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REMEMBER HIS DEATH
A. Introduction: In this series we are considering something that Jesus did at the Last supper, His final
meal with His twelve apostles (His closest followers) the night before He was crucified.
1. At that meal Jesus took bread and wine, distributed it to the apostles, and told them to eat and drink.;
a. Luke 22:19—Then he took a loaf of (unleavened) bread; and when he had thanked God for it, he
broke it in pieces and gave it to his disciples, saying, “This is my body, given for you. Do this
in remembrance of me (NLT).
b. Matt 26:28—And He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “All of you
drink from it. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the
remission of sins (NKJV).
2. What Jesus did that night is well known to anyone who is or has been involved in any type of
Christian church and participated in what we know as communion or the Lord’s Supper.
a. In our current series we are considering what Jesus’ actions would have meant to the men who
sat at the table with Him when He offered them the bread and wine.
1. Remember, the Bible is roughly 50% history. It’s a record of what real people did and said,
to other real people, in their time and culture. Being aware of this fact gives us greater
insight and understanding when we read the Bible.
2. The men at the table were all Jewish, and their worldview was shaped by the Scriptures
(what we know as the Old Testament). And they would have interpreted everything Jesus
did and said in terms of what the Scriptures (the Bible) says.
b. We are also considering Jesus’ words and actions in terms of the big picture, or God’s overall
plan for mankind. Almighty God created human beings to become His sons and daughters, who
live in loving relationship with Him. He made this world to be a home for Himself and His
family. Eph 1:4-5; Isa 45:18; Ps 89:11; Ps 115:16; etc.
1. The first man, Adam, took the human race into the pigpen of sin, which brought corruption
and death to the family and the family home. Since then, all humans have chosen
independence from God through sin, disqualifying them for God’s family. Gen 2:17; Rom
5:12; Isa 53:6; etc.
2. Following Adam’s sin, God began to reveal His plan to recover His family—God Himself
would incarnate (take on a human nature) and die as a sacrifice for sin. In doing so, He
would open the way for all who believe in Him to be restored to the family. I Pet 3:18
A. Gen 3:15—The Lord promised that there was coming the Seed of a woman who would
undo the damage done by sin. The Seed is Jesus and the woman is Mary.
B. The Bible is actually a collection of sixty-six books that gradually and progressively tell
the story of God’s desire for a family and the lengths He has gone to, to obtain His family
through Jesus. Every book somehow adds to or advances this story of salvation.
3. Our purpose is in talking about this topic is to make us more aware of what Jesus accomplished for
us through His death so that communion becomes more to us than simply a ritual or ceremony that
we do from time to time at our church.
B. We made these points previously. The men at the table with Jesus believed that He was the promised
Messiah (Savior) that the Old Testament prophets wrote about. However, they had no idea that Jesus
would be arrested that night, put on trial, and turned over to the Romans to be crucified.
1. At this Last Supper, through His teaching, Jesus was preparing them for the fact that He was about to
leave them and return to Heaven. Jesus knew that they didn’t fully understand much of what He
said to them that night, but He assured them that they would soon understand. John 14:20

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a. The Last Supper was actually a Passover meal, a meal that the apostles had celebrated since they
were children. This meal was like all those other Passover meals, until Jesus took bread and
wine and offered it to them as His body and blood and said that His body would be given for
them and His blood (the blood of the new covenant) would be shed for the forgiveness of sins.
1. As Jews, the apostles had a covenant with God (we know it as the Old Covenant). It was a
binding agreement (initiated by God) that if they worshipped only Him, He would protect
and provide for them. These men knew that the Old Testament prophets also predicted that
God would one day establish a new covenant with Israel. Gen 12:1-3; Jer 31:XX
2. They knew that blood must be shed when a covenant was established. And, they were part
of a culture that believed and understood that blood sacrifices were necessary to atone for sin.
b. What they did not know was that the next day, Jesus was going to willingly give His body and
shed His blood as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. Nor did they know that this meal that He
was instituting was to be a remembrance of His sacrifice.
