And let us go up to 1 Corinthians 11, and we will continue where we left off last time. 1 Corinthians 11, we will read from verse 17 to the end of the chapter. But not preach, of course. But we read from verse 17 and we get the whole context in this text. 1 Corinthians 11, verse 17 to the end of the chapter. When I now give these commandments, I do not blame you, for their connection is more to harm than to benefit. First and foremost, I hear that there is division among you when you meet in the assembly, and to a certain extent I believe that it is so. There must be parties among you so that it will show which of you is right. But when you gather, it is not possible to celebrate the Lord's meal, for when you eat, each one takes for himself his own food. One is hungry, the other is thirsty. Do you not have your homes where you can eat and drink? Or do you despise the assembly of God and despise those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I condemn you? No, for this I cannot condemn you. My soul has received from the Lord what I have passed on to you. That night the Lord Jesus was saved. He took a bread, thanked God, broke it and said, This is my body that is given to you. Do this to remember me. In the same way, he took the beggar after the meal and said, This beggar is the new covenant in my blood. As often as you drink of him, do this to remember me. Soften ni äta detta bröd, och dricka denna bägare, för kunna ni Herrens död till dess han kommer. Den som äter brödet eller dricker Herrens bägare på ett ovärdigt sätt syndar därför mot Herrens kropp och blod. Var och en ska pröva sig själv, och så äta av brödet och dricka av bägaren. Den som äter och dricker utan att urskilja Herrens kropp, han äter och dricker en dom över sig. Därför finns det många svaga och sjuka bland er, och ganska många är insomnade. If we went to the right with ourselves, we would not be condemned. But when we are condemned, we are nurtured by the Lord, so that we will not be condemned together with the world. So, my brothers, when you gather to eat, wait for each other. If anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, so that your gathering will not become a sin for you. All the others will give instructions when I come. Amen. Today's text. We started this second half of chapter 11 last time by noting that Paul goes on from talking about the man and the woman in the gathering to a new subject, a new subject that should be looked at mainly today and next time, and that is the celebration of the night. But the first text in this second half of the chapter is not really about nightly celebrations, but about something else, a very serious problem in the congregation. If we remember from verse 17, Paul wrote like this, When I now give you these commandments, I do not condemn you, for their connection is more to harm than to benefit. It is more to harm than to benefit. And what justification it is not to get such a statement from the apostle himself. That he has been able to confirm, he has not even been there, but he has heard, he has received reports from one or the other who have come to him. And based on these reports, based on what he has heard, he can come to the conclusion that what is happening there is to such great harm that it would be better if it was not gathered at all. So we can state that what is happening is a very big problem. There is nothing to blame it for. There is nothing to be proud of. This is a serious problem. And what is the problem? That there is division among those who meet in the gathering. We saw division in chapter 1. Some joined Paul, others joined Apollo, some joined Cephas, and some, the spiritual ones, joined Christ. Because that was so much better than all the others. So we know that there have been problems, or there are problems, split-rings in the congregation. We have noticed this for a long time, but Paul's word has come to this, and here it is not necessarily about adhering to a certain teacher, but here it is about something else. And what it is about is that they gather to celebrate the Lord's meal. It comes together. If you sleep on a Sunday or any other day of the week, it doesn't say it explicitly. But when it comes together as a gathering to celebrate the Lord's Meal, which was a part of their gathering, I don't know if it was... In the beginning of a service, in the end of a service, if it was in the middle of a service, or when it was. You can say that it was quite certain in connection with this so-called love meal, the agape meal, where you brought food, you brought drinks, everyone brought what they could contribute with, and then you ate and drank together. But what has happened here, what has happened with these gatherings, these love meals, is that it really is anything but a love meal. What has a lot seems to come first in the gatherings, seems to come first to the gathering, and seems to eat quickly of all their own, and drink quickly of all their own, because then when these poor, those who cannot contribute as much, come, then it will not be able to take part of their fina stek eller fina vin eller vad det än har med sig. Så det uppstår splittringar. Det uppstår problem i en församling som bör vara känd för att vara ett. En