Now to our scripture reading for this morning hour's service. You can find it in the Gospel according to Luke, 22nd chapter. We read together the first 30 verses. Luke, chapter 22. Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread drew nigh, which is called the Passover. And the chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill him, for they feared the people. Then entered Satan into Judas, surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve. And he went his way, and communed with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray him unto them. And they were glad and covenanted to give him money. And he promised and sought opportunity to betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude. Then came the day of unleavened bread, when the Passover must be killed. And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the Passover that we may eat. And they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare? And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you bearing a picture of water. Follow him into the house where he entereth in. And he shall say unto the good man of the house, The master saith unto thee, Where is the guest chamber where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples? And he shall show you a large upper room furnished. There make ready. And they went, and found as he had said unto them, and they made ready the Passover. And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire I have desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I say unto you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God shall come. And he took bread, and gave thanks, and break it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body, which is given for you, this due in remembrance of me. Likewise, also the cup after supper, saying, The cup is the new testament in my blood which is shed for you. But, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table. And truly the Son of Man goeth, as it was determined, but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed. and they began to inquire among themselves which of them it was that should do this thing. And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors, but ye shall not be so that he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For whether is greater he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth, is not he that sitteth at meat, but I am among you, as he that serveth. Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations, and I appoint unto you a kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel." My dear congregation, I ask your attention for the words of our text. You can find them in the chapter that we read together. Luke chapter 22, verses 15 and 16. and he, that is Jesus, said unto them, With desire I have desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God." Our theme as we consider these words briefly this morning is a desirous Christ and his disciples. Three thoughts. First, Jesus closes one chapter by his strength. Secondly, Jesus opens another chapter because of our weakness. And then thirdly, Jesus reveals his love by his actions. Desirous Christ and his disciples. Dear congregation, even though we live in a fallen world that is touched in every single way imaginable by sin, we still have reasons to be grateful. And one of those great reasons we have to be grateful and thankful is that we as human beings are able to think We are able to process information in a logical manner. The Lord even addresses us as reasoning individuals, doesn't He? Think of the well-known text in the first chapter of Isaiah. Come and let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. They will be like crimson, He says. They shall be as wool. gift to reason and to think logically is a great blessing of God, and that identifies us indeed as human beings in contrast, for example, largely to the animal world. But then one thing that also identifies us, another thing that identifies us in our humanity, is that we as human beings have the capacity of emotions, of human emotions. We can be fearful. We can be sad. We can be profoundly joyful. We can have great fears. We can have great hopes and we can have great aspirations about things and plans before us. And these emotions, we have to admit, they come from deep, deep within us, don't they? Sometimes we feel emotions more in a passing way, but sometimes we feel the emotional tug that comes from deep, deep within us. It comes from deep within our humanity. Emotions are a central part of our humanity. Now, of course, we live in a post-fall world, and we are sinners at worst, we are sinners at best, even after we may know the redeeming grace of God, and so oftentimes we can misuse our emotions for wrong ends and for wrong goals. Maybe unwarranted anger is exercised sometimes in an emotional way, that we would get what we want, or maybe a false sweetness, And of course, it's sad when those things happen. But, the flip side also, even in common grace, and certainly in saving grace, we have the capacity, by the grace of God, to exercise our emotions in a true, in a sincere, in a godly, and in a biblically guided way. And what a mercy that is. We can be truly joyful in the Lord. We can truly be sorrowful over sins. We can be rightly angry over sin in the world and within our own souls. And so we can use those emotions that God has given us in a right and a biblical way. But have you ever thought, dear congregation, of why we have emotions at all? Why? Why do we have emotions? Why do we have feelings? Well, the simple answer is this, that you and I have been made in the