THURSDAY: THE COMMUNITY

My name is Mark. I'm one of the TLC pastors. I want to welcome all of you, those of you here live in this room, those of you joining us on our live stream. We are so glad that you are with us today. Seven Days is our series in the final week of Jesus. And I just want to say if you are joining us for the very first time, either live or on our live stream, we are especially grateful for that and hope that you find this meaningful.

And also want to say if you have missed a couple weekends during the series, you can always catch up by going to our website, TLC.org. You can watch any and all of these sermons and more anytime you want. Always for free for as long as there's an Internet. And so I encourage you to do that.

But so far we have seen that on Sunday, Jesus rides into Jerusalem very much like a figure named Judas Maccabeus, a revolutionary hero 200 years before him. And then on Monday, he condemns the temple leadership, calls them a den of thieves, which doesn't really endear himself to them. And so Tuesday when he returns, they're on the attack. They try to bait him into controversial arguments that will polarize, perhaps split the crowds, some will be against them. But it backfires because every time he answers, he impresses the crowds all the more and his favor rises.

Wednesday, Judas cuts a deal with the high priests, looks for an opportunity to betray Jesus, which brings us to Thursday. What will happen with Jesus and His community of followers? Remember, Jesus has a price on His head. And so He's staying in a safe house in Bethany, which is about two miles to the east on the other side of the Mount of Olives. But when the sun sets on Thursday, it will be time for the Passover celebration, which must be observed in Jerusalem.

And so imagine there are all these pilgrims by conservative estimates, 200,000 people who are either staying in Jerusalem or just outside Jerusalem. They are, you know, they're couch surfing, they're camping, they're Airbn being, and they are all going to pack into the city once the sun sets. Mark mentions the Passover four times in the first five verses that we're going to see. We're going to be in Mark 14:12–26. But just in the first five verses, he's going to mention it four times, which should get our attention. It's like a neon sign saying, "It's about the Passover."

Like you may recall, when Bill Clinton ran for president the first time in their campaign headquarters, they had a sign that says, "It's about the economy, stupid." So he just kept talking about the economy over and over again. Well, Mark's a little bit more polite, but he's saying, "It's about the Passover and what Jesus will do with it." Because at this meal, Jesus is going to roll back the curtain, showing us what God has been doing in Israel's past, what He was doing in the current day, what He would do in short order, and what He will be doing through this day and all the way to the last day.

When God's plan is fulfilled and He creates a family, a community, a kingdom of His own. And the great news, if you've never heard it before, is that you're invited. You're more than welcome because God loves you and wants you to be part of His family. We're going to see those themes coming out in this meal.

I have to say from the very top, it's really impossible to capture the experience of a memorable meal. I mean, think back to a meal that comes to mind and there's just something about the experience. I think back to dinner that Laura and I had in Siena, Italy, where we had a six-course meal. And this was like 25 years ago, but I still remember it to this day. It was just so awesome.

You may recall my friend Adrian talking about when he went to the French Laundry up in the northern part of the state, a three-star Michelin restaurant. And when Adrian talks about it, it's like a mystical experience. It's just like...Adrian, do you think you could give us like a three-point outline and maybe an application kind of helping us to get into that meal? In 30 minutes? No. He says, "Basically, you just have to go there. You just have to experience it." And by the way, why is it when it's a restaurant, it's Michelin-starred, but if you go down the street and buy tires, they're Michelin's? It's the same company.

But anyway, I digress. But this is a special meal, and we are going to try to enter into it today as best we can within the limitations of a setting like this. And if you didn't all the way...by the way, get the communion elements on your way in, you're going to need those. And at home, if you didn't get a chance to prepare, you're going to want to do that right now. Get the juice and bread so that you'll be ready when we do...when we observe the supper together.

I need to give credit to a brilliant guy named Tim Mackey. You may have heard of him. He started the Bible project. He's a seminary professor. He is a brilliant communicator. Got a truckload of ideas from Tim. So I just want to acknowledge that and say thank you very much, Tim.