församling som ska komma samman och oberoende av deras bakgrund, oberoende om det är rika eller fattiga, oberoende om det är man eller kvinna, oberoende om det är jud eller grek, så ska de vara kända för att vara ett i Kristus. Och det här är allt annat än ett vittnesbörd för det. Instead, one is hungry and the other is drunk. There is no order to it. And Paul has received these rumors, or reports, and he has realized that here I must now put my foot down, show what is wrong, and teach you about a right understanding of the Lord's night life. And a right understanding of what it is to be a congregation, a congregation of God, Christ in body and in the world. So, that's where we left off last time. With verse 22, we will continue from verse 23 and look at Paul's teaching about the biblical nightlife, the Christian nightlife, the one that we still celebrate today, at least we try to, in accordance with what the Bible says. So, we will start there in verse 23. and see what it has to say, and we take the end to the first half of verse 24. Paul writes like this, I have received from the Lord what I have given to you. That night when the Lord Jesus was saved, he took a bread, thanked God, broke it and said, we can leave it there, we take the second half later. So we start with this, what Paul has received, his teaching. And that he says that he has received it, that he himself has received it, shows that Paul has been taught by the Lord himself. do some research and see when this Korinthian letter was written. And most people come to the conclusion that the Korinthian letter was probably written before the Gospels. The Gospels were written after this. So Paul's teaching here about the Lord's Sermon is not necessarily something he has heard or definitely something he has read, but what he himself has received. It shows that Paul is the Apostle of the Lord, because the Lord Jesus himself revealed it to him. And that I myself received it, it is not something that he heard again from other apostles or heard through the teaching, received a tradition that he continues, but he has received the teaching himself. He is Jesus the Apostle. And this is what Jesus has revealed to him, the truth. understanding of the Lord's nightly routine. And what is it then? What is it that Paul teaches them? He begins by saying, that night, let us pause there, that night, the small time that Jesus celebrated together with his disciples, which is what it is about, happened on a night, or in the evening, it happened at night time. It was not a morning prayer, it was not a lunch, it was not a Another meal, but it was an evening meal or a night meal that night when the Lord was betrayed. What was it for a night? What was it? What night was it? Or was it a special night? It was the night before the Jewish Easter. Or it was when you ate the Jewish Easter lamb. You gathered in someone's home or wherever you had arranged it. And then you celebrate by eating this Easter lamb. You ate unsourced bread. We have all these instructions in the Old Testament, but we don't need to go into them this time to see exactly what it's about. But we can say, I have a little research, or what is it called? Researched? After-researched? How is it? Researched! I've just researched a little about what this meal was about, how it could look like. It had several phases, and when you compare what Paul says with what the Gospels say, you see that there are different details that it mentions. I want to give a short explanation of what this meal was about. It began when the world proclaimed its blessing, or thanksgiving, over the first cup of wine. which he then shared with everyone who was gathered. There were several rounds of wine that were shared. I participated in drinking from this cup. During the whole meal, there were four rounds that were sent around this cup. Everyone participated in drinking from it. So during the first round, he thanked, he expressed his well-being over the meal, over the gathering, the community. And after that, I continued to eat bitter peas, which you dip in a sauce, some kind of fruit sauce, I suspect it was, and then you took it and ate it. And after that, there was an exposition of the importance of Easter, the Jewish Easter. It is the people of Israel's exodus from Egypt, their freedom from the slavery of Egypt. All of this. What does the Easter lamb mean? Does it mean the blood that is poured over the doorpost? All of this was explained in order to have a proper understanding of what kind of meal this is. After that, you start to sing what is called Hallel, Psalm 113-118, the first part of it, which is Psalm 113-114. So this was the first song. We also see in the Gospels how it is said that Jesus taught the disciples to sing these psalms. And then came the other baker. After we had shared the other baker, the bread world, the unsourced bread, he had a big piece of bread. If you've ever had unsourced bread, you know that it's often thin, or it's not even that fluffy, because it doesn't have any sifting process in it, so there's not a lot of air in it. It can be hard, it can be quite thin. So he took this big piece of bread and he broke it. You shared the bread, you didn't have to cut it with a knife like