Have you ever been to a family gathering where some member of the family brings out their famous dish? The dish this person is known for, the dish which is the favorite of the family, that everybody looks forward to it every year whenever it's brought out, or every time this dish is brought out. And you go, and you taste it. And something's different. And you go up to the relative, whoever prepared it, What did you do to this dish? Now, if it's something different that tastes bad, you're like, what did you do to this dish? But if it's better, you're like, what did you do to this dish? This somehow tastes better, not as I remember it, not in a bad way, it's just different. It looks the same, but there's something different about it, something new about this dish. Well, in our passage this evening, we have a familiar meal. Jesus is going to celebrate the Passover meal with his disciples, and it's going to be the same old Passover meal in many ways, but there's going to be something different about it. And that difference is Jesus himself. It tastes different. It tastes better somehow. It was good before, but now it's so much better because Jesus is the meal. Because the key to understanding what's going on here, in fact, the key to understanding Jesus' own death that's about to happen is understanding this meal his disciples will celebrate with him is a Passover meal. Now, if you've been coming to the morning service, you know we spend a lot of time talking about Passover, talking about all the events leading up to it, and talking about all the events that follow it. But here we have what Passover is all about. Because on the first day of unleavened bread, that is the first day of this week-long festival that makes up the Passover celebration, the disciples ask him, assuming that Jesus is going to celebrate a Passover meal, he is a good Jew after all, and they're at Jerusalem, that's probably one of the primary reasons, at least the disciples think, they've come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, and they ask him, where should we go to prepare the Passover meal? If you remember what the Passover was, which those of you at the morning service certainly, I hope, do, the Passover was about remembering the events of the exodus, where God rescued his people out of bondage in Egypt, brought them out to himself at Mount Sinai. And as he did this, as he brought them out of Egypt, as they're getting ready to go, he tells them to stop and prepare a meal. That is the Passover meal, to take a lamb and sacrifice that lamb and to take the blood of that lamb and smear it on the doorposts. Because that night, the destroyer would pass through and would smite the firstborn of the Egyptians, but would any house that had the blood of the lamb over it, it would pass over them. And as they are there with the lamb, they're to eat this meal in their house, this Passover meal. Eat the lamb which was slain to preserve them. And it was in this event that God constituted the people of Israel as a nation. He rescues them from slaves being subservient to the Egyptians and brings them out to freedom. And this meal is their victory meal, their celebration meal. And now Jesus is going to celebrate the Passover with them, with his disciples, because the next day is going to be an exodus. the exodus that Exodus pointed towards, a new exodus. He tells his disciples to go into Jerusalem and directs them to a certain man. Other parallel passages say they're supposed to look for a man who's carrying a jar of water on his head. Now, we don't know what's supposed to happen, but they come up to him and say, yes, Jesus has a reservation for 13, please. You know, up in the upper room, private room, we were requested. You know, we don't know whether this was something Jesus had previously arranged with this certain man, or this was like the person with the donkeys, where they come up and say, hey, the teacher has need of this, and this person, because the Holy Spirit is at work in them, jumps to provide for their Savior. We don't know which it is, but Jesus has plans to celebrate the Passover. And so they come to this room, the disciples prepare the Passover, and they come to this room to eat. Now, if you know, in the Old Covenant, in Exodus, who was Passover celebrated with? It was celebrated with your family, in your household. It's unclear whether that was always practiced as much in the time of Jesus, because If you wanted to celebrate Passover, you had to make the journey to Jerusalem. Because at that time, if you wanted to sacrifice a Passover lamb, you didn't do it on your own anymore. All sacrifices had to be done at the temple. So you had to come to Jerusalem to sacrifice your lamb at the temple if you wanted to celebrate Passover in the most proper way. And so sometimes bigger units might celebrate the Passover. If you weren't without your family, you might join with other pilgrims who were coming to Jerusalem. But normally it would have been celebrated as a family. And here Jesus gathers his family, not his mother, not his siblings, but he gathers his new family that he