image of God. Though through sin we have all but erased that image, yet still remaining in that traceable image within us are emotions because we have been made in the image of God. And God is a God, has been said, who has holy emotions. Sometimes we forget that as Calvinists who focus sometimes more than maybe we ought to on the very sovereignty of God. And sometimes, not that it's wrong, of course, to focus on the sovereignty of God, but sometimes we can do that at the cost of forgetting that that same sovereign God who sits in the throne room of heaven has holy emotions. He doesn't sit there stoically and indifferently He is a God who is moved deeply within His very holy heart. And we are told that in Scripture in various ways at various times. For example, in Zephaniah 3, verse 17, we are told there that the Lord joys over His people with singing. And, of course, the well-known passage in John chapter 11, where Lazarus had died, and we are told there, the shortest chapter, the shortest verse, rather, in the Bible, John 11, verse 35, that Jesus wept. He showed holy emotion. Think back in the Old Testament time, after mankind had sinned in Noah's day, We are told there in Genesis chapter 6 and verse 6 that God was grieved in his heart. And the well-known passage also in the New Testament Luke chapter 15, where we read indeed about sinners who the prodigal son, the context of the prodigal son and the lost coin, and sinners indeed who repent and who believe the gospel. The Bible tells us in no uncertain terms that there is joy in heaven. Sometimes we think that only in terms of the angels rejoicing, but as many commentators agree, that is God and the angels rejoicing over sinners who repent and who believe the gospel. And so God, dear congregation, is a God of holy emotion. And if that is true indeed for the Father who is in heaven, who is a spirit of course, is a spiritual, divine being that is doubly true, I say to you this morning, for the Son of God in the flesh. For in His humanity, He too was made in the image of God, but in His divinity, He is very God of very God. And so Jesus Christ, of course, in one person and two natures, divine and human has the capacity in both of those natures to express holy emotion and he does so and he did do so of course during his earthly ministry as we find it recorded in the four gospel accounts perfectly and without sin Well, here in Luke chapter 22, dear congregation, as we find the Lord Jesus Christ, the context is the evening before his death on the cross, and he would be departing from his disciples, and he is at work here bears his very emotional heart. He opens up his heart. Sometimes it's hard for people to do. We as humans, in our sinful capacity, in our sinful natures, some people find it, for whatever reason that is. They find it hard to bear their emotional heart. Well, here the Lord Jesus Christ, as it were, opens up and cleaves the very depth of his heart. And he says, I have desired to eat this last Passover meal with you. The Lord Jesus Christ, of course, we read had given Peter and John specific instructions of how that whole last Passover meal was to be said in the upper room, and they were going to speak to a man, and they were to make all things ready. But then we are told when the hour was come, when the precise hour was come, When that was ready to transpire, He says with authority, with power and with grace, with desire, I have desired, and literally can be translated with fervent, with abundant, with great desire, I have desired to eat this Passover with you. It's a very unique way of phrasing things in the Greek language. This is the strongest language we can find in the English language in the translation that we have here in Luke chapter 22 in our Bibles to show that Christ here is not just saying this is a mere passing wish that, well, I desire to eat this Passover with you, but with a profound, profound desire, with a very Strong emotional desire. I have desired to eat this Passover meal with you. This is a cry. that comes from deep within His holy heart. The Bible says, Christ said once, in the context of negative speaking, He says, from the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Well, that is true from His holy heart, from the abundance of His heart, His holy, perfect, sinless heart, His mouth speaks and He says, I have this deep, strong desire spend this time together to eat this Passover meal with you. So we ask ourselves this morning, dear congregation, in light of the Lord's Supper also this morning here in our church, what was Christ saying when he said this, when he expressed this profound desire? Well, in order to answer that question, we have to ask ourselves, what was the Passover? What was the Passover at all? And we know that the Passover was a meal that was instituted many, many years before in Moses time, actually, way back in the Old Testament time. And you can find the record of that in Scripture in Exodus chapter 12. And you remember how that the Lord indeed had sent ten plagues to Egypt, and how that Israel indeed was spared in all those ten plagues, and then the final plague, which was death. the death of the firstborn, and Israel too was spared in that particular plague. But there was something that the Israelites, you recall, had to do. They had to take a lamb, and the father of the household had to take a perfect three-year-old lamb and to slay it and to take that blood and to paint it upon the doorpost of the house. And then when the angel of death came and saw the blood, the angel of death, passed over those particular Israelite households, and that is how the name came to