we do today. He took the bread and broke it and gave it to others. So they had to eat it. After this, we got to the main part of the Easter meal. They ate the Easter lamb that had been slaughtered. This was the most important part, the feast in the meal. And after this there was a prayer. They prayed after that. And after that, the third beggar was sent around. And the rest of the song, the last psalms. And at the end, they drew the fourth beaker, which then showed the coming kingdom. This last beaker, like, then brought the thoughts to the coming kingdom. We know that in the Gospels, the disciples think about when the kingdom will come. Jesus is in the present in order for the kingdom to come. This was something that was constantly on their minds, something that everyone talked about, something that was important to them. When will the kingdom come? When will the kingdom come? So this was the last step to remind the Israelites of the coming kingdom, of God's promise. And after this, the meal was over and the Easter meal was finished. So this was the meal that Jesus and his disciples celebrated. It is exactly described in the Bible, but we can see it from other sources, how this meal went, and we see certain details in this text and even more in the Gospels. So what happened then? Yes, then the Lord Jesus was redeemed. This night, when they ate the Easter meal, that night Jesus was born. This was a time of celebration, a time of celebration, when people gathered in large numbers in Jerusalem to celebrate Easter, to remember how God had brought out the people of Israel from Egypt, had freed them from slavery to Egypt, and it was a feast meal. It was a feast for the Israelites to eat this meal. But during this feast, during this feast meal, the Lord Jesus was betrayed. So we say that there, where Jesus has gathered with his disciples to eat together and in connection with that, of course, establish the new covenant in his blood. There happens the darkest, where all the powers of evil come together to work against God, to work against his murder. We see that even in the darkest, even when Satan and all his angels gather to go against Christ, to stop him if possible, That's when this nightlife happens. That's when this meal happens. That's when the new covenant is instilled in Christian blood. When the dark powers are the most active, then God is even more active. That's when God does the greatest work. When there is stillness, when nothing seems to happen, when everything is passive, and peace and joy, that's when nothing happens. Neither with the good nor the evil. It doesn't seem to happen with a soul. It doesn't seem to happen with someone who is a foe, as we read about in the Psalms. But where the evil comes together and is most active and works against So then God is also the most active. Then he does his greatest work. Then he sends his son to establish the new covenant that was already promised in the Old Testament. In his blood. To perform God's work. So, and then now, the last part of this This first verse, verse 23. He took a bread and thanked God. This was the part of the meal that I just mentioned. The thanksgiving or prayer. He took this unacidified bread and broke it and gave it to everyone to eat. It shows us that Jesus, in his humanity, saw the need to thank God. But Jesus himself is God, so he said, namely, to remember to thank God, to thank God for all that he gives. He gives the bread for us. He also gives spiritual bread to us. Jesus in his humanity prayed to God. Jesus in his humanity thanked God. Jesus shows us as humans how we should relate to God. And then the last meal was also this, which I already mentioned, a part of the feast meal. You broke the bread, you ate it, you ate a common meal. You showed that you were together, you were one people. The people of Israel had been saved. As one people, we know from the Old Testament that it was not only the Israelites, but many others who took the opportunity to leave Egypt. But the people of Israel became as one whole, driven out of Egypt. Let my people go, was what the Lord had said to Pharaoh. It was one people before God, and they wanted to show it by eating the bread together. There weren't many different kinds of bread that they would send around, some to the women, some to the men, but they ate the bread, the unsourced bread, together. They shared it. In the same way that we share the bread, when we gather to eat at night, because we are one congregation, one people before the Lord. We share the same bread. And it's connected to this theme, what it's about, what Paul has come to, or come from, let's say. The sharing in the congregation, the division in the congregation. That some eat for themselves and others don't get anything. Paulus shows that this goes against something that is so central, so... which is the core of the Lord's supper, the core of the Jewish Easter meal, namely the fellowship. You share the same bread, and then you eat it. So here we have the first correction to the Corinthians. And then it continues in Aulus, the second half of verse 24-25, and here we have the important part of this text. He quoted Jesus, "...this is my body, which is given for it. Do this to remember me." In the