In his sermon 'The First Lord's Supper', Peter Allison explores the deep symbolism and significance of the Lord's Supper, focusing on its origins and its meaning for believers. He draws parallels between the Passover and the Lord's Supper, highlighting how Jesus instituted this sacrament just before His suffering, symbolizing the new covenant in His blood. The bread and wine represent Christ's body and blood, signifying participation in His sacrifice through faith. The sermon stresses that the Lord's Supper is more than a memorial; it is a means of receiving grace and spiritual nourishment, mediated by the Holy Spirit. Allison explains that while the physical elements are present, the real benefit comes through faith, as believers spiritually partake in Christ's sacrifice. The sermon also addresses common misconceptions about the physical presence of Christ in the elements and emphasizes the importance of the Holy Spirit in understanding and experiencing the Lord's Supper.

Please turn in your scriptures to Luke chapter 22. Begin reading at verse 14, That Psalm that we just sang, Psalm 78, is a lengthy account of all of God's workings and deliverances of the children of Israel and the recurring... It opens by commanding parents to teach their children these things, and then it goes on to discuss all the things that we are to teach, all of God's wonderful works, how He, as this summarizes, turned away His anger from them in His grace. Luke 22, beginning at verse 14. When the hour had come, he sat down and the twelve apostles with him.

Then he said to them, With fervent desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I say to you, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. Then he took the cup and gave thanks and said, Take this and divide it among yourselves. For I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. And he took bread and gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them saying this is my body Which is given for you do this in remembrance of me Likewise he also took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood which is shed for you.

But behold the hand of my betrayer is with me on the table, and truly the Son of Man goes as it has been determined. But woe to that man by whom he is betrayed. Then they began to question among themselves which of them it was who would do this thing. May his testimonies be our delight and our counselors. Gracious Father in heaven, your word is truth.

Please open our eyes to that truth. Open our hearts or to the work of your spirit this morning and sanctify my sinful lips that they may proclaim the gospel of the grace of God in the power of your Spirit. In Jesus' name, Amen. Jesus began his public ministry with his baptism when he was thirty years of age. His baptism consecrated him as a priest, and it set him apart to proclaim this Gospel.

See, baptism points to the work of the Holy Spirit. And it signifies our need to be cleansed from dead works. For our consciences to be washed, renewed. And so when Jesus came to John the Baptist to be baptized, you remember John protested and said, I need to be baptized by you. Why do you need to be baptized?

Why do you want to be baptized by me? It should be the other way around. But Jesus answered him, said, permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness. Permit it, because it's necessary to fulfill the law, what the righteousness requires. And so then John the Baptist allowed him and he was baptized.

Jesus needed to be baptized to fulfill all righteousness because Jesus was of the tribe of Judah and needed to be consecrated and ordained to the priesthood because as the writer to Hebrews says that if the priesthood is changed of necessity, there is a change in the law for he of whom these things are spoken, speaking of Christ, who was a priest after the order of Melchizedek and not called according to the order of Aaron. So if perfection had been through the Levitical priesthood, what further need would there be for another high priest after the order of Melchizedek? So if the priesthood has been changed, which it has, which it was, then there is a change of the law. For he of whom these things are spoken belong to another tribe from which no man has officiated at the altar, for it is evident that our Lord arose from Judah, of which tribe Moses speaks nothing concerning the priesthood. So Jesus had to be baptized, to be ordained to this priesthood, just as Aaron and his sons were baptized in the wilderness, setting them apart as the priestly office.

And so he began his ministry with this baptism, and he now ends his ministry on earth hours before he is our high priest offered himself as a Passover lamb and suffered the wrath of God for all the sins of all of His people for all time. Now here at the end of this earthly ministry, Christ ends it with the institution of the Lord's Supper. You see, what the blood of the Passover lamb secured their safety from God's judgment and commemorated their deliverance from bondage in Egypt, Jesus' death and His shed blood guarantees our safety and our salvation from the wrath of God and our deliverance from slavery and bondage to sin and to Satan. See we believe in the shed blood that sprinkles our hearts, the doorposts of our hearts. And we are delivered, we are saved from the wrath of God from his just and righteous judgment see in the paschal lamb no bones were to be broken it was to be roasted, not boiled so that it wasn't contaminated, as it were, with water.