Now, before we begin, let's prepare our hearts in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your presence with us here by Your Spirit. And I pray that You would meet and minister to us today through Your Word and through our Lord's Supper. We look forward to what You have prepared for us. We pray this in the name of Your Son, Jesus, and all God's people said, Amen.

Now, grab those message notes as simple as they are. Like I said, we're going to be in Mark 14:12–26. I'm going to start with the first several verses. So please follow along, either in your notes or on screen or in your Bible as I do. But starting at verse 12, it says, "On the first day of the festival of unleavened bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus' disciples asked Him, 'Where do You want us to go and make preparations for You to eat the Passover?'"

So He sent two of His disciples," and Luke tells us that it's two of His closest ones, Peter and John, "telling them, 'Go into the city and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow Him.' Say to the owner of the house He enters, the teacher asks, 'Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.'" I mean, right out of the gate, it sounds like a spy movie, right? Jesus has like this special ops plan in place just so they can observe the Passover.

And I love what's like, you know, follow the guy with the jar to the house and all this kind of stuff. And remember that, you know, He's a wanted man. This is dangerous for Him to enter the city. But it also shows us that Jesus is in complete control. Nothing's taking Him by surprise. And the same is true with the events in our own lives. Jesus is in control even when we feel like the wheels are just falling off or full of anxiety or uncertainty. He's in control.

And I love this plan. It's just brilliant because normally women were tasked with carrying water in their culture, but some male slaves would as well. So when they meet up with this guy, he's enough of an outlier to be identifiable, but not so much of an outlier to raise suspicion. And then I imagine, you know, they follow Him and they hear Him, you know, they go and they find this guy, the owner of the house, and it's like, "Say the teacher needs his room," and it's not even...he's the teacher. That's like his code name.

So Peter and John are like, "Wow, did you know that Jesus had secret agents? No, I didn't know. Who are these guys?" And they get into this room and it's big and it's well furnished and they're like, "Wow, Jesus is connected. He knows how to roll." And then verse 17 says, "When evening came, Jesus arrived with the twelve." Imagine Jesus arriving knowing that in less than 24 hours, He will be dead hanging on a cross. And yet He's there with His disciples, longing to observe this Passover with them.

But can you imagine the weight that's on His shoulders and upon His heart, knowing what is before Him? And, you know, it doesn't really do justice, but there's a scene in "The Lord of the Rings," the return of the King that reminds me of this because in "The Return of the Kings," right before the last climactic battle, there's a scene with Gandalf and Peregrin Took. And there on the balcony of this castle, they're looking across this expansive valley and on the other side, Mount Doom is erupting and it's spewing lava up into the sky and the glow of that lava is the only light under just this black sky. The battle awaits.

And that's when Peregrin gulps and he says to Gandalf, "Is it time?" Gandalf says, "Yes, it's the deep breath before the plunge." That's what this moment is in that upper room now, right now. It's the deep breath before the plunge because the powers of men and hell have gathered themselves up. They are coiled and ready to strike. But first, this last supper.

We don't know exactly how they celebrated Passover because in the Passover meal, the Seder, it's evolved over many centuries and it was likely a little bit simpler back then. In Exodus, there are three ingredients mentioned, kind of bitter herbs, unleavened bread, and roast lamb. And at any rate, whatever they did, they are commemorating the most...the kind of the defining moment in the history of their people when God liberated them from their slavery in Egypt.

And prior to doing that in Exodus 6:6–7, God makes four promises about what's about to happen and He says this, "I will bring you out from under the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm. I will take you as my people." Four promises, four cups at the Seder, each representing one of those promises. And so Jesus would be presiding over this meal and He would begin by blessing the first cup, saying, "Baruch atah arnaai Eluhenu melech ha'alam borei prihagafen." Let's say this in English. Say it with me, "Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, creator of the fruit of the vine." And then they would partake as they always had.