same way, when he begged after the meal, he said, "...this beggar is the new covenant in my blood. As often as you drink of it, do it to remember me." There's a lot here that we need to take care of, so we'll split it up and look at one part at a time. We'll start with the first word, this is my body. You can imagine that this is perhaps the most controversial word in the Protestant part of the Christian Church. This is my body. If there's something that manages to split The Protestants during the Reformation, the early Reformation, who managed to split Luther and Zwingli, it was precisely these words, this is my body. And the interpretation, the interpretation of it of course, what does it mean when Jesus says, this is my body? Because there are different interpretations, if you didn't believe it, so there are different interpretations, of course, of what it means when Jesus says that his body, that this is his body, is the emphasis on is, the verb, as Luther wanted to make it, or the emphasis on the whole, or Jesus says, with the whole, this is my body. So, first of all, I want to mention these, let's call them, less biblical views on what this means. We have this Catholic view, which is this transubstantion, transubstantion, or however you pronounce it, which means that the bread and the wine in the Nativity are transformed into the body of Christ. It is expressively believed that bread and wine are transformed into the body of Christ. It still has its outer form. The bread looks like bread. It smells like bread. The wine looks like wine. It smells like wine. It tastes like wine. But it is the body of Christ and blood. It has been transformed into the body of Christ and blood. This is the Lutheran, no, the Catholic view. And then we have the Lutheran, which is very similar, which is called consubstantion. Consubstantion, which means that Christ in body and blood is united with the bread and wine in the night. If you don't necessarily ask the first and best priest you find, because I'm not sure you know what is meant by this consubstantion, but if you look up Lutheran teachings about nightlife. And if you go to Wikipedia and learn about this, this is what it means with Jesus' words, this is my body. Yes, that bread and wine are united with the body and blood of Christ. This is not seen as in the Catholic view of transubstantiation, but it is united so that we have both bread and wine, at the same time as we have the body and blood of Christ. They coexist in the same element. And in common for these two views, and why I want to mention them is because it takes these words literally Christi uttalar att detta är min kropp, som att Kristus är verkligen fysiskt närvarande i elementen i nattvarden, i brödet och i vinet. Som jag nämnde redan, så det här var This order was perhaps what managed to split the protestant movement. Already in early... In 1529, already in the beginning of the Reformation, not even... Twelve years ago, Luther wrote his theses on the church in Wittenburg. Then there was a meeting in Marburg, the Marburg Meeting, as it's called, in 1529. Now we're going to have some history. I'm going to put on my history hat. Let's look at some church history. 1529, the Marburg Agreement. A very important year, a very important agreement. Why? Because all the Protestants came together. The Swiss Reformation, the Reformation in Germany, on the other hand, also came together to try, if possible, to be united against Catholicism. It's so that Catholicism starts to gather, they start to take up arms, they would crush the Protestants. So there is such a need to gather their forces, the various Protestant movements. And these two leaders, or should we say, the two who did not succeed, Zonas was then Luther, partly, as we all know, Martin Luther. And then Ulrich Zwingli from Switzerland. Ulrich Zwingli. And I can say that this conversation succeeded in 95%. 95% of them managed to have a common understanding, or at least live together with the group, with how the assembly should be organized, how it should be led. They managed to have a common understanding of Christ's teaching, of the Gospel, and so on. But one thing that they didn't manage to zone out, and it was especially these two people, Luther and Zwingli, who didn't manage to, and that was precisely this. i nattvarden som de splittrades. Luther Laird, berömt, har sagt att det här orden är det som jag står vid. Det här... Han slog neven i bordet och sa, detta är min... eller, Jesus säger, detta är min kropp. Det betyder inte att det representerar min kropp. Det betyder att det är min kropp. Och därmed dog gemenskapen mellan de protestantiska rörelserna med en så liten sak. So, what is the problem with this interpretation? If we go back to the Bible, take off our history hats and go back to what the Bible says. Because I think, and we think, according to our religious beliefs, that this is problematic, this is wrong. To believe that Jesus is physically present in the bread and wine. And what is the problem with that? Yes, because Jesus uses this word, is, om sig själv. För att tala om andra saker också. Vi behöver inte nödvändigtvis vända dit, men i Johannes så använder Jesus det här ordet är, att vara, om sig själv, med andra