It was pure. And it's unbroken bones, whole. And what wasn't eaten that day had to be burned so that nothing of this lamb saw corruption because see this lamb Was pointing to Christ who was perfect who was whole and who did not see corruption God did not leave his soul in in Hades And he saw his he saw no corruption And so this paschal lamb was pointing to Christ and in his sacrifice And that's why all these things had to be so carefully done in the Passover And so the purpose of the Lord's Supper, in the same way that the Passover pointed forward to Christ, the purpose of the Lord's Supper is to remind us of the sacrifice of Christ. But it's more. It's far more than just a mere memorial, a memory.

To eat of the lamb or to eat of a sacrifice indicates participation in that sacrifice. The Old Testament Jews in the celebration of Passover ate the lamb to signify their participation in that sacrament. You see, when our physical mouth eats the bread and wine, we bring the mouth of our soul to feed upon Christ. And with the mouth of faith, we partake by faith in Christ's sacrifice. With our spiritual mouth, We partake by faith in Christ's sacrifice.

With our spiritual mouth, we partake by faith in Christ's sacrifice. See, Jesus said, unless you eat my blood and drink my flesh, you have no part in Me." And some have thought that this means that children who don't partake of the Lord's Supper can't be saved. Jesus said, if you don't eat My blood or drink my body and drink my blood, then you can have no part in me. But see, that passage isn't talking about the Lord's Supper. His statement there doesn't relate to the Lord's Supper because we don't eat Christ's body and drink His blood at the Lord's Supper.

His body is in heaven at the right hand of God. It's not here on earth. It's coming back. But it's not here. And we certainly don't eat it.

See, Christ is making reference to what is symbolized in the Lord's Supper. He's making reference to that uninterrupted communion with Christ, which we obtain from the Lord's Supper. See, our soul feeds upon his flesh and his blood in precisely the same manner that the body is Sustained by eating and drinking And so it's this meal that we look at this morning, where Jesus institutes this sacrament, where we have communion with God, and where God feeds us. How? We don't know, I don't think we can explain it.

It's a mystery. But we believe that he does because He says He does. He feeds us. There is grace that is communicated at this table. So let's look then at Luke's account of this institution of this very important sacrament, this seal of the covenant of grace.

When the hour had come, He sat down and the twelve apostles with him. Jesus sat down with the twelve apostles. If you have a Bible that's translated from the critical text, the twelve may be missing. But only one half of one percent of all the manuscripts, according to Wilbur Pickering, and those one half of one percent that miss, that are lacking this twelve are of obviously inferior quality in his view. Jesus sat down with all 12 apostles.

That includes Judas. He is a participant at this Passover and celebration institution of the Lord's Supper. And he's allowed to take this sacrament at its institution. Because he is a part of the visible church. And he still professes to believe.

You remember Judas was the treasurer of the disciples bank account or their money bag. That would indicate that if he was chosen as the treasurer that he was somebody whom all the other disciples thought well of. They picked him to be the keeper of their money. Judas, up until this point, is an exemplary person, we would assume. And so he is a part of this church, and he partakes of this sacrament.

You see, Christ's church as we read this morning, the visible church, membership is open to all those who profess faith in Christ and to their children, to those who have received the sign of God's covenant in baptism. We can't see inside of people's hearts, And we don't have to try to. It's not our purpose in when we meet with people who want to become members to try and figure out if they have a regenerate heart. We can't know that. And we don't have to try to figure that out.

We simply are looking. Do they profess faith? Do they understand the basic elements of the faith which they profess? And are they walking consistent with that is there a consistency between the words and Actions in life You see that is the visible church all those who profess faith in Christ and their children. So this does not mean, we know that Judas was not of the elect.

The Scriptures tell us that. In His sorrow and repentance, it was not a repentance to salvation. So Jesus sits down with the twelve apostles with Him. And He says, with fervent desire, I desire to eat the Passover. Jesus was looking forward to this meal.

A fervent desire. That's a Hebrewism, actually. The word is repeated twice in the Hebrew. The word is repeated twice, really. Once in the infinitive case, and then again.

