The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.

“Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.

“This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”

Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop and dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. None of you shall go out of the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians, and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you. You shall observe this rite as a statute for you and for your sons forever. And when you come to the land that the Lord will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you, ‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’” And the people bowed their heads and worshiped.—Exodus 12:1–27

Introduction

I should probably pause to address the word sacrament. First of all, Pastor Dave gave me the sermon title, so I’ll go ahead and throw him under the bus. But actually I love the title.

Most Baptists describe baptism and the Lord’s Table as “ordinances.” This is a good and right word, but I’m not sure we always know what we mean when we use it. At the least, it means that it is something that we have been ordered to do, right? A local city ordinance is a requirement.

And we are required by the Lord Jesus to do these things. But is that all we can say about baptism and the Lord’s Table? That we do them because we’ve been ordered to—because they are our duty? I don’t deny that we are commanded to do these things, but maybe our fellowship with the risen Lord Jesus around the Table is more than a duty. Maybe it is both duty and delight—isn’t that what we like to do around here anyway? 

But you might hear the word sacrament and think, what is going on? Are we going Roman Catholic or something?

Well, both the Westminster Confession of Faith and John Calvin happily use this word, and they also said that the pope is the antichrist. I have a lot of questions about the Roman Catholic Church, but I don’t think I’d say that. So if they can use the word sacrament or even Eucharist (which means “thanksgiving”) without worrying about being confused with Roman Catholics, then so can we. Besides, “just because Roman Catholics do it, we are not going to do it” is not a good argument.

How then do the Reformers describe sacraments?

John Calvin writes that a sacrament is “an outward sign by which the Lords seals on our consciences the promises of his good will toward us in order to sustain the weakness of our faith; and we in turn attest our piety toward him in the presence of the Lord.”

This is not something that we do to be justified or accepted by God; it is what God does for us to sustain our faith—like preaching. What Calvin is saying is that in these sacraments God is actually doing something for us. The Spirit is at work. So we are going to spend most of our time this morning considering what the Spirit is doing as we come to the Table, and then we are going to apply the sermon by actually coming to the Table together.

But first, a word about baptism.

How is the Spirit signifying and sealing God’s promises at baptism?

In Romans 6:3–4, Paul writes:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

As we go under the waters of baptism, the Spirit signifies the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. It is a sign to the person being baptized, to the church, and to the world that this person is united to Christ. 

But the Spirit is also sealing the promises of God to us. He is sealing to us the truth of God’s promises; everyone who enters the waters of baptism who truly believes God’s saving promises can be confident in those promises. The Spirit assures us of the truth of these things through the waters of baptism and so he publicly seals or guarantees our union with Christ. The sacrament of baptism is a sign of God’s promises to us in Christ and a seal of the truth of those promises. 

After baptism, we then come to the Lord’s Table. So this morning, we are going to spend most of our time talking about the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. It is also both a sign and seal of God’s promises to us. It symbolizes the Lord’s death and proclaims the hope of the gospel. We’ll return to that in a bit. But we want to consider the whole picture of what is going on at the Table—at least as much as we are able in one sermon.

We often describe the Lord’s Table as “Communion.” And that is a good word to use. But have you ever thought about we you are saying when you call the Lord’s Table “Communion”? It implies that we are in community—with the people of God throughout the centuries, with each other, and with Jesus himself.

If you think of the Lord’s Supper as only a monthly time to remember the death of Christ, I can understand why you might be leery of doing it too often. 

But could I encourage you to consider that there might be more happening as we gather around the Table than you have realized? That this is more than mere memory?

This morning, it is my prayer that we will see how the Spirit brings us into communion with the people of God around the world and across the centuries, with each other, and with Jesus himself at the Lord’s Table.

PRAYER

I said this is a different kind of sermon, so let me tell you where we are going. In a moment, we are going back to Exodus. We are going to do a fly over of Exodus 12 in the next few minutes. We want to do a little biblical theology of the Lord’s Table and then, in the second part of the sermon, we’ll move to 1 Corinthians 10–11 and make a couple of observations there.

In Exodus 12, we see that …

1) The Spirit joins us to God’s Covenant People throughout the centuries.

This text tells us about the first Passover, when God delivered the Hebrew people from their slavery in Egypt. We won’t look at many details from this text, other than to see what is going on at this Passover meal. In the first Passover meal, the people of God were actually delivered from slavery.

In Exodus 12, God instructed the Israelites to prepare a lamb as a substitute for the firstborn. And why is it a lamb? Why not a bull—those are bigger and have more meat. Or why not just eat the bread and herbs? That would be quicker to prepare. I’m sorry, but there were no vegetarians allowed here. Why is that? I think the answer is that God has always required a lamb.

In Genesis 4, God accepted Abel’s sacrifice because he brought the firstborn of his flock. When God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis 22, he provided a ram or a lamb as a substitute.

Now, here they are getting ready to leave Egypt, and again God requires a perfect lamb as the substitute for sin. Whoever wanted to come to God had to come on the basis of the substitute—the lamb—that he provides.

But Abel’s sacrifice wasn’t enough. Neither was Abraham’s. Neither were any of the lambs that Israel was going to offer in the Passover year after year after year after year.