objekt. I Johannes 10, 9 säger han att jag är dörren. Jag är dörren. Betyder det att Jesus är en fysisk dörr? Ska vi se en fysisk dörr när vi kommer till himmelriket? Givetvis inte. Ingen är så orimlig att det tolkar det som att Jesus är en fysisk dörr. In John 8, verse 12, it says, I am the light of the world. And the light of the gospel is really radiated from Jesus. We know that in the heavenly city, in the heavenly Jerusalem, the lamp, the light, there is no need for a sun that shines. But does that mean that Jesus is physically light? Is he just a bunch of photons? We know that light from the sun consists of photons, if you know physics. Does that mean that Jesus is just a group of photons that we see? Is he nothing more than that? And the problem with that is, of course, that it means that Jesus has no physical mass, because photons have no mass. Jesus would, in the middle of everything, just be a vision. He would just be an apparition for our eyes. He would not have a physical body. He would not have flesh. He would not have blood. So it can't be... You can't say that Jesus is only physical light, because that would mean that one would have to deny his humanity, that he has a physical body. And then in this letter that we have seen in the last chapter, chapter 10, verse 4, Paul says that Jesus is the clip that the water flowed out of. When Israel's children knotted after water to drink in the desert, it says that Jesus is the clip, that Christ is the clip. Does that mean that Jesus is a physical stone? Of course not. If you interpret it like that, you get a lot of problems with all these expressions that Jesus himself uses, that the apostles use, that Jesus is something. It becomes an impossibility to interpret all these places where it is obviously used in a symbolic way to represent something. It's the same thing in the Book of Revelation where Jesus is called the Lamb of God or the Lion of Judah. Jesus is not a lamb, Jesus is not a lion. It's used as images of who Jesus is, as a representative of what he is. So we can see that if Jesus himself uses the word, is, if he says himself, in this way, if the apostles used it, it is not at all wrong that here in this verse, and even if Luther has to say that this means nothing other than is, then we can together with Zwingli and this that held him, say that it means that it represents Jesus' body, it represents Jesus' blood. So when we eat the bread and drink the wine, we don't physically eat Jesus. We don't physically drink his blood. We eat something that represents what happens with the body of Christ. Something that happens with the blood of Christ. When he was nailed to the cross. It is something that has been physically given to us. As he says here, this is my body that will be given to you. Jesus' body has been physically given to us. To us. We remind ourselves that Christ was sacrificed. He really died. Physical death. It wasn't a spiritual death or a physical death. It was a real physical death where his body died. His blood was shed. And we do it to remember it. To celebrate it. Which the text also does, of course. Do it to remember me. So this is the view that we have. Which I believe is the correct view of the Bible. The bread and the wine, in Atvaden, is not Jesus' physical body and blood, but represents his body and blood. It is a picture, it is a symbol, it brings our thought back to Golgata Cross 2000 years ago, because what he did then represents him. And we say that this is primarily a celebration of remembrance. We remember what Jesus has done. It's not a place where we can come together to eat Jesus and be filled with Christ in a physical way, as some people believe. We come together to celebrate what has already happened. We are already filled with Christ. Christ lives in us already now. We can't eat more of Christ to get even more Jesus points, or whatever you want to call it. Jesus is already in us. Jesus lives already in us. We do it to remember. We do it to celebrate Him. We do it to proclaim before the world. And what I was already talking about, if I want to go back a little bit, that Jesus says here that his body has been cast out for you, for us. And what is important here? What is it? We read this text and we go quickly over it and we may not realize the importance and depth of this, but Christ really says that he has died for us. For us. What does it mean? What is the importance here? Yes, that Christ really died for his people's sake. Christ did not die for his own sake or for the sake of the Father. He died for our sake. He did it for us. Christ has come into the world. He has become a human being. He has given us the Gospel for our sake, so that we can live. for us to have eternal life, for you, for us. What fantastic words that Jesus put in there. During this trial, this incredibly great trial that he went through, when he was betrayed and his own friend, his close friend, went away and betrayed him, sold him for 30 silver coins, he says, my body is given up for you, for you. I can imagine that those who were gathered there, and even if they did not understand the whole meaning of what was going to happen, they must have felt the rise when Jesus said it. When they realized that Jesus is