Shortly after that, they would dip the karpas. And I'm going to ask for a volunteer right now. And so is anyone brave enough to come and help me dip the karpas as part of this little...boy, don't all jump at once here. Come on, who is brave enough? Young lady over here. Come on down. Make your way up here. Let's welcome her as she comes here. Thank you. You are like the bravest person in this whole room right now. And you just felt bad for me, huh? Oh, would you introduce yourself? Hi, Jazzy.

Well, Jazzy, do you know what you're in for? Okay. Well, this is going to be fun. So the karpas here is celery. And celery is reminiscent of hyssop branches because on the night of the Passover, a lamb would be sacrificed. They were going to eat that for dinner, but they would have some of the blood and they would dip the hyssop branches in the blood and they used it like a paintbrush to paint the doorposts and the top that's the lintel and down the other side. Okay. And so this is a reminder of the hyssop that they used for that.

So I'm going to invite you to take a piece of parsley. Go ahead. Okay. Now we got to dip it, right? You're the only one that gets it. So you can take however much you want. Okay. Dip it in that. Okay. Now, go ahead. Yeah, you eat it now. You're not baptizing it. You're going to eat it. Yeah. Go ahead. There you go. It's salty. It's bitter and salty. And so there's a lot of bitter herbs here because life under the Egyptians was bitter. So that's the reminder. But the salt is a reminder of the tears that the children of Israel shed and it's also a reminder of the Red Sea that they passed through. Kind of cool, huh? Let's thank Jazzy for her great courage. You can find your seat.

You see on that night in Egypt, it was a night of terrible judgment for Pharaoh and the Egyptians because years earlier, Pharaoh had ordered that all of the firstborn sons of Israel were to be executed, killed, thrown into the Nile River. And now that was coming back on him and his people. But all those who took refuge under the blood on the doorposts of their homes were spared. They were spared. And imagine if you were told to do that, it's not like they understood how it all worked, right? How somehow this blood was going to cause the destroyer, Scripture says, to pass by. But it did. And so they just simply trusted. That's all they knew, was just to trust in the fact that there was something about this blood that would save them.

Jesus and His disciples would be talking about all of this during this meal, reliving their people's past because each component of this meal is this physical sensory reminder of real events. And then at some point they would also dip their bread in a compote of fruit and wine, honey, nuts. It's called haroset. And so I need another volunteer to come help and tell us about...yes, come on down here, another brave young woman coming up here. The guys are just like, "Stay and put today." All right. I'm going to... Hello, hello. I'm going to have you come over on this side for our people at home so they can see you better. Okay. So would you introduce yourself? My name is Teresa.

Hi, Teresa. I'm Mark. Nice to meet you in kind of strange circumstance, huh? Very. You didn't expect this when you came here today, did you? No. Okay. So this is a haroset. And trust me, it's made out of the things I said, fruit and nuts and honey and stuff like that. So what I'm going to ask you to do is take a piece of the matzah bread there. Okay. And describe the color. I think people can probably see this, but it's...what color is that? Kind of brown. Kind of brown, yes. Okay. And then go ahead and dip the bread in it. And what's the consistency? They could almost look like there's rice or something. It's kind of thick. That's the nuts. That's okay. You don't have a nut allergy, do you? Okay. Good thing. All right. So go ahead and try that.

Sweet. Sweet, yeah. Yeah. Much better tasting than...what's that? It's like sweet with a little bit of spice. Oh, you're getting some little tasting notes. That's awesome. This is symbolic of mortar. Mortar that was used to make bricks for Pharaoh. And so the haroset is again another reminder. Let's thank her for being so brave and thank you so much. And by the way, if you feel left out, you can go to our Seder and experience all this and much more. This is kind of a little mini version of that.

But now taking in what just happened there with the dipping into the bowl, let's pick up the story at verse 18. We're back in that upper room. "While they were eating at the table...at the table eating, He," Jesus said, "truly I tell you, one of you will betray Me, one who is eating with Me." They were saddened. And one by one they said to Him, "Surely, you don't mean Me. It is one of the twelve," He replied, "one who dips bread into the bowl with Me." Now according to John's gospel, this is when Judas leaves and goes out into the night. The disciples don't know what he's up to, but Jesus does.

