pretty horrifying. He experiences the Full absence of God. And he will never allow you and I to experience the full absence of God. Because when we die, we remember him. When we die, we are still with him. When we die and get lost down into the caverns of wherever it is he went, he says, Well, I'm the good shepherd, and I know exactly where those lost sheep are and goes and gets us. And doesn't abandon us and he doesn't let us go. When he says, This body is broken for you, he's talking about death. He's also talking about uh the Passover lamb, right? The Passover lamb is a sign of what? The liberation of God's people. That death, they smear the blood of the lamb on their doorposts, and then what happens with death? Death passes by. The angel of death passes by, and it doesn't impact these slaves in Egypt in the same way. And they're liberated from the moment of horror, and they're freed. Now they have to go into the wilderness and they've got their own version of scary stuff coming up ahead in their life. But the angel of death does not take their eldest son from them. Right? And there's something like that going on here that Jesus is saying, I'm gonna experience something. Go ahead and schmear me on the doorpost of your heart, and you're gonna be okay when the angel of death comes knocking. So he's talking about death. He's also talking about sin and forgiveness of sin. The entire sacrificial system in the Old Testament is about getting right with God. And how do you get right with God if you have sinned against God? You go to the temple and you offer sacrifices. And if you offer the proper sacrifices, then you become right with God. God is appeased by the death and the odor and the aroma and the thing, and you're good now. And God blesses you. And he's doing that for us. Hebrews says what he's doing in his death is a once-for-all sacrifice for all of humanity. The sacrificial system is meaningless after the death of Jesus because he is fulfilling it. Now it's not meaningless, that's the wrong word. It's meaningful because it showed us a certain way of viewing God, but Jesus fulfills that. And this once-for-all sacrifice means we don't need the temple anymore. The temple is Christ's own body where that sacrifice is happening. He's the great high priest himself, and he's the prophet in the wilderness like John the Baptist, all in one, you know. And he's the king like David, all in one. He's the prophet and the priest and the king, all wrapped up together in one, fulfilling everything that Scripture has promised about who God is and how God is going to save God's people and save the world. And so when he hands them the cup and he says, This cup is the new covenant established in my blood. It's the New Testament. I mean, this is why we have an Old Testament and a New Testament, or a First Testament and a fulfilling testament. That's one way to view it. There's a first testament, and this is who God is, and God's promises are good and beautiful, and there's so much goodness we can learn from reading the first testament or the Old Testament. It's rich with wonderful wisdom. It also exposes a lot of the inadequacies of humanity. And what Christ is doing here in this fulfilling testament or this new testament is showing us the new way. And the new way is through him. And it's his death on the cross and his rising from the grave which inaugurate all the newness, the new age, the new world, the new creation, the new covenant, the new testament, the new everything we can hope for. And his new reality is a more full reality, a more physical and spiritually rich reality than what was before. Right. That's right. Yeah. And if you look at our communion liturgy, you know, the first thing we say in the great communion prayer is lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord. And what does that mean? It's almost like you're asking for your heart to step onto an elevator and go up to the heights of heaven, where where there is this banquet feast that is more real than any feast you could experience here down here. Yeah, to point us to the table. Right. Yep. So there's so much here about Jesus, he's he's doing the Passover meal with his disciples, and he's adding these layers of depth. And I'm sure they're sitting there thinking, like, what are we talking about? When we eat this bread, we remember you. When we drink this cup, it's a new covenant. What are you talking about, Jesus? What an odd meal. And yet, through the lens of hindsight, they're like, Holy cow! What he was doing there is what he did. And so then they lift up this meal. The agape feast becomes the first, well, that and baptism become the first two sacraments of the church. As the church is forming itself on the other side of the resurrection, they're saying, This meal, this agape meal, we break bread. Well, first we give thanks, right? We thank God for bread. And then we break it and we remember that Jesus broke his own body for us. Then we pour out wine and we remember the blood that he shed and the new covenant that he promises, and it's all fulfilled in him, and we and we participate in this feast of love. You know that, and then we baptize people with water to say, look, you're new, you're a new creation, you're washed clean, but you're also crossing a dead sea into a liberated state, you're crossing a river into a promised land, you're crossing the water of death and entering and rising up into a kind of new life. And so baptism and the Lord's Supper become the sacraments of the church. And I think it's beautiful. I think that's the one thing that the church got right is creating these two sacraments. And it just breaks my heart when our world doesn't care about sacraments. I think there's so much richness in sacramental theology. You know, when we close off our table and we make it about who you are before you you eat, instead of seeing it's it's what the meal itself does to you, this holy meal that actually enriches your life. You have to experience the meal to start to understand the broken body and the shed blood. You gotta taste it and see that it's real, to know that the promises are real, you know, and same thing with baptism. It's like do it early, do it ought, you know. This is for everyone. It really is. That's right. Yeah, and you have every right to say, I'm not ready, I don't want to come forward and eat yet. That's fine, you know? And the same thing with baptism. There's more and more parents who are like, I don't want to baptize my kids and force that upon them. And and I kind of, my Catholic heart is like, no, baptize your kids. This is the way the church has always done it. It's the new circumcision, it's God's promise for that child. And that child is not in control about whether or not God loves them, God loves them, period. Whoever they become, wherever they go, this is a sacrament of grace. And it becomes less about grace when you do it. If you're becoming a believer, then it's about your decision. Well, I made a decision to come to the table so I get the feast, or I made a decision to follow Jesus so I get baptized. Or God just floods God's own presence into your life, and it's grace, baby. It's all grace. I like the grace. That's right. Yeah. That's that's exactly right. You become a part of something. It's your it's your birthday, an entryway into the church. You're a part of this community. Yeah. 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. Verse 21. But the hand of him who is going to betray me is with mine on the table. The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed, but woe to that man who betrays him. Whoa. I mean, can you imagine how haunting it's like, wait, I thought we were talking about something fantastic, and all of a sudden Jesus is like, The hand of the one who will betray me is on the table. One of us? No, not me. Who? Who's gonna stab you in the back? The Son of Man, verse 22, the Son of Man will go as it has been decreed, but woe to that man who betrays him. There's a pure evil at the table, and woe to that man. They began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this. And I imagine that just sours the mood. And all of a sudden, everything that this, you know, we talk about that's I have such a high view of the table. It's so amazing. And like a second later, at the Last Supper, it just descends into anarchy and chaos and like finger pointing and accusations, and that's life. That is exactly how it goes. I have this high view that at this table for a moment, for a sliver of reality. Everybody in this church loves everybody in this church. And I know that by the time you get back to your seat, you and I, we've got grievances again, or we've got a wound that we gotta pick at and scratch a little, you know, a scab that just we can't stop itching, or a conflict that is there. By the time you're back in fellowship, it's like, oh, I don't want to sit by that person. You know, it just it's life. This is what it means to be incredibly idealistic and have a holy meal, and then also, bam, back to reality. And there's no shame in that. There's no shame. We don't need to be a perfect church. We just need to be a church that once in a while gathers uh, you know, in the name of God's grace. And uh, even even Christ's own church, even his Last Supper, has this happening. You know, the betrayer is there. They began to question among themselves which of them it might be who would do this. We'll finish this thought. A dispute also arose among them. Oh, another dispute too, as to which of them was considered to be greatest. Jesus said to them, The kings of the Gentiles lorded 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 like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one 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 one on me, so that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. What a dangerous thing to tell these disciples that they sit on thrones while they're debating amongst each other who which of us is the greatest. And the church has failed to interpret this throughout history. They really have. We stink at this. It's kind of the reason we close off the table to some people, we forget the whole middle section where Jesus is saying the least are the greatest. Bring the sinners forward, bring the children forward, bring the the weak minded forward, bring those riddled with anxiety to the front of the line, they are the greatest and the first to inherit.