there for them. It is not there for Jesus. It is not there to wash his feet or to lift the table for him. Jesus is there for them and for us. I have come for you. I have not come to be treated like a king, to sit on my throne and have people come and beg in front of me and come with taxes. And even if we do it and it is right to do it, Christ has come for us, for his people. He came to earth for us. And verse 25 now, to go a little further on the same theme, says, This wine is the new covenant in my blood. What does he mean by that? We perhaps forget what the importance of the new covenant is. The new covenant in his blood is. And it means that Jesus has established a new covenant in his blood. A union, if you don't know what that is, is a contract or agreement between two parties, where you agree on what each one should do. And if you don't do it, what consequences or punishment do you get? And that covenant that God has established, the new covenant, is not a covenant that he has entered with another party that on its own side can give something back to God. That says, yes, you do it God, and we do it, and if we don't do it, This is an unconditional union, an union that God has actively established with people. A new union, something that replaces the old. Something that is better than the old. What the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel talk about in their prophecies. A covenant that is set. A covenant that is new. It's not a new covenant in the sense that we now have a covenant of grace and that what lived before was a covenant of deeds. It has to work its way to justice. But now we have a covenant of grace where we can, just by believing, come to Jesus or to God. This new thing in this commentary is that it complements the salvation as the Old Covenant speaks. It complements all these shadows and images that the Old Covenant gave a picture of. It fulfills all that the old covenant could not do. What it was too weak to do, what it was not enough to do. It is fulfilled, it is fulfilled now in the new covenant in the blood of Christ. It is new in that way, that it fulfills the old. It is set, it makes it perfect. This covenant is established in the blood of Christ. A complete covenant cannot be entered until it has been established in blood. We see how the covenant with Abraham in the first book of Moses was established with the sacrifice of animals. Blood was shed. God established a covenant with Abraham in the blood of these animals. But the blood of the animals, the blood of the oxen and the blood of the calves is not enough to instill or to fulfill this old, this that is about to be replaced. It can only be instilled in the sin-free, the perfect, the sinful lamb, the sacrificial lamb that God has put forth from the beginning of the world in the blood of Christ. The Jewish Easter meal had a great significance in this meal. It reminded us how the blood was taken from the lamb that was sacrificed at the doorstep so that God's punishment would not pass by, so that he would not kill the firstborn, the Jewish families. It was something real. It was something they thought about all the time. It was an elementary part of Easter. chosen to be marked for God. It was a sign that it was God's people, this blood. In the same way, Jesus' blood is a sign that we are God's people. It has been cast out for our sake. We have been stained or marked with it. In the same way as the doorpost was marked with the blood of the Lamb, we have been marked with the blood of Christ. So when God's righteousness comes over the world, over all iniquity, over all sin, he sees Jesus' blood. He sees it on your forehead, on mine, and he passes by. He says, here is the righteous shepherd. This is my people. I pass by. I do not shed my wrath over them. The punishment is already paid for their sins. So we see the importance of these few words that we so often read and that we so often just pass by without realizing what they mean. The importance of it, the depth of it, that the new covenant has been established in the blood of Jesus and that he has been given to us. These are two things that I want to focus on here. We can get stuck in the details of whether it is a representation of Jesus' body and blood, or whether Jesus' body and blood are physically present, and all that I talked about earlier. But we must not forget these absolutely important and small details that we see here. That Jesus has done it for us. That the new covenant is established in His blood. This is really important. The central theme of the night, why we celebrate, why we remember, why we still do it today, is because of these things. Something that the Corinthians seem to have forgotten, because they had split rings at their meals and didn't eat together and dressed together. They had forgotten the meaning of That Christ died for us, for one people, and that his blood has been shed and the new covenant has been established. There is one people under Christ, in the new covenant. So those are the two important things, which I think Paul also really emphasizes. If we could see that Paul would be able to underline some part of his text, then I suspect that it is precisely this that he would underline for the Corinthians