is creating, the family he will create by his death, the church. And here Jesus, as he gathers his family, takes the position of the head, of the family. He is the one who's going to take the role of distributing the meal, of praying the prayer of blessing on the meal, and distributing the meal to his disciples. He's going to be the one who answers the questions that would normally be asked during a family Passover meal. Because remember, normally in first century Passover celebrations, there was questions that children in the family are supposed to ask. Why is this night different from all other nights? or which comes from the command in the Exodus that you are to, when your child asks about what's the meaning of this, the father is supposed to explain it to his children. And so Jesus is going to answer the questions. What is the purpose of this? He's going to explain the meaning of the different elements of the meal, but he's going to do it in a different way. He's not going to explain them in terms of what happened back in Egypt. He's going to explain what this meal means in terms of what's going to happen tomorrow. Take, eat. This bread is not the lamb that was slain a thousand years ago. This is my body. Taking the cup, drink of it, all of you, for this cup is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Now, the centerpiece of any Passover meal would have been what? A lamb, right? That's the centerpiece of the Passover meal. What is conspicuously absent in all the descriptions here in Matthew and all the accounts? There's no mention of a lamb, right? Now, there might very well have been a lamb. We do not know, right? Depending on when you decide, dating which night actually the celebration happened, It's not quite sure, but the centerpiece would normally have been a lamb. And whether it was a lamb or not, we don't know. But the disciples don't call any attention to it for one simple reason. The reason is that Jesus is presenting himself as the lamb. He is presenting himself as the meaning, the centerpiece of this Passover celebration. He is, as John the Baptist said when he saw Jesus coming, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And as the Apostle Paul will talk about looking back on this event, he will say, cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, for you really are unleavened for Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed. What is this? This is my body. which is given for you. In the original Passover, the blood of the lamb would have been smeared on the doorposts so the destroyer would pass over them. Now it will be the blood of the Lamb of God which will mark his people. As the Apostle Peter says, we have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. By associating his body and blood with the bread and wine of this normal Passover celebration, you would have bread and wine. In fact, I think there's supposed to be four different cups of wine you would have had during a first century Passover celebration. By associating his body and blood with these normal elements, he is showing them that his death is going to be a new exodus. He tells them that to eat and drink of it, telling them that His death is going to be for their benefit. Just as when you eat and drink, it is for your benefit, right? It's for your good. So His death will be for the good of His disciples. One part I think we always kind of rush over when we talk about the Passover celebration, as Jesus institutes it, is it says He took bread. and after blessing it. He took the cup and He gave thanks. It is because of the blessing of Christ on these elements that they are of any benefit. It's the prayer of Christ that makes these represent Himself. It's all Jesus' action. And so, you know, when I celebrate the Lord's Supper, I tend to say, Jesus says, Because what's important is not what I say about the bread and the wine. It's not what I say about what we're remembering here. It's not what I say about Jesus' death and what it's going to accomplish. It's what Jesus says about it. His blessing is what makes this mean anything at all. Jesus is going to offer his blood, fulfilling something very old. It's the fulfilling of what Passover pointed to. Jesus says that this cup is the blood of the covenant. Now, if you were here in the morning when we celebrated the Lord's Supper, I read a section from the book of Exodus, which I'm going to read again now because Jesus is, when he talks about the blood of the covenant, he's talking about this, he's associating what he's going to do with an event that happened back in the book of Exodus, and that's that great endings finale to the worship service at Sinai, when the elders go up to meet God and they see him and they eat. But before they do that, they are sprinkled with the blood of the covenant, Exodus chapter 24. And Moses sent young men of the people of Israel who offered burnt offerings and sacrifice peace offerings of oxen to the Lord. And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins and half the blood he threw on the altar. Then the book of the covenant, then he took the book of the covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, all the Lord has spoken, we will do and we will be obedient. And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, behold, the blood of the covenant the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words. Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. There was under His feet, as it were, the pavement of sapphire, like the very heaven for clearness. And He did not lay His hand on the chief men of the people of Israel. They beheld God, ate, and drank." So when Jesus says, this cup is the blood of the covenant, this is an old promise being fulfilled Now, what's going to happen in Exodus is the blood of the covenant is going to be shed, marking his people. And Jesus says very clearly why this blood of the covenant is being shed, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. You know, Jesus knows what he's doing when he's going to the cross. Jesus interprets his death before it happens. This is not an after-the-fact interpretation. You know, oh, Jesus died. Now, after that, we're going to decide what this meant. No, Jesus tells us in the Passover celebration, in this Last Supper, in the Lord's Supper, what is the significance of his death. And he tells them to continue this celebration of the Lord's Supper so that they can remember keep before their eyes the significance of what he's about to do. As we celebrate it as disciples of Jesus Christ, we are remembering, we are participating in the death of Jesus Christ. Because even though the Passover celebration looked back to an event 1,000 years before, in reality, it's looking forward. It was looking forward to something which was about to happen. all these times we have celebrated the Passover, they're looking forward to that future great Passover lamb, which would be slain, towards that future fulfillment of all that Israel failed to do. And for us, though, on the other side of the cross, when we celebrate the Lord's Supper, we're looking back to something that's already done and accomplished. But there also is an aspect to the Lord's Supper that looks towards the future. Because Jesus very clearly says that His death is not going to be the end. Verse 29, speaking of the cup, I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom. Notice the significance of what Jesus says here. He's speaking of His death. But there's something after death. Because He is going to drink it. He's going to abstain from something for the sake of something future. He is going to abstain. He will not drink again from this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's Kingdom. The Lord's Supper looks back to the sacrifice of Christ. And it looks forward to the consummation when our Lord will return to the wedding supper of the Lamb. As the Apostle Paul says, for as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. When we eat it, we're remembering a past event and looking for and longing for the taste of the future. Now, I wish we could end here, but there's one other aspect that I skipped over, if you noticed, in reading this passage. Because there's one person at this meal who would not benefit from the promises. There's one person who would not drink it new. with Jesus in His Father's Kingdom. And that is the man who would betray Jesus, Judas. Somebody who it seems is there and celebrates this supper with Jesus. The very man who would betray Him. 2620. When it was evening, he reclined a table with the twelve. And as they were eating, he said, Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me. And they were very sorrowful and began to say to one another, Is it I, Lord? He answered, He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. In other words, he's not saying, you know, one particular person is saying that everybody's dipping their hand in the dish. Right? Everybody is doing this. That's how you would eat. You'd have bread, and you'd have little bowls, and you'd dip it all in the same thing of olive oil and spices. So it's one of you. One of you who's eating with me now. One of you will be the one who betrays me. This intimate action, this sign of communion and union that we have, there is a betrayer here. The Son of Man goes, and it is written of Him, but woe to the man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed." Here we see that mysterious and awful confluence of two distinct truths. One is, it's written. This is foreordained. This is what was predestined to happen, that the Son of Man would be betrayed. But woe to that. by whom the Son of Man is betrayed, meaning that there is a choice that will be made. There is responsibility to the one who betrays Him, to Judas. It is foreordained what Judas will do, but Judas does what he does by his own free choice. Judas, who would betray Him, answered, Is it I, Rabbi? He said to Him, You have said so. Commentators have wondered why the other disciples didn't jump on Judas right at this point in time. But it's clear that whatever Judas said, they did not understand it as Jesus singling Judas out. He might have said the same thing to any one of them. He's been