SPEAKER_02 57:39

And if they're able to do that, then they'll be like rulers who sit and rule in the right kind of way.

SPEAKER_00 57:50

You cannot interpret the um you sit on thrones line in you cannot interpret those thrones as the same thrones that he just debunked, right? The beginning of the paragraph, he says, Kings of the Gentiles lord it over them. What does that mean? That kings, Gentiles, again, non-Jewish people, he's talking about Caesar Augustus, or he's talking about you know, King Henry the Eighth. Kings lord over their people, which means what? They're above, the people are below. They have power over the people, they have authority over the people. Jesus says the opposite is true. I'm not here to lord it over you, I'm here to serve you. Now, because you've been exposed to the servant model of leadership, I'm gonna put you on a pedestal. Now, are they put back on the pedestal in order to be like Caesar Augustus? No, they're put on a pedestal because they have learned how to be servants. Servant leadership. That's what he's offering. The only reason they're have any authority to judge is because they've seen the model of servanthood, right? That's the only reason. They've been exposed to the king of the universe who is the lowest of below. He's spit on and he's mocked and he's made fun of, and he dies a thief's death. And they have the capacity to look at that horrifying, grotesque thief and say, Man, look at that beauty. Which means, as judge, they'll be able to look at that person walking around all scratched up and wounded and say, look at what beauty. But we misinterpret that. It's like we pluck these verses and we uh there's you know, there's apostolic church churches on the globe right now that are looking to be in line with the apostolic tradition, so they can sit on their shiny gold thrones and be in charge of the church, anointed by God's Spirit to be rulers and judges. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're missing the entire story, and you're plucking out the one thing that Jesus said it's not supposed to be. All right. So follow Jesus, not the phrase that makes you a king, unless you want to be a king like Jesus. He's the one true king. We'll pick up the story next week with Simon. And uh and so we'll stop there at verse 30. Grace to you and peace.