be, the commemoration of the Passover And the Israelites, they were instructed, indeed, to keep that or to remember that and to practice that every year. And so we find, indeed, for approximately the period of 1,500 years or so, with the exception of, as we hope to hear tonight, probably 40 years in the wilderness wanderings, they did practice that. all the way through the Old Testament time and all the way as this New Testament time is ushered in. But then something happens. Jesus Christ is born as a little babe in Bethlehem. And then the family moves to Nazareth. We're not told anything about that period in his growing up years until he was 12 years old and then suddenly scripture breaks in and shows us that when he was 12 years old, as the custom was, His family, being a devout Jewish family, went up to the Passover feast in Jerusalem to remember that which the devout Israelites had been doing for some 1,500 years. And so you remember he went there and They went to the first Passover in the earthly existence of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he was found at the temple speaking to the scribes and the Pharisees and teaching them and asking them questions. And so Jesus, belonging to this devout Jewish family, would have kept the Passover every year But now here in Luke chapter 22, he is some 33 years old, the night before he sacrifices himself on the cross. So he would have gone every year for 21 years. But now the Bible tells us here in this context that the hour was come. hour was come, the hour was come that he knew would come no doubt already when he was 12 years old. He understood with perfect clarity and foresight that this hour, one day, 21 years later, was coming, the night before his death. And what hour is that? Well, that's the hour, dear congregation, that he brings to a conclusion, his practice of 21 years and 1,500 years of history, he brings it to a conclusion. All the shadows and tights, all the sacrifices that had been engaged in throughout all the Old Testament history, it was now coming to an end this very night. And Christ desires that His disciples, the ones closest to Him, His followers with Him, that they would be present and join with Him on that momentous occasion. Just think of it. Thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of sacrifices throughout all of Old Testament time that had been going, as it were, as a massive steam engine down the track with It appeared no end in sight. And now Christ, as it were, as the holy and the strong God, He brings it all to an end. And He says, the hour has come. Paul, as he reflects on it in Hebrews 10, he says it this way. He says, and every priest standing daily, for thousands of years that is, ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sin, So bullock after bullock, ram after ram, goat after goat, daily ministering, offering oftentimes the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of the throne, at the right hand, rather, of God. And so the Lord Jesus Christ He desires his followers to partake and to be with him at a time and a point in history of that which testifies of him. He desires that they would be with him for all different types of reasons, but also for this, that they would witness indeed this pivotal, this momentous point of history when he brings it with One word to a powerful conclusion and end. And he reminds them of that in verse 16. For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. There will not be any more Passovers. They had been engaged in for 1,500 years, but it was all done now. And it is true, of course, that there are still Jews today who actually take all the different elements, and they have a Passover meal, and they call it a Passover meal, and they eat it. But it's simply a meal that spiritually is meaningless. It feeds the belly, but it doesn't feed the soul, because Christ, here, New Testament, He brought the heart, the very essence of the Passover to a conclusion. And he did that among other reasons so that his disciples would witness his power and his grace. And so as we gather here this morning hour. As we reflect upon the end of the Passover, the beginning of the Lord's Supper, as well in New Testament time, congregation, let us be reminded that we do not serve a weak Christ. We serve an almighty, powerful God of heaven and of earth. He who is able to shape the very things of history, change the things of history, Bring them with one powerful word and one powerful moment to a standstill and point it in a different direction, in a different way, yet with the same heart and essence at the core, namely, that He is Savior and Lord. Let us be reminded that Christ is the Almighty King. And Christ shall have dominion over land and sea. No doubt in this week, with all the terrorism, with all the pain, with all the loss of life and limb, people are crying out, as they always do in these occasions, where is God? Where is God? Couldn't God have done anything? And somehow it's painted, at least in the background of people's minds, that God is somehow weak and unable and incapable to do things. Well, God, of course, is not a God who does things at our bidding. He fulfills all things after the counsel of His own sovereign will. And he does so with a strong and a mighty heart, but he does so as the almighty, powerful Savior. Even as he exercises his power and authority in his strength, he still has this profound, profound, tender, heartfelt desire to eat this Passover meal with His disciples. And that's the God whom we serve. Mighty, powerful, and yet deeply touched, deeply expressing, rather, His very heartfelt emotions to connect