2. As we’ve said, the Last Supper itself was a Passover meal—an annual celebration established by
God to help the Jewish people remember what God did when He brought Israel out of Egypt.
a. The night before they left slavery in Egypt, God instructed them to kill an unblemished sheep
and place its blood on the doors of their dwelling, and then eat the lamb. Ex 12:1-30
1. Ex 12:2—(He said) from now on, this month (Abib, later called Nisan—March or April) will
be the first month of the year of you. Announce to the whole community that on the tenth
day of this month, each family must choose a lamb or a young goat for a sacrifice (NLT).
A. Ex 12:6—Take special care of these lambs, until the evening of the fourteenth day of this
first month (Nisan). Then each family in the community must slaughter its lamb (NLT).
B. Ex 12:14—You must remember this day forever. Each year you will celebrate it as a
special festival to the Lord (NLT).
2. When the final plague of judgment on Egypt struck that night (death of the first born), all
who had blood on the door were spared (or passed over).
b. The Jews observed this practice through the centuries, Just as God instructed them to do, adding
various rituals and custom.
3. The Old Testament has many types and shadows (real events and people) that foreshadow what
Jesus would do. That first Passover in Egypt was a shadow of the reality that was fulfilled when
Jesus made the final sacrifice for sin.
a. By Jesus’ time, the Passover lambs were sacrificed at the Temple in Jerusalem. Jesus was
crucified and died on 14th Nisan (March, April), the same day as the original Passover, at the
ninth hour (3 pm), at the time that the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple.
1. The New Testament calls Jesus our Passover Lamb, the Lamb who takes away the sins of the
world (I Cor 5:7; John 1:28). The Passover meal itself prefigured the fulfillment in Jesus.
2. At every Passover meal, not only was the lamb’s blood put on the door, the lamb and
unleavened bread, were eaten. Ex 12:8-10
b. We said last week that in a teaching Jesus gave some time before He called the Passover bread
His body, He called Himself the Bread from Heaven that gives life to the world (John 6:35).
1. When Jesus called Himself the Bread of Life (John 6:35), He conveyed an important aspect
of His relationship to all human beings who believe in Him.
2. From the beginning of His ministry Jesus made it clear that He came to bring eternal life to
men and women (John 3:16; John 10:10). By eternal life Jesus meant resurrection from the
dead. But He also meant that He (God) was going to indwell those who believe on Him by
His uncreated, eternal life—by His Spirit in them. John 6:40; I John 5:11-12
3. When we eat bread or take it in, it becomes our life. Nutrients are assimilated into our

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bodies and become life-giving nourishment. Jesus becomes our life when we come to Him
and believe, when we take Him in, as symbolized by eating bread. John 6:25; 6:35; 53-58
4. God’s plan has always been to indwell His sons and daughters by His Spirit and life. Jesus made
this possible through His sacrificial death which remitted (wiped out) our sin.
C. When God created Adam, He gave Adam created life. But the Lord made Adam and man in Adam
with the capacity to received Him into our being—to be united to His Spirit, His uncreated, eternal life.
1. God placed the first humans, Adam and Eve, in a beautiful place called the Garden of Eden. Two
trees in the garden are mentioned by name—the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. The Lord told them that if they ate from the second tree they would die. Gen 2:17
a. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In doing so they chose
independence from God which cut them off from the life in God, from union with Him, through
eating from the tree of life. They didn’t die physically until many years later. Gen 3:23-24
b. God knew this would happen and already had a plan in mind to undo what had happened. He
would incarnate and offer Himself as a sacrifice to open the way for the family to restored to the
life in Him. Jesus is called the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Rev 13:8
1. The Lord began to slowly unveil His plan with the promise of the coming Seed of the woman
and covered Adam and Eve with coats of skin. Gen 3:15; Gen 3:21
2. These coats of skin pictured what would be necessary to regain God’s family—the sacrifice
of an innocent one, the shedding of blood to cover sin.
c. At the Last Supper Jesus spoke to men who understood from the Scriptures that the shedding of
blood was necessary to atone for sin. These men grew up with a system of animal sacrifices.
1. The Law of Moses said: The life of any creature is in its blood. I have given you the blood
so you can make atonement for your sins. It is the blood, representing life, that brings you
atonement (Lev 17:11, NLT).
2. Paul the apostle, making reference to the sacrifices carried out before Jesus came wrote:
Under the law (of Moses) almost everything is purified by blood and without the shedding of
blood there is no forgiveness of sin (Heb 9:22, ESV).