And so back here in Mark, He says, "With great sadness, the Son of Man will go just as it is written about Him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man." "It would be better for Him if He had not been born." I don't think He says that with any bitterness. I think He says it with great sadness over the fate of Judas. Now the mood of the room had to have kind of taken a bit of a dive, wouldn't you think? They're sad, confused, uncertain. And that's when Jesus throws them an even bigger curveball.

He says while they were eating, Jesus took bread. And when He had given thanks saying, "Baruch atah adonai Elohenu melech ha'alam hamotze lechhem min ha'retz." Or as we'll say here today, "Blessed are you, our Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings forth bread from the earth." Now I'm going to invite you to take the bread that you have with you. Hold on to that. Those of you at home, get your bread ready. And by the way, there's a reason why that bread is flat, unleavened. Because when you're making bread and you add yeast to it, what happens? It rises. Does it rise in like three seconds? No. It takes time. But they didn't have time. They had to get out quickly because Pharaoh was going to change his mind.

At first he's like, "Get out of here." But they pack up. They don't have time to prepare a nice loaf. And so no yeast in the bread. And of course this commemorates that. And it says after giving thanks, Jesus broke it, gave it to His disciples saying, "Take it. This is my body." Now hold up. Many of you have heard those words hundreds of times, so many times that it's lost its punch. But for the disciples, they've never heard this before. That's not what they expected Him to say. They expected to hear Him say, "This is the bread of our affliction, our affliction in Egypt and in the wilderness." But Jesus says, "This is my body." What?

As if to say, "This is the bread of my affliction." So take it. Receive it, He says. And so let's receive it together. Now again, put yourself in that room. You've celebrated this Passover dinner every year for as long as you can remember, since you were a young child. None of it has been quite like this. Jesus is taking it and reinterpreting these elements that had been observed for centuries because He is going to tell them what it's always been about.

One of the details I find interesting is that in all four of the gospels, you will never hear mention of the Lamb that would have been on the menu. And I think it would have been weird to like take out the main course. So I do think they actually had Lamb for supper. But the gospel writers seem to skip over it to make a point which is Jesus is the Lamb. He's the Lamb and it will be His blood that will cause judgment and death to pass over. And it will be through His sacrifice that they will be truly free, that we will be truly free.

Because would you agree? You know, you can be released from confinement or from some sort of, you know, impingement on your freedom, but that doesn't make you free on the inside, does it? And we all know that there are things that can enslave us that only Jesus can release us from. Amen to that. And so as the Apostle Paul says along these same lines, this same moment, he says, "In the same way after supper, Jesus took the cup." And so now I invite you to do the same, have your cup ready.

But this is the cup that's after supper. This is the third cup, the cup of redemption, the promise that says, "I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and mighty acts of judgment." Now back in Exodus, that's referring to God's decisive action when He wages war against Pharaoh, but in the context of the night before His crucifixion. I can't help but imagine a different kind of outstretched arm, an outstretched arm, the arms of Jesus on the cross that would bring the ultimate redemption while He receives a mighty act of judgment.

Picking up at verse 23, "Then He took a cup, and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, and they all drank from it. This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many," He said to them. Blood of Jesus shed for us. Let's partake together. And now let's offer thanks. "Father, we thank You for the body of Jesus given for us, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and for His blood, sealing the new covenant between You and us. We pray this in our Savior's name, Jesus, and all His people said, 'Amen.'

Now, here's the big idea. Think of all of these sacrifices over the course of centuries, all of these Passover meals and all of these lambs. What was the point of that? What was God doing by having this repeated over and over and over again and just kind of, you know, baked into their consciousness and their memory and their identity? He did it to foreshadow what Jesus would fulfill. It all points to Jesus and what God is doing in and through Him.