All of these sacrifices were pointing forward to a Lamb that could deal with sin once and for all. As they prepared the Passover, they were to take a lamb “without blemish.” (v. 5).

This didn’t have anything to do with the way the lamb tasted. It was a symbol of what God requires to save his people. And even though that first Passover lamb and all the ones after it had to be without blemish, we know they weren’t perfect. They didn’t finish the job—another one had to be sacrificed the next year.

But 1,400 years after the first Passover, Jesus, the promised Savior came into the world. When John the Baptist saw him, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!”

Even though those lambs had to be without blemish, there is only one perfect Lamb. Hebrews 9 teaches us the difference between those Passover sacrifices and every other sacrifice that you read about in the OT and Jesus:

But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.—Hebrews 9:26

We always need a lamb. We always need the Lamb. The Passover and now the Lord’s Table teaches us about the good news that winds its way through the story of redemption.

Year after year in Israel, the Jews would gather to remember God’s salvation in the past, enjoy his redemption in the present, and look toward his salvation in the future. And so for centuries, this what they did—or at least what they should have been doing—they were to celebrate God’s covenant promises as God’s covenant people.

The Passover was the time when God’s old covenant people would come together to renew their commitment to him and to each other, and to look for the day when he would finally redeem his people and the world.

And this is what we see when Jesus and his disciples gathered together to eat the Passover together. But this was not like the 1,400 Passovers before.

Listen to Luke 22:14-20,

And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” 

The Lord’s Table was not something that came out of nowhere—it is the continuation, and really the fulfillment—of the Passover meal. The Exodus and the Passover point a greater salvation to come—the cross, resurrection, ascension, and reign of Jesus. Christ is our promised Lamb who lays down his life for us. Come to him, trust him alone as your hope and salvation.

Every time we come to the Table, the Spirit is uniting us with the people of God past, present, and future. We enjoy the salvation God won for us in the past right now in the present and “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes,” as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 11:26, looking forward to future salvation. It is our covenant meal, when we get to gather in the presence of Christ and his people to remember and proclaim the gospel. 

To see more of what this looks like, let’s move to 1 Corinthians 10–11.

Many of us are familiar with the context here, but as a reminder, in these two chapters Paul is teaching the church in Corinth about true and false worship—including the question of how to deal with idol worship and the problems in their worship services.

In both of these chapters, Paul teaches the church about Christian worship by pointing to the Lord’s Table. In what might be the longest concentrated instructions about Christian worship services in the NT, the Lord’s Table is really near the heart of it. So it is important that we get a sense of what Paul is saying about the Table. 

To do this, let’s jump first to 1 Corinthians 10:14–22.

Therefore, my beloved, [in light of the instructions from Israel’s history in the first part of the chapter] flee from idolatry. I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

There is a lot we could say here about the connection between idols and demons and even how to think about these things in the modern world. But I want us to key in on v. 16. Here we’ll see our second main point.

2) The Spirit brings us into true communion with the risen Christ.

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?

The cup and the bread are the bread and the wine of the Lord’s Table, right?

Paul says that when we come to the Table, we are participating in the body and blood of Christ. So what exactly does it mean to participate in the body and blood of Christ? I think Paul helps us answer this a couple of verses later. He asks in v. 19 if idols are real gods—he answers no, of course not.

The Greco-Roman gods—Zeus, Hera, Mars, Apollo—are not real. But, he continues in vv. 20–21 …

No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.”

As one commentary puts it: “The word implies one who enjoys fellowship with the others at the table (here the demons are understood to be the honored guests at such meals).”^[1]

Whatever these idol worshippers were doing with demons is like what we are doing with the Lord Jesus when we come to the Table. In both cases, it is “participation,” “communion,” “fellowship.” 

Paul is saying that Christ himself is the honored guest at this Table. This is not a mere memory of Christ, is it? This is real table fellowship with the Risen Jesus who is spiritually present with us. Again, the parallel with demons also helps us understand how Christ is present at the Table. 

The demons were not bodily present in some way, so I think it is a mistake to say that Christ is bodily present—at least the way that Roman Catholics and even most Lutherans do. But if I can use a Pastor Jason analogy, if one ditch is transubstantiation, I think the opposite ditch might be to say that Christ is not spiritually present with us at the Table. This is the real absence of Christ. If Paul’s warning is the church to avoid the real spiritual presence of demons, the flip side of this is that at the Table: Christ is truly spiritually present with us. How else could we have real fellowship with him if he is not truly present with us? 

When our small group meets, we gather for a meal at our house right after church. I think for most of us, this is the highlight of our time together. We gather around our table (and our kitchen and living room and basement—and sometimes our deck outside—we call our group a “medium group”).

But when one of us is gone, we miss them and remember them and pray for them, but we can’t say they are fellowshipping with us that week. Because they are not present with us. 

So, as we come together around the Table, the Spirit brings us into communion with the risen Christ. He is as truly present with us as our small group is together or as your family is when you sit around the Table. This is amazing. In this room, as we gather together to take these elements, we can enter into true fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. He is truly with us in a unique way. And as we do this, we are spiritually nourished through him.