2. Jesus’ death the next day (Good Friday) will open the way for men and women to be indwelled by
God and united to Him through shared life through the work of the Holy Spirit.
a. While Jesus was on earth He used a number of word pictures to help us understand how He,
Almighty God, who is Infinite and Eternal, interacts with finite human beings.
b. At the Last Supper Jesus not only called His body bread, He also called Himself the Vine and
called believers in Him branches, picturing union and shared life (John 15:5). Note another
word picture that Jesus gave early in His ministry that also pictures union and shared life.
1. Jesus talked with a Samaritan woman at a well. He asked her for a drink of water, and she
expressed surprise that a Jewish man talked to her. Jesus responded: If you knew who I am
you would ask me for water, and I would give you living water. John 4:1-10
2. She replied: This well is deep. How are you going to get living water? Jesus answered:
People soon become thirsty after drinking this water. But the water that I give them takes
away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life
(John 4:13-14, NLT).
3. Note another word picture given at the Feast of Tabernacles several months before Jesus was
crucified. Tabernacles and Passover were two of seven annual feasts that God instructed Israel to
observe once they were settled in their homeland (Canaan), following Egyptian slavery. Lev 23
a. During the Feast of Tabernacles, the Jewish people lived in temporary shelters or booths to
remind them that they had lived in the wilderness when they left Egypt. The booths were

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symbols of God’s protection and preservation of them in the wilderness. Lev 23:33-44
b. All adult males had to appear before the Lord in Jerusalem. Jesus went up to Jerusalem secretly,
staying out of public view. The Jewish leadership was growing increasingly upset with Him,
and plotting His death, and the people were divided over whether or not He is the Messiah.
c. Midway through the week-long celebration, Jesus went to the Temple and taught openly. By
the time of Jesus, two customs had become part of the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles.
1. The people would carry torches in a march around the Temple, then set the lights around the
walls of the Temple, indicating that the Messiah would be a light to the Gentiles. Is 49:6
2. A priest carried water, taken from the nearby Pool of Siloam, in a golden vessel to the
Temple each day, symbolizing that when the Messiah comes, the whole earth will know God
just as waters cover the sea. Isa 11:9
A. When the priests came through the Water Gate in the wall of the city with the drawn
water, they were greeted by sounds of trumpets and shofar blasts, in anticipation and
fulfillment of Isa 12:3—With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation (ESV).
B. This celebration was joyful, even riotous. There were men juggling lighted torches and
turning summersaults. The Talmud (rabbinic commentary on Jewish law) says: He who
has not seen rejoicing at the place of water-drawing, has never seen rejoicing in his life.
d. On the last day of the feast, Jesus stood up in the Temple and in a loud voice made a powerful
Messianic claim, which also pictures union and shared life. He said:
1. John 7:37-38—If you are thirsty, come to me! If you believe in me, come and drink! For
the Scriptures declare that rivers of living water will flow from within (NLT).
2. The writer of the book, John the apostle, added a note: John 7:39—(When he said “living
water” he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But
the Spirit had not yet been given because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory) (NLT).
A. Seven hundred years earlier, Isaiah the prophet wrote—For I will pour water upon him
that is thirsty, and floods upon dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my
blessing upon thine offspring (KJV, Isa 44:3).
B. Jesus, by His statement, was declaring that He was and is the promised Messiah and that
all who believe on Him will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the living water.
C. The next morning, while the torches from the previous night’s celebration, Jesus
declared: I am the Light of the world (John 8:12, KJV).
D. Conclusion: Jesus told His apostles that they were to eat the bread and drink the wine in remembrance
of Him. Paul later wrote that when we do this, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes again
(I Cor 11:26). What is the message of the Lord’s death?
1. We’ll talk more about this next week, but one thought as we close. His death opened the way to life
for us. We’ll talk more about this next week, but consider these statements as we close.
a. Rom 5:10—For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God, much more, now that we
are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life (ESV).
b. Col 1:20-22—(Christ) has reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in
heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the cross. This includes you who were once so
far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and
actions, yet now he has brought you back as his friends. He has done this through his death on
the cross, in his own human body. As a result, he has brought you into the very presence of
God, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault (NLT).
2. Communion is more than a ritual. It is a visual reminder of what Jesus accomplished for us through
His death. His death brought life to us and opened the way back to our Father and the family.