trying to. He's saying, it's one of you. And Judas could have token this moment. Here's his chance to turn his back. Some commentators have noted that it's interesting that he calls him Rabbi, while the others say Lord. He calls Him Teacher, while the others call Him their Lord. Judas is one of the most terrifying figures in all of Scripture. Someone who is close to Jesus, but unconverted. someone who traveled with Jesus through all His journeys, but did not benefit from that journey. I think the disciples sensed a little bit of the Judas in each one of them, because they asked for assurance. They say, is it I? Even in their boldness, like Peter, there's the sense that they want assurance that it's not them, because they sensed that You know, from the great hand prone to low wander, Lord, I feel it. I think all of us have felt that at times. Which is why it's significant what Jesus does next as He celebrates the Lord's Supper with them. Assuring them, calling them to faith and belief in Jesus Christ. Calling them. But for Judas, He would go from here to betray his Savior, betray the one who came to die for sinners. I find it interesting that the institution of the Lord's Supper in Matthew is paired on both sides by predictions of falling away. If you look at what the next heading is in your AFC Bible, it's the prediction of Peter's denial. We have two people who in some sense betray Jesus. One will be unrepentant. One will be cut to the quick. It's not the falling away. It's the not turning to Jesus. Let me close with a section from J.C. Ryle, who meditates on the significance of Judas Iscariot It's a little bit of an extended quotation, but it's worth the time. J.C. Ryle says, Judas Iscariot had the highest possible religious privileges. He was a chosen apostle and companion of Christ. He was an eyewitness of our Lord's miracles and a hearer of his sermons. He saw what Abraham and Moses never saw and heard what David and Isaiah never heard. He lived in the society of the 11 apostles. He was a fellow laborer with Peter, James, and John. But for all this, his heart was never changed. Judas Iscariot made a reputable profession of religion. There was nothing but what was right and proper and becoming in his outward conduct. Like the other apostles, he appeared to believe and to give up all for Christ's sake. Like them, he was sent forth to preach and work miracles. No one of the 11 apostles appears to have suspected him of hypocrisy. When our Lord said, one of you will betray me, no one said, is it Judas? In all this time, Judas' heart was never changed. Raul says that we ought to observe these things. They are deeply humbling and instructive. Like Lot's wife, Judas is intended to be a beacon to the whole church. Let us often think about him and say as we think, search me, O Lord, and try my heart. and see if there be any wicked way in me. Let us resolve by God's grace that we will never be content with anything short of sound, thorough heart conversion." When we think of Judas, it should drive us to our knees. Because Judas' ultimate sin was in not returning to Christ. His ultimate sin was in the end. What does he do when he despairs at the end? Does he come returning to Christ the way Peter does? Or does he in despair end his own life? Jesus calls us to Him. And the Lord's Supper is this great gift. Here is my blood of the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Take, eat. This is my body which is given for you. Whenever we celebrate the Lord's Supper, it's a call to proclaiming the Lord's death till He comes. A call to come to Him. Bow the knee before Him. Pray that the Lord would be at work in your heart. Just because you are a member of this church, just because you celebrate the Lord's Supper, just because you've been baptized and can recite the catechism, you know, both the shorter and the larger, does not mean that you have a heart that's been changed by Christ. What you need is more than all that, is you need Christ. So please, don't be complacent in your faith, but always be running to Christ. Always be running to Christ, because that's where assurance is. If our assurance is in ourselves and what we can do, what we've done, our faithfulness, if our assurance is in how much we know and how long we've been part of a church, then you are on shaky, sinking ground. You will be like a Judas. But if you're always, whenever you encounter God's Word, whenever you encounter And remember, Judas, and that you're running to Christ. He will not cast you out. He promises that. So let us be warned by Judas, and let us be comforted by the Lord's Supper. Let's pray. Gracious Father, I pray that each and every person in this room will always be running to Christ. that when we feel the nagging sense of our own failures, that we won't follow that path away from you, but that you will change our hearts and draw us to you. May the gospel be ever sweet to us as that wine which we look forward to in the new kingdom of our Father in heaven, who is our Father because of what Jesus does on the cross. Lord, we thank you for our Passover lamb. In his name we pray.