And it just is a way of saying something intensely. Like in Genesis 3.16, multiplying, I will multiply the sorrow. This is another example. Well, this is all Hebrewism. And how this Greek here is constructed is how The Septuagint translates those Hebrewisms of intensity.

So with fervent desire, so you notice fervent is in italics if you have a good Bible, because it literally just says, with desire, I have desired to eat this. Now that doesn't make sense in English but in Hebrew that's a way of communicating with intense desire. I have desired to eat this Passover with you. This was a full night. There's a lot that happens in this night.

There apparently was a meal possibly, and then the Passover, and then after the Passover he institutes the Lord's Supper. He also washes their feet, whether he did that before the Passover or after. There's some room for differing opinions on that, but there was a foot washing there. He washed their feet as an example to them. As a servant, they needed to be washed as well, ceremonially.

There was an extended time of teaching that's recorded in John 14, 15, and 16, as Jesus taught. There, His disciples, just the twelve, in the privacy of this room. There was His high priestly prayer in John 17. Jesus prayed for Himself, and he prayed for his disciples there, and not only those who were there, but all who would come to him. There was also a debate in this night, apparently, among the disciples about who was greatest.

And this is also the time when Jesus warned Peter about his coming denial, at least once. And then they sang a hymn and went out to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus was betrayed. So it was a very, very full night. There was extended discourse there as Jesus taught His disciples. But He intensely desired to eat it.

He intensely desired to eat it with His disciples. Jesus desires that his disciples spiritually feed upon him in a new way. This was the culmination of 1, 500 years of celebration of the Passover. It was now coming to its fulfillment in Christ. That very night He would be betrayed and the next day crucified.

And so he desires to eat it with his disciples. And he desires to eat it before he suffers. He tells them, I desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. Jesus has been telling His disciples many times that He was about to suffer. His whole ministry, He's been telling them about this time.

And as it grew closer, he mentioned it more frequently, saying, we're about to go up to Jerusalem, where I must be betrayed and be killed. And he says it again, about to suffer. And it's interesting that the disciples are still surprised and somewhat confused when it happens. You see, we can be so very dull and hard of hearing unless the Spirit opens our eyes and we understand. You know, maybe you were saved as an adult and you might recount hearing the Gospel many times and it didn't produce any change until the time God effectually worked in you.

What was the difference between the hearing before and the or the not hearing before and the hearing after it's the it's the Holy Spirit And so Jesus has said this many times. He says it here again. And yet the disciples couldn't understand it. They couldn't understand it until the Holy Spirit opened their eyes. He says, I will no longer eat of it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

I will no longer eat of this Passover with you until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. Now, then he takes a cup and gives thanks, and he says, take it and divide it among yourselves. For I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes. I think this is something unrelated to the celebration, the institution of the Passover, which happens in verse 19. I think this is a separate giving of this cup.

Take it, divide it among yourselves. It's not directly related to the institution of the Lord's Supper. I get that conclusion from looking at the accounts in the other Gospels and the different things that are happening. I don't know exactly what that cup represented or what it was signifying. But other than that, I don't believe it's part of the institution of the Lord's Supper.

It's simply included here because in it, Jesus says he wasn't going to drink of the fruit of the vine. He's not going to drink of the cup of wine until the kingdom of God comes. Which is what he had said earlier. He wouldn't eat of the Passover until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God. In other words, He is ending the Passover celebration.

Jesus ends the Passover. He is not going to keep it ever again until it's fulfilled in the kingdom. And it's going to be now celebrated by the Lord's Supper. You see, we understand that in our worship, we only do what God has commanded. And if He hasn't commanded us to do something, we don't say, well, it must be OK to do.

We can say that about our regular lives. But when it comes to worship, when it comes to government, we only do what God has commanded us to do. And everything else that He has not commanded us to do, even if He has not forbidden it explicitly, if He has not commanded it, then it's forbidden. So this celebration of the Passover, Jesus ends by His statement, I will no longer eat of this Passover until it's fulfilled in the Kingdom of God. You see, Christ promised to send His Holy Spirit when He ascends.