with these people then and still today. So that's first, indeed, that Jesus closes one chapter by his very strength. But then secondly, Jesus opens another chapter because of our weakness And here, as we read further also in Luke chapter 22, we find that he has desire to engage in this Passover meal and to share this Passover meal with his very disciples. But then in the very heels of the Passover, as it were, the New Testament Lord's Supper is instituted. they don't even get up from the meal they don't get up from the chair the chairs and and say well now we have to reset and and now uh... the the new testament passover is is are the new testament the lord's supper rather is to begin it simply is it were as as we use the term sometimes morphs into one meal morphs into the next changes into the passover changes into the lord's supper it turns into the lord's supper which we are told in 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 26 that we are told to keep that till he come. The Passover ended, but in contrast, the Lord's Supper is to be kept until the Lord Jesus Christ comes. But we ask, why? Why does it need to be kept until He comes. Well, the number one reason, of course, is to remember Him. He says, do this in remembrance of Me. We remember, number one, at the table also this morning, and every time we have Lord's Supper, we remember the death of the Lord. But then, we also need to keep this New Testament Passover, this New Testament Lord's Supper, because we are poor, stumbling, weak, and needy sinners. And confessionally, we agree with Article 33 of the Belgian Confession of Faith, which reads as follows, and I quote, We believe that our gracious God, on account of our weakness and infirmities, has ordained the sacraments for us. On account of our weakness and infirmities, has ordained the sacraments for us. We are weak sinners. We are needy sinners. We are frail sinners. We are sinners that have spiritual infirmities. And therefore, because that is true, also He has ordained the sacraments for us. In His context as well, He knew He knew that his disciples would stumble and fall. He knew that just a few moments after this all transpired, and he makes this profound statement with desire, I have desire to eat this Passover meal with you. Here's the cup divided among yourselves. Here's the bread that testifies of my body. And he knew right on the heels of that they would be arguing who is the greatest. It's stunning to think and Jesus knew that and yet he ordains the New Testament Lord's Supper and he knew that shortly after that Peter too would deny him with curses and oaths saying that he didn't know the Lord Jesus Christ. And then when Jesus Christ finally is captured, we are told in the record of Scripture that every one of them would forsake him and flee away. They all forsook him and fled. And so he knew his disciples would stumble and would fall. He knew them. He knows us. He knows our weaknesses. To put it in the words of the psalmist, He understands that we are dust. He understands our weakness. And therefore, He institutes the New Testament Lord's Supper that is to be kept until He comes. And so we need to be hungry for this supper if we would benefit from it. We must know what it is to be spiritually weak in self and longing for the strength of Christ to be nourished by His holy supper. You know, if we were, in physiological terms only, if we were strong and we were never hungry, what need would we have to eat supper at all? might say, well, it might taste good on the palate, but if we had somehow, hypothetically, this ongoing strength that we didn't need food, well, then we wouldn't have to eat supper. Indeed, well, it's true spiritually as well. If we're so strong all the time, then we wouldn't need strength from the Lord. But he stoops down to us so low and says, you are weak. And he reminds us of the reality of that. And he says, I will strengthen you at my supper. The journey is too great. I will give you this supper because you are weak. You are frail. You are infirm spiritually. And so I ask us, congregation, this morning, Are we weak? Are we frail? Do we realize how sinful we are, how frail we are, how much we need Jesus Christ for our needy souls? Do we realize that? Well, then He says, Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Jesus opens the New Testament Lord's Supper in this chapter to remind us, yes, of His And because of his disciples and because of our weakness, but yet in the context of all of that, that strong desire that we find in verse 15, that remains constant and unchanged and undiminished. because there are several things that the Lord can't do. Of course, the Lord can't die, the Lord cannot lie, and the Lord cannot change. And so that same heart of Christ that was filled with profound desire some 2,000 years ago with the disciples, that same heart is still beating in heaven's courts even this morning hour, and he says, with desire, I have desire to eat this New Testament Lord's Supper with you, needy sinners, as you are. And so, dear congregation, do you not see the patience, the mercy, the love, the long-suffering goodness of Christ in this? So much different than you and I. Our patience comes to an end. We talk about coming to the end of our rope, and we can't do it any longer. But the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing us, knowing our hearts, Knowing our souls, knowing the disciples, he says, with desire, I want to eat this meal with strong desire. I want to eat this meal with you. And that word of truth echoes on through the centuries today. With desire, I have desired to eat this meal with