and for us in that part. But we still have a little left to justify. And before we leave verse 24-25, we see that it is concluded in the same way. It ends with these words, do it to remember me, or do this to remember me. Do it. It's not a recommendation. It's not Jesus' advice to us, it's a commandment. Do it. We usually call these two The things for the Lord's arrangements. The Lord has arranged it. The second thing, of course, is the doping. Because Jesus commands in Matthew 28, verse 18. Do all people in my teachings, do them. The commandment. Do them. All people, all believers, shall be doped in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And the same thing here. Do this. Jesus gives a commandment about what we should do. And that is to celebrate this night, to eat and drink of it in the right way, with the right understanding. Do this. It is so clear as it can be that Jesus completely commands us to do this. There is nothing that a Christian can say that is voluntary. I can participate or not participate. For sure we will see that one should not participate in the Lord's meal in an unworthy way. To come before his presence with an unworthy heart. Not to forgive the Lord's body and blood. And we know that there can be instances where each one of us has come to the service of God and our hearts are heavy with different burdens and different sins and different things. There can always be a time to give up, but the rule for all Christians is that they participate, that they do this in order to remember Jesus. It's a commandment. It's the same type of commandment as to die on the cross. If you consider it absolutely important to become dead because Jesus says so, you should also realize that you should participate, you should do this, because Jesus commands it. So. But we still have verse 26 before we are done with the text this week. So let's look at verse 26 at the end, where it says, So often you eat this bread and drink this cup, because you know the Lord's death until he comes. So often we say that Paulus says that we should do it regularly. This is a regular, recurring meal. Something we should do. It differs from the baptism as a one-time event. We should not die over and over again every 50 years or something like that. The baptism happens when you are saved or when you have come to faith. when you show to the world that now I have left the old behind me, now I enter a new life in Christ. But this happens so often, so often you come together, so often you gather and there are divided opinions about how often this is. Is it once a week, is it once a month, is it once on a Sunday? Can you celebrate the Lord's night on another day? Because we know that the Lord's supper was not celebrated on a Sunday. This meal that Jesus established, it was the night before he was baptized. So, a little different meanings. It is difficult to be dogmatic about this and say that we should celebrate it always on Sunday, every Sunday, after the service of God or before the service of God. No, you want to have it now. So I'm not going to try to be dogmatic. What we see from the New Testament, from the apostolic actions, from the church stories, is that God's people, as often as they were gathered, when they came together, they came together partly to break the bread. Partly to do this. It was just one thing. In the Apostolic Acts 2, for example, it says that it kept the faith in the teaching of the apostles, in the fellowship, the breaking of the bread and the prayers. And then in verse 46... So this first... from the congregation, from the church. Their example was to gather to eat, gather to pray, gather to listen to the teaching of the apostles. So a first format of a service of God here in the Apostles 2. It was about the teaching, the teaching of the apostles. What we call the New Testament today, the teaching of the apostles. That was an important part. The other thing they did, as we saw here, was the community. They had a community with each other. They didn't do it separately for themselves, at home with themselves, but it was gathered. It was one people, one congregation. And the third, they brewed the bread, and the fourth, they bathed together. So here we see an early prototype for the service of God in the congregation. So you can very well argue that the night is supposed to be a part of the service every time we have it. We haven't necessarily had that practice here in this congregation, but it's not wrong to celebrate it so often. And at the same time, it's not wrong to have it more rarely either, as long as you have it regularly. So often you eat, as Paul says in the beginning. So often. So the important thing is regularity. So often you eat. Do it. Do this. If it's like that every Sunday or something else. Remember to celebrate Lord's Night. It's not once in ten years or something like that or when you think about it, feel about it. So often you eat. So often you eat. Now I'm losing myself in my notes. Let's continue to the next point. We eat and we drink. We can continue there. We eat and drink because of a cause. We don't do this just because... We want to look religious. It is part of our way of performing our religion. Just like Catholics kiss the statue of