In John 14, which is part of the discourse that's happening at this time, this evening, Jesus says, I will pray the Father and He will give you another Helper that He may abide with you forever. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you." Jesus said, I'm going to the Father. I will pray the Father, and He will give you this helper, this Spirit. Jesus said, I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.

Jesus said He would be coming to them. He would be present with them through the Holy Spirit. You see, in sending of this Holy Spirit that Jesus promised them this night, Christ would be present in a more powerful way than when He was physically present with them at that table. But He said, in order for this to happen, I have to go. I have to go to the Father in order for the Holy Spirit to come.

We'll look more about that in a moment. But this promise that I will come to you, this promise will become true when He goes to the Father and the Holy Spirit comes because in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. These things would come to pass. These things would be true. Jesus also said, These things I have spoken to you the same night here in John 14.

These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance the things that I said to you. Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus is going to be with them and with us. And they would remember the things that he had said to them. The Spirit was going to testify to the words that Jesus spoke.

And He says, Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. So even though He's going to the Father, He's saying, I'm going to be with you when the Holy Spirit comes. Jesus' kingdom, we know, began when he ascended to the right hand of the Father and began to rule as the messianic King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Revelation describes this in great detail, how he has taken his authority and has begun to reign. And Paul said to the Corinthians that he will reign until he's put all enemies under his feet.

Death is being the last enemy. So you see, Jesus is with us as He promised His disciples through His Holy Spirit. And every time we participate in communion, Jesus is drinking wine with us. Well, he institutes the supper in verse 19. He takes bread and gave thanks and broke it and he gave it to them, taking bread and giving thanks.

The word for bread here doesn't signify whether it's leavened or unleavened, it's just His bread, the staff of life. And He breaks it, symbolizing the breaking of His body on the cross. And He gives it to His disciples, symbolizing the sustaining of our life because of His death, symbolizing the blessings of salvation that we have because of His death and the communion that we have with Him by the power of the Holy Spirit all because of His death, all because He died, arose, and ascended into heaven, and has sent the Holy Spirit. See, Paul told the Corinthians, this cup is communion in the blood of Christ. This bread is communion.

Communion is participation in his sacrifice, its participation, its fellowship. See in every time the elements touch our lips, our mouths, we receive a fresh the sprinkling of His blood upon our heart, the increase of faith, and an increase of the assurance of our salvation. He took the cup and it says after supper and some have recognized that with that the likewise likewise he took the cup He also took the cup after supper that both this bread and this cup, this institution of Lord's Supper happens after this meal. So whether that was the Passover or another meal prior to the eating of the Passover, it's happening after those meals. He takes the cup and he says, this cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for you.

You See, this wine is symbolic of the shed blood of Christ. And the benefit of that wine is symbolic of the benefit of communion with Christ. Wine nourishes, wine refreshes, wine strengthens, Wine brings joy to the heart, the psalm says. In the same way Christ nourishes us, blesses us, strengthens us, and brings joy to us. See, Christ is present at this table.

He's present. He's not physically present, He is spiritually present. Just because, but just because we, somebody eats these elements doesn't mean that they receive these benefits. The benefit does not come by the mechanical eating of this. These benefits come by faith.

Nothing comes automatically by doing some external thing. It doesn't mean we don't do the external thing. We do it out of obedience and in faith. But the blessings that are communicated at this table come by faith. How do they that worthily communicate in the Lord's Supper feed upon the body and blood of Christ therein?

The confession asks, the larger catechism asks. How do we do that? Well, it says, as the body and blood are not corporally or carnally, that means in the flesh, present in with or under the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper, yet are spiritually present to the faith of the receiver, no less truly and really than the elements themselves are to our outward senses. Christ is present truly and really, just as truly and really as those elements are present to our senses. By faith we can feed upon him.

And we do therein feed upon the body and blood of Christ, not after a corporal and carnal manner, but in a spiritual manner, yet truly and really, while by faith they receive and apply to ourselves Christ crucified and all the benefits of His death. Now why did they say He's present, not carnal or corporally present in with or under? Because out of the Reformation Martin Luther recognized that this bread and wine didn't physically become the body and blood of Christ. And so He said they were there, so he said they must be in with and under in a physical way. This is what we call transubstantiation.