you. He opens this new chapter because of our weakness. And then finally and lastly, Jesus reveals His love by His actions. Christ's desire, dear congregation, this profound desire that we find in verse 15, that desire is embedded in, is rooted in, His love. He desires that he spend that Passover, that New Testament Lord's Supper with his disciples. And why is that? Because it points, both of them, the Old Testament Passover, the New Testament Lord's Supper, it points to his sacrificial death. And we ask, what did his sacrificial death speak of? Well, it speaks to us of His great love. John 15 and verse 13, these well-known words, greater love hath no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends. The Lord Jesus Christ has this fervent desire, not only that He would show His power that the disciples would come, indeed, in their weakness to remember this, and we as well, but the Lord Jesus Christ institutes this to remind His disciples of His profound, His profound, everlasting love to them. That's why sometimes the Lord's Supper, the Old Divines used to call this supper not only a remembrance feast, but also a love feast. This is where the greatest love of Christ was shown. That is on the cross in Calvary. But the devil, dear congregation, wants us to doubt that great love. He wants us to wonder indeed if that love is actually for us on the personal level. And the Lord also knows that our own natural heart, devil aside, often doubts that love and forgets or maybe makes light of that great love. And so He says in the supper, taste the wine, taste the bread, feel the elements with your senses, and be reminded of my profound love for you that never wavers, that never dies. These are the elements that remind you of Me. That I broke My body. That I shed My blood. Why? Because I love My church so much and I gave My life for them. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You know, on the human level, we can show a degree of love, can't we? And that usually begins with a plan in the mind. We begin thinking. We begin thinking of how we can do that. and then eventually gets expressed in words and then usually from the pattern is usually from thought to word to action and so we do that in a multitude of ways don't we throughout our lives well just think of that in terms of a higher plane and a higher level in terms of the Lord himself in the council of peace and eternity past He says, I have loved you with an everlasting love. He is the Lamb that is slain from the foundation of the world. The Lord had it in His holy heart to love His people and to send His Son for those who needed to be saved and those who He knew would sin and needed redeeming from their sin. But then as time and as history unfolded, And all the prophecies of the Old Testament came true, rather. Christ came into this fallen, dark world, and just as the Lord promised would be true, He came in the fullness of time and was born under the law to redeem those, Paul writes, who were under the law. And God so loved the world. He loved the world so much that He what? He put into action. He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. And so there we see the very action of God unfolding, showing His love by His actions. That, dear congregation, would do us no good, something that happened 2,000 years ago in history, if it didn't affect us today. And so God, He takes the very blood of Christ from 2,000 years ago and He applies it by His Word and by His Spirit. And He did that all in Old Testament time. He did that to those living in Christ's time. And He still does that to this very day in time and in history. He saves His people from their sins on the personal level. He shows His love in action by actually saving us. And then, further, by nourishing us in that love at times of ministering His Word and ministering His promises and also in the sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Suffering, He shows that love in concrete ways. And one day, He will consummate that and bring it all to its glorious conclusion when we will with all the people of God, throughout all the ages, eat of the eternal Lord's Supper in glory, as John writes about in the book of Revelation. the table of the Lamb, the supper of the Lamb, forever and ever. And so you see the Lord Jesus Christ, indeed, He not only thinks in His holy mind and heart and with emotion about these things, but He shows it in very real way in real time on the personal level to every single one of His straying sheep. And so I ask us in closing, congregation, what does the death of Jesus Christ not only mean, yes, but what does it mean to us personally? What does it mean to us personally, on the personal level? The Lord's Supper comes to us on the very personal level, doesn't it? There are many people who read the New Testament epistles and they see indeed this as a great and a virtuous act of some great leader in history. And that's all it means to them. But I ask us this morning, does the love of Christ melt our hearts? Does it break our hearts? Does it humble our hearts? Does His sacrificial love touch us in our emotions? And maybe we say, well, it doesn't touch me enough. Do we want to know more of Him? Do we long to know more of Him as a hungry and a needy sinner? Do we long to have His love shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us? Paul writes in Romans 5, Well, then, come and remember Him at His table, the Lord Jesus Christ, had a profound desire to eat the meal with his followers, with his disciples. Do we, in response to that desire, do we too have the desire to eat together with him? God grant it to us all. Amen.