Mary, or Hindus have their own way of praying to their gods, this is our way of performing our religion. It's not just because of that. We do it for a cause. We do it to celebrate the Lord's death until He comes. And not just to celebrate, not just to remember it, which we have already done, but also, to conclude this verse, to acknowledge the Lord's death until He comes. We acknowledge the Lord's death. We are witnesses. to Christ's death and resurrection. Even today, when we gather to eat and drink, we are witnesses to Jesus' death and resurrection. This is a part of our duty as witnesses here on earth. We talk about being God's witnesses. We have to explain the gospel to other people. We have to spread it further. But this is a more formal or a recurring part that we should always do. Do this. Through this you will know the death of the Lord until he comes. You will know the death of the Lord. And again, the last one, the absolute last one, until he comes. The meal of the Lord has a function in this time. It has no function in the coming time, in the coming kingdom. None of us will celebrate the meal of the Lord after Jesus has come. This time is when we celebrate the Lord's Meal. In the same way that we will not have faith after we see Jesus with our own eyes. Our faith is turned in sight, which I think is sung in a famous song, but I can't remember which one. Faith has its time, and hope has its time. The Lord's Meal has its time. We can say that it's a certain dispensation, if you want to use that word, if you're not allergic to the word dispensation. This is a certain time when we celebrate the Lord's meal. It was not celebrated in the old covenant of the people of Israel, even if the Easter meal was a form of image or shadow of this nightlife. We do not celebrate it when Jesus has returned. This is for a certain time, but it is only until he returns. When he returns in glory to restore his kingdom, to gather his people, to rule. on earth. Our gaze will then turn from believing to seeing. We will not eat a meal to remember, but to eat of this heavenly wedding meal together with Christ. A truly physical, perfect meal. when we see Christ with our eyes. We talked a little about this yesterday at Karinas Bible study, about how far we are together with Jesus physically, and we had a lot of discussions about it. But independently, we are together with Jesus in the same way we are now, but even more so. We are together with Jesus perfectly. Our gaze will see Him. We will eat together with Him. this meal is only for this time, to prepare us, to look forward to something even better, something even more perfect in the coming heavenly wedding meal. And until then, until Jesus has returned, we will continue to know Christ is dead and risen. We continue to acknowledge his gospel. This gospel is central to our knowledge. It is what we put forth every Sunday. And more than that. And what I want to put forth this Sunday. To all who hear these words. Christ has come. for the sins of the sinners. He has not come to show his glory only, or come to show God's wrath only, or something like that. Jesus has come for the sins of the sinners. He has come so that those who cannot carry out God's commandment, cannot carry out God's law, may have peace with God. We read in the Bible that the soul that sins must die. The soul that sins must die. All souls sin. All souls have transgressed God's law. All souls go to their death. But it doesn't have to end there. Christ has really come in physical body and died for the sins of sinners. He has shed his blood. He has established a new covenant. A better covenant. A covenant that saves perfectly. For eternity. This is vanillium. I put it in front of you. I offer it to you. I will not invite anyone to pray for you, but I offer it to you. I put it in front of you on a silver plate. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the fulfiller of the new covenant, in whose blood we have the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. I put it forth, I order you to turn and believe, if you have not already done so. This is the Gospel that is offered to us today, and will be done until He comes. Amen. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this word we have received this Sunday, for your holy word, for that we have been able to watch your son's teaching and his example, when he instilled the night with his own words, and he showed through the bread and wine that his body has been given to us, his blood has been poured out for us. Oh God, Help us to understand what has happened. Help us to understand how much we have received through our Lord. Help us to be your witnesses to what you come for, our Lord Jesus. Father, we pray. We pray for those who have heard these words, the words of the Gospel, heard what Jesus Christ has done, which is to harden their hearts. God, heal them. Oh, Father, take care of them as you saved us once in time. So, Father, we pray for them. Oh God, we thank you for your goodness, for your Son, for our Lord Jesus. Lord, we pray that we will take these words this Sunday and live a life that honors the Lord's body and blood until he comes. Father, accept our prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.