“The Sacraments: The Lord’s Supper Pt 2” 1 Sam 21:1-9 Mark 14:12-25

 When I sat down to work on this sermon this week the first image that came to mind was boxes. Odd I know. But I was thinking about how we put the Lord’s Supper, Holy Communion into a box in so many of our worship services. You can celebrate it on this particular Sunday but not that one. Or you have to use a specific brand of grape juice. Or the bread needs to be cut using a particular technique. And all of a sudden we miss the holiness in the midst of the ordinary.

Which is the exact opposite of what Jesus was saying and doing on that evening long ago. He was saying that the ordinary becomes extraordinary by God’s grace and mercy. Case in point - the Gospel of Mark.

If we sit back and let this telling of the Last Supper wash over us, in so many ways it sounds like Palm Sunday does it not? The disciples come to ask Jesus where and how he would like them to prepare for the celebration of the passover meal and he tells them the story of a man they will encounter - sort of like the young, unridden colt they have found. And Jesus says, that they will find a man carrying a jar of water and they are to follow him. There they will find the owner of a house, where they are to ask for the guest room for the celebration.

I have to wonder if the disciples are used to moments like this by now. Are they used to Jesus telling them exactly what they will find in a certain place at a certain time, as odd as it may seem to the outside world? Are they used to strange directions or has it become common place for them?

For the disciples went and they did find things exactly as Jesus had said. Then they set about preparing for the Passover meal.

While the Passover meal was certainly a central part of the Jewish life, thus a central part of the lives of Jesus and his disciples, the disciples were busy putting their own lives into boxes as well. This - well this is the day when we prepare for the Passover. When we have a mental list to check off in our head about what needs to be done in order for a suitable meal. And right now, now, we need to prepare. 

But they are so caught up in the concern of finding a place to celebrate and the present needs to prepare, that they almost miss the point - Jesus is about to do something new.

However, there is no way for them to miss that point when they truly sit down that evening around the table in the Upper Room. All of a sudden, Jesus breaks through the spirit in that place with one statement, “One of you is going to betray me.” At that moment, none of the preparation and planning for the meal matter any more. As everyone starts to wonder if Jesus is talking about them. 

Jesus, who was able to tell them to follow a man with a water jug to the door of an unknown house, won’t reveal to them who he knows, with just as much clarity, who is going to betray him. Instead, he picked up what the disciples had prepared on the table - the bread and the cup - and gave them a new meaning. A meaning not rooted in the past, but in what is to come. In transformation. 

The Passover meal was all about deliverance. The deliverance that God alone brought long ago, when for the last time Moses told Pharaoh to let God’s people go. Now Jesus is foretelling of a new type of deliverance, deliverance that he will bring through the cross as he gives away his body and blood. 

Yet, what sets this giving of life, even unto death, into motion - its going to be hard. It’s something that there is no way that they can prepare themselves for. Long ago, God gave the Israelites detailed instructions. Instructions on how they were to prepare a lamb and how they were to paint their doorpost in its blood. Instructions on how they were to pack. And later on, instructions on how to celebrate this holy meal. But now, on the eve of Jesus changing the world by his actions, there isn’t as clear of instructions. Just a statement that it will start in betrayl.

No wonder the disciples have a hard time believing him! Jesus knew that they would. You don’t have to look much further past the first word of Jesus’s statement, “Truly!” Jesus used that word when he was about to say something that would be hard to believe and understand, and the fact that someone who had just spent the last three years with him was about to betray him, is no exception. 

It’s so funny that on this night when the disciples have gathered together to remember, that they would be shocked by the idea of betrayl. It is all throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Jacob betrayed Esau. Cain betrayed Abel. Joseph’s brothers betrayed him. And that’s just in the book of Genesis. We as human beings seem to have the idea of betrayl written on our hearts - and we can violate each other’s trust so easily. .

But it is not a mistake or an aside that Jesus mentioned this idea of someone close to him betraying him at this particular meal. In fact, in some ways its central to the story and meaning of his Holy Supper. On the first Passover God established a covenant, but our human weakness couldn’t live into it. Now on this particular night, Jesus is speaking of God establishing a new covenant - one that can withstand all of our betrayl and weaknesses. One that is as strong as Jesus’s body and blood. 

And friends, that is not a message that is meant to be contained just to particular dates and times and ways of celebrating. It’s stronger than the box we have tried to put it in. It’s a message that transformed everything. 

But I get it. That’s a weighty message. And sometimes its easier to talk about the linens and the proper day to celebrate then that life-altering message. The message that Jesus is the lamb who came to liberate us from ourselves and our own mess. Easier than asking ourselves the hard question of how we, each and every one of us, have betrayed Jesus Christ. How we have tried to go about life on our own way and it hasn’t worked. 

One final story about communion. At my home church growing up, we celebrate communion a variety of ways, but a few times a year we would come up to the rail, which had been prepared to receive. And on those particular times, two young people were selected to fold up the linens to reveal the table before people would come up, pew by pew. I don’t remember the gentleman’s name, but one of the communion days at the rail, one of the ushers told me that I didn’t know how to fold the linen correctly. It says something that I can remember that statement and the tone in which it was said over two decades later. I now understand that the usher wanted the table to be perfect for people to come and receive this holy meal. But friends, no amount of outward perfection can cover up what’s in our hearts. No matter how we may look to the outer world, we still need to hear this story, celebrate this meal, and remember God’s grace. We all stand in need of transformation. We all stand in need of this unbreakable covenant. So let us prepare for the right thing, the truest thing. Amen.