In fact, you could sum up the Passover this way. If you want to write something down in your notes, got a few fillings for you today, you could sum up the Passover like this. Through the Lamb, God rescues the Israelites from slavery to Pharaoh. That's the Passover in just a few words. And that's where it started for the nation, for the people of Israel. But God's plan has always been to go beyond just the borders of the people to actually wrap His arms around the entire world because God has always wanted to gather everyone from every nation, every tribe, every tongue.

And so at the Passover, right before going to the cross, the message Jesus is trying to get through to us is that through Jesus, God rescues the world from slavery to sin and death. God is building a kingdom and a community that is so inclusive, so expansive, so welcoming to any and all who would say, "Yes, I want to be part of that." And isn't that exactly what we need? I mean, we look around in our world, whether it's wars or the latest school shooting, we live in a broken world, don't we? And we have broken communities, and we have broken relationships, and we know even inside ourselves there is brokenness.

But you know what? We don't have a broken God. We don't have a broken Savior. Yes, He died on that cross, but He didn't stay dead, did He? This is huge. This is really where the rubber meets the road because if Jesus was still dead, if He was still in the ground, He's of no use to us. What good is a dead Savior? Yeah, He said some nice things, but what about now? But as we're going to celebrate in two weeks, Christ is risen. Amen? He is risen, which means that He is going to finish what He started. He's going to fulfill His promises.

And there's one here right near the very end of this meal which says at verse 25, "So before leaving the meal," excuse me, Jesus concluded, "Truly I tell you, I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God." And please don't imagine some, you know, cloudy place with harps and fat little babies with wings, okay? That's not the picture of what He's talking about. That is not how the Bible actually ends.

The Bible ends with heaven coming to earth, with new creation, a creation like this one but so much better and perfect where God will dwell with us because that's always been His desire. Since the very beginning, in the back in the garden when the first couple fell, God didn't just scrap that desire and say, "You know, I think I'll just come up with something different." No, I will fulfill it through my Son, through God incarnate so that the day will come when we will be gathered to our God and we will dwell with Him. And that's going on even now, not in its fullness, but it's been set in motion since the time we've read about today.

And so let me just leave you with this question. Many of you have probably addressed it in some way or another, but let me just ask in the event that perhaps there's someone here, you're just here for the very first time or you've been coming for a while but you wouldn't call yourself a Christian or the same could be said, maybe some of you watching here now or you're watching this on the Internet at some point in the future. Let me ask you this question based on everything that we've seen in these last few moments.

Ask yourself, do you want to remain in Egypt, enslaved, burdened, or do you want to be part of the kingdom, responding to His love, His grace, to be counted among His people, His community? Because essentially that's kind of what it comes down to. Do you want to stay in Egypt or do I want to be a citizen of the kingdom? Now most of you have answered that question one way or another. You've received Christ, so to speak, into your heart and your life and maybe you did it even more than once. I know at least every time I went to camp I would receive Jesus just to make sure because at the time there wasn't a whole lot of evidence that I was actually saved. So that's okay.

But for those of you, you never have and yet right now you sense Jesus is actually calling you to follow Him, something tugging on your heart. And if that's you, I want to give you an opportunity to respond because that's why you're here today. And so let's go to the Lord in prayer and let's first of all begin with a gratitude, Lord, because everything we need, truly need, you have given us in Jesus. You have given us freedom. You have given us forgiveness. You give us a family and a future, Lord, now and forever.

And if there's anyone within the sound of my voice who wants to be included in that, wants to respond to God's grace and His love, then you can just repeat after me in your heart just silently by saying, "Jesus, I admit my need for You. I have tried to do life my way and it led me down paths I wish I'd never taken. But I believe You died to set things right, so I take shelter in You and under the power of Your shed blood on the cross. I gratefully receive Your forgiveness and now help me follow You from this day forward. Make me the person You created me to be." And Lord, we pray all these things in the name of Jesus and all His people said, "Amen, amen."