Even though they saw the problems with the Roman view of the Eucharist, pretty much every Protestant tradition has said that when we come to the Table of the Lord, our real spiritual union with him is nourished and strengthened.

Question 96 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism says …

The Lord’s supper is a sacrament, wherein, by giving and receiving bread and wine according to Christ's appointment, his death is showed forth; and the worthy receivers are, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but by faith, made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace.

The 1689 London Baptist Confession says that in the Lord’s Supper, Christians “really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally, but spiritually receive, and feed upon Christ crucified ... the body and blood of Christ being then not corporally or carnally, but spiritually present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses” (30.7).

What I’m saying is nothing that Reformed Protestants haven’t said for centuries. As we gather at the Table, the Spirit brings us into true communion with Christ, who is spiritually present to spiritually nourish us.

But if we keep going in 1 Corinthians 10:17, we see that he also brings us into communion with each other: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.”

Not only are we in fellowship with Christ, we are also in fellowship with each other around this Table. The Lord’s Table is not something for individuals—it is for the whole church. The Lord Jesus didn’t give these sacraments to individuals—he gave them to his church. This is our family meal, and at this meal we are given spiritual food.

To see this in more detail, let’s jump to 1 Corinthians 11:17–26. Here, we’ll see that …

3) The Spirit brings us into communion with each other as we participate in his death until he returns. 

In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.—1 Corinthians 11:17–26

Again, there are many details that we won’t be able to look at in this text. But we are going to key in on v. 20. The principle we need to see here is that the Table is the place where the Spirit brings us together as a church in a unique way. Paul rebukes the church for not coming together around the Lord’s Table together, right? “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat.” In other words, he is saying, “What is the deal with you guys coming together and not being unified around the Table?” He is saying that when the church is not unified around the Lord’s Table, we are not displaying the unity that Jesus intends his church to have. 

Now I want to be careful as I raise this point, but ...

If Paul is saying that the Corinthian church is sinning
            because they are not united
            And they are not united
                 because they are not coming around the Lord’s Table together …

Then coming around the Lord’s Table is a necessary part of what it means for the church to be united and a necessary part of Christian worship. Otherwise, we’d have to say that Paul is saying something like, “When you come together it’s OK not to be unified as long as you aren’t taking Communion that week.”

But the text implies that coming together as a church and coming to the Table are really the same thing. This is why for many Christian traditions and from what we can see in the NT and in the early centuries of the church, the Lord’s Table is an essential part of the worship service every week. 

So then, as the church has gathered around the Table through the centuries to fellowship with Christ and with each other, what are we doing at that Table? We are remembering the Lord’s death—his sacrifice as our perfect Lamb. 

And it is just not recollecting something like you might remember a movie that you watched last night or how you might remember a fond memory from your childhood.

But how did Israel remember the Exodus? By participating in the Passover again.

There is a difference between recalling my wedding anniversary and participating in my anniversary. If I recall my anniversary, I think about it. I can stand up here and recall that my anniversary is on June 2, 2001. I can recall the weather was chilly for June and that the bridesmaids wore purple dresses. But those are just facts in my mind.

To remember my anniversary the way this text describes it means something like I take my wife out to dinner or on a trip back to Hawaii where we used to live. To remember our anniversary really means we participate in our anniversary. We experience its benefits for us.

And so at the Table, we remember the death of Christ because we participate in his death for us—we are enjoying its benefits for us and we fellowship with Christ and with each other. Remembering is participating. In our fellowship meal, we are proclaiming the gospel until the Lord Jesus comes again. It is a sign and a seal, or guarantee, of the promises of God in the gospel.

As we come to the Table, what is the Spirit doing?

• The Spirit joins us to God’s Covenant People throughout the centuries.
  
• The Spirit brings us into true communion with the risen Christ.
  
• The Spirit brings us into communion with each other as we participate in his death until he returns.

At the Lord’s Table, we are participating in the history of redemption as we fellowship with each other and our risen Lord Jesus.

In a little book on the Lord’s Table, Peter Leithart asks, “What happens in holy communion?”

We, as children of Adam, are offered the trees of the garden; as sons of Abraham, we celebrate a victory feast in the King’s Valley; as holy ones, we receive holy food; as the true Israel, we feed on the land of milk and honey; as exiles returned to Zion, we eat marrow and fat, and drink wine on the lees; we who are many are made one loaf, and commune with the body and blood of Christ; we are the bride celebrating the marriage supper of the Lamb, and we are also the bride undergoing the test of jealousy; at the Lord’s table we commit ourselves to shun the table of demons.

So what is the Spirit doing in the sacrament of the Lord’s Table? He is uniting us to our brothers and sisters throughout history, around the world, and our brothers and sisters in this room. He is calling us into table fellowship with Christ and with each other. As we gather around the Table, let’s remember that this is our family meal. We are nourished by our fellowship as we remember and we proclaim that Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again.

How then do we apply this sermon?

Christ our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed, once for all upon the Cross.

Therefore let us keep the feast.^[2]

_____________

^[1] Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010).

^[2] Book of Common Prayer, 2019