It's what Luther believed we call consubstantiation. But it's the idea that there is physically Christ's body and blood present here. That's what happens at the Mass in a Roman Catholic Church. They believe that when those words of institution are spoken, that the bread becomes the flesh of Christ and the wine becomes the blood of Christ. And that in that Lord's Supper Christ is literally Christ is literally re-sacrificed again in a bloodless way.

That's why this table is called the altar. But this table is not the altar, even though such thinking creeps into our vocabulary when we talk about this table as the altar bringing a bride to the altar and so on. Or talk about an altar call. These are evangelical churches. There is no altar here, brothers and sisters.

The altar is in heaven. The temple is in heaven, and Jesus ascended into the heavens and He sprinkled with His blood that heavenly temple. And that was why He had to go back to heaven for the Holy Spirit to come. He had to pass through the heavens and sanctify that heavenly temple with his blood. What good would a bloodless sacrifice be?

Hebrews 9 tells us that Jesus' death was once and for all. Once and for all, never to be repeated. That's why this table is not an altar. The words hocus pocus is a mockery of this idea that the body and the blood, the bread and the wine become the body and the blood. Because in Latin, the words of institution are hoc es corpus maem.

This is my body. Hoc es corpus maem. Hocus pocus is where that came from. And it means something that's nonsense and absurd. And it is nonsense and it is absurd.

And it's more than that, it's an abomination to the Lord. Not anything any believer should be a part of. In fact, Dabney wondered aloud how such a batch of absurdities could be believed by any rational person with a moment's reflection. He said it's not known how anyone could believe such absurdities. That's why the Roman Catholics are very, very careful with the elements.

And the priest has to drink all the wine, the supposed priest. And they have to be very careful that not one crumb of this bread ever falls because this has become the very flesh of Christ. It's an absurdity. The body of Christ is in heaven, not here. And That's why after our service, we allow the little ones that are hungry, that have a little time waiting for the meal to be served to finish the bread, because it's just bread.

And it's just grape juice and just wine. Now how do our children who have not yet made a public profession of faith, Are they missing something? Well, yes and no. Yes, we do pray that the Holy Spirit will fall upon them and that they will rise up and desire to take Christ's name for themselves and to be themselves a part of his church. But in the Old Testament, women were not able to receive the sacraments.

Women were not able to be circumcised. Physically couldn't do it. And yet they did not. They were not considered outside the covenant. They enjoyed the blessings of the covenant through the federal representation of their husbands and fathers who were circumcised and who did partake of the Lord's Supper.

And so if God has ordained something to be that way, it's not a... They are not missing anything any more than women in the Old Testament were missing out on God's grace because they weren't able to be circumcised. In the new covenant, Jesus said there is no longer any Jew or Gentile. It does not mean that Jews and Gentiles have ceased to be. There are still Jews and there are still Gentiles, but the covenant does not distinguish them.

There is no male or female. Doesn't mean that we have ceased to have male and female. It's simply that the covenant no longer makes a distinguishing between male and female like it did in the old covenant. There is neither bond nor free. There is no distinction in the covenant made between these.

Doesn't mean that there are no longer slaves. There is the covenant no longer distinguishes between Jew and Gentile, men or women, bond or free, slave or free. This is simply a figure of speech. This is a metonymy or a metaphor. Metonymy is where you refer to something by someone else, by something else.

You might refer to eating food and sleeping by room and board. You might refer to your car as your wheels. You might refer to the President as the White House. Jesus is using a metonymy, a metaphor. He said, I am the door.

He said, I am the vine. He said, I am the road, the way. Didn't mean He's a physical door. It means He is the way through which we have access to the Father. He's a vine.

He doesn't mean He's a plant with roots in the ground. It means that He is the way that we receive sustenance. And if we're not in that vine, we're like a branch that's been cut off. We don't live, we die. And Jesus is a vine in that sense, and He is here.

These elements are his body and his blood in the same way. Now he also says with this cup, which he would also have given, it doesn't say that, but it was given to them, he says this cup is the new covenant in my blood. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. What does he mean by that?

