This past Sunday, Pastor Kyle preached through Mark 14:12-26, where Jesus gave his friends a meal to teach them, remind them, and reassure them of what he's dying for. He instituted a meal we call the Lord’s Supper which grounds us in the realest of all realities. Telling us that our redemption (and all that it means for us) is as real as the bread and the cup we hold in our hands every time we take communion together. This is a great means of grace to us because we’re so often tempted to believe we need something more than God’s reality. That what he’s said is good, beautiful, and true is not enough.
Consider the questions below which represent 5 beliefs in unreality you might be tempted to embrace. Ask yourself these questions, and listen in to the answer the Lord’s Supper speaks as often as we take it.
1. Do you have an ‘over-spiritualized’ belief in the gospel?
Do you really believe you’ve been given a new heart and regenerated? Do you really believe the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:6-9) is something you’ll really experience? Do you believe that Jesus really died for your real eternal life in his real presence?
The bread and the cup tell you that the promises and experience of the gospel are as real as the bread which touches your fingertips and juice you taste upon your tongue.
2. Do you have a domesticated view of your sin and its cost?
Sin. Judgment. Wrath. The cross. Jesus died for my sins. “Yea, yea, yea. I know, I know.” But do you really?
The bread tells the story that the real body of the real Son of God had to be BROKEN in order for your sins to be forgiven. The cup tells the story that his blood poured from the holes in his hands and feet and side and the gouges in his back and the punctures in his forehead. That he died the REAL death and suffered the REAL wrath of God that YOU REALLY deserved in a real hell.
3. Do you believe the cross is not really for you?
You might feel unworthy. Dirty. Too mired in sin and guilt and the destructive choices.
But Jesus says, “take”. The “taking” of communion symbolizes the real faith of someone who has believed in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins.
1 John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
As surely as you receive the real bread and the cup, so surely have you received real forgiveness. The cup we drink is a cup of grace. There’s another cup Jesus would drink. It is a cup of wrath (Mark 14:36). It is only because he drank that cup that we get to drink the cup of grace. The real elements assure your heart of this reality.
4. Do you believe the cross is of central importance?
Someone once said to me, “I just can’t get on board with the ‘cross-centered’ life. I believe it’s a resurrection-centered life”.
Now, the resurrection - along with the incarnation and ascension - is a non-negotiable and critical component of the gospel. BUT the cross is where everything Jesus did and said became your reality. Our regular practice of communion until he returns reminds us of that.
5. Do you believe the cross is real enough for the realest problems that you face?
“Are you ever tempted to believe the [cross] doesn’t work in the real world? Sometimes we doubt that the grace of Christ is really powerful enough [for a] troubled and troubling world" - Tripp
The real problems. Sure, it's helpful for that little argument you had. And for that month when you're anxious because you spent a little more money than you earned. But for the real problems? Naw. The bread and the cup remind us that the cross was the best solution. To man’s deepest problems. And it will correct every problem.
Would the real elements of the Lord’s Table ground your belief in the real and historic body and blood of Jesus given for you. The very real death of Christ which has purchased your very real life in him.