Well, Jesus is making reference to language in the Old Testament in Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36. In Jeremiah 31, and this is talking about Israel, And he says in Jeremiah 31, the Lord of coasts, the God of Israel, they again shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities when I bring back their captivity, the Lord bless you, O home of justice and mountain of holiness. And he said, there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all its cities together farmers, and those going out with flocks. And he says, the days are coming when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast. And that it shall come to pass that as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down and to throw down and to destroy and to afflict, so I will watch over them to build and to plant." And he says, "'Behold, the days are coming, ' says the Lord, "'when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them. See, that covenant was broken because those were unbelievers. Jude says God took them out, and their carcasses fell in the wilderness because they didn't believe. Generation fell because of unbelief. But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days.

I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people. And no more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying of the Lord for they shall all know me From the least of them to the greatest For I will forgive their iniquity and their sins remember no more and in Ezekiel We have very similar We have very similar language describing this new covenant and what it means. Then God said, I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all the countries, bring you to your own land, and then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean. That's the method of baptism, by sprinkling. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit within you and I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them and then you will dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers and you will be my people and I will be your God now new new in the Bible always refers to the work of the Holy Spirit we talk about a new song in our mouth We talk about being new creatures in Christ. We talk about having a new heart. We talk about a new commandment. And then John goes on to say, well, it's not a new commandment, it's the old commandment. But what is new about it?

What's new about it is the work and presence of the Holy Spirit to enable us to obey that commandment, to enable us to understand the spiritual things, to enable us to sing in the Spirit, to enable us, we are new creatures because we have been born from above by the Holy Spirit. This is the new covenant then Jesus is saying in this that. That old generation didn't believe they didn't have They didn't know the saving work of the Holy Spirit. The New Covenant is where he works savingly in us by his Holy Spirit. And the writer to Hebrews uses this very language to describe what is represented in Christ's death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.

And the Holy Spirit coming and people being born from above. That is called the New Covenant in Hebrews chapter 9. Because this is what Jesus does. He gives us a new heart. He writes the law in our hearts.

He gives us the ability to live by that law. It's through Christ's work and the application of that work by the Holy Spirit which He sends. I'd just like to read that with, read Hebrews 9. It is a very significant passage in this new covenant. He says, indeed, in verse 1, indeed, if the first covenant had, well, I can go back to verse chapter 8, He says, in that he says, in the new covenant, he has made the first obsolete.

Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. And then he says, he says down in verse 8, all was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was standing. It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are altered, which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience. It's concerned only with food and drinks and various washings and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of Reformation. But Christ came as high priest of the good things to come with greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and cows, But with his own blood he entered the Most High Holy Place once and for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

For when Moses had spoken every precept to the people, verse 19. According to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats with water, scarlet wool, hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, this is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you. And then likewise, he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry, because without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins." But in verse 24, for Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but Christ has entered the heavenly itself, into heaven itself, now to appear at the presence of God. Not that he should offer himself often. For then he would have had to suffer since the foundation of the world.

But now at the end of the ages, he has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." And goes on to describe then this new covenant. This is the covenant I will make with them in those days, quoting from Jeremiah, I will put my law in their hearts and in their minds. And their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. This is that new work, the new work of the Holy Spirit that's represented by this meal. What does this meal mean for you?

We can ask ourselves this question. This is the time, as we celebrate this sacrament, this is the time to ask ourselves that question. What does this meal mean for us? Am I one of those for whom Christ died. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this. It's your word for this new covenant in your blood that has been shed for us. We thank you that you are with us and that by your Holy Spirit you feed us and you nourish us. We thank you that you have not left us orphans, that you have not left us to our own devices. We thank you that we can have this fellowship with you, this communion, and drink this wine of this wine, and eat of this bread with you, both remembering your sacrifice for us, but also looking forward to when you bodily return and we and These eyes can see you again.

Lord, help us by faith to to see you here at this table. And grant your grace at this meal. To strengthen our assurance of your salvation. To strengthen our and increase our joy. In your salvation.

A joy that is not tied to our circumstances, a joy that comes from above. And We thank you for this bread in this cup and we ask that you would set them apart now as the sign and the sacrament and the seal. Through Jesus Christ we pray. Amen.