Today we want to partake in communion after a long gap. I was looking back, and last year we only had communion for three months: January, February, and March, where I had started a series on my identity in Christ. Then, affected by the pandemic, there was a gap of almost nine months where we could not take part. I was wondering what to share with you. Should I continue the series? Then I realized that the passage we are studying in Matthew providentially helps us prepare our hearts for communion.
For those of you who are keenly following, I skipped two verses in Matthew 17 last week and looked at the tax miracle; I am not sure how many noticed it. We never skipped one verse in 17 chapters. Here, I purposely did it so that it can be taken up for communion meditation. How many know these verses?
22 And while they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be handed over to men; 23 and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day.” And they were deeply grieved.
In these verses, we have a story that has been heard repeatedly. For us, we have heard it, we know it. At first glance, these verses might seem unnecessary. It’s a passage in which Jesus says something to His disciples that He’d already told them. It would be very easy to pass by.
There’s a sense in which we learn nothing particularly “new” from this passage. We may even wonder why it’s here. We saw in Chapter 16, remember, after the great confession (verse 21): “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and then be raised the third day” (v. 21).
But there are passages in the Bible that are important or significant strictly because of what they say or how it is emphasized. And there are passages whose great importance is emphasized by repeating them again and again. Such is our passage in verses 22 and 23.
You remember that the Lord is now heading towards Jerusalem, and this is crucial final training for the disciples—Advanced Intensive Discipleship training. Everything He talks about and teaches them now is of utmost importance. Principles from this teaching you will see filled in the epistles. Now, He wants them to grasp the most central truth of Christianity, which is suffering, death, and resurrection. If they don’t grasp this, all their understanding about Christianity will be wrong. You will notice the disciples’ struggle in everything from now on is their failure to understand this truth. They don’t get anything until the end. He washes their feet, yet they are discussing who is the greatest. They don’t see the kingdom principles until they realize this truth. So He repeats, repeats, repeats, each time adding more and more revelation about His death.
It’s amazing how much He repeats. He said that after the confession. In the Transfiguration, the topic of discussion with Moses and Elijah is what? It is about His death. Then, in verse 9, when they come down, He draws their mind to this by saying, “Don’t tell the Transfiguration vision to anyone till the Son of Man is risen from the dead.” Then, when they ask a question, “Why do the scribes say Elijah must come first?” in 17:12 He replies, “But I say to you that Elijah already came, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they wanted. So also the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.”
Now He repeats it again. That is going to be the pattern now throughout the Gospel of Matthew. Let me give two examples. In 20:17-19, we read: “Now Jesus, going up to Jerusalem, took the twelve disciples aside on the road and said to them, ‘Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify. And on the third day He will rise again.’” And in Matthew 26:2, just before the end of His earthly ministry, we find that He tells them, “You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man will be delivered up to be crucified” (26:2).
So what Jesus says in this passage is not really new information. He has said these things before. He will say them again. But what is remarkable is that—our Lord, during the most intense training of His disciples in the last days of His life, sees it necessary to say these things to them again, and again, and again! The Holy Spirit, who records only a few important things of Jesus’ life for us, records this again and again. We see there is tremendous significance to the repetition. Jesus clearly shows us that if there is a truth or story that has to be repeated, it is the story of His suffering, death, and resurrection. The Son of God Himself, who just has six months left before He dies, out of all things He could have taught, the one thing He repeated was that He was going to be delivered into the hands of men, that they would kill Him, and that He would then be raised from the dead. This repeats, and this is a story that must be repeated.
Do you see why I skipped those two verses? This is an appropriate day for us to consider this passage. This is the day in which we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together, and it’s through that observance that we “remember” repeatedly the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.
As we come to His table of remembrance today, let’s consider four reasons why it is this story must be repeated again and again.
1. It’s a Story That Is Foundational to the Beginning and Growth of Saving Faith
There are many things that Jesus could have emphasized by repetition—but didn’t. We might wish that He would have placed greater emphasis on how to solve our money problems. It’s true that He taught us some things about money, but that’s clearly not what He emphasized. Or, we might wish that He would have placed more emphasis on dealing with difficulties in marriage. And again, He does teach us some things about marriage, but that’s clearly not what He emphasized either. When we look at the condition of the world today, we certainly may have thought that He could have said more than He did about how to bring about world peace. And again, He does say some things that touch on that. But as important as even that may seem to us today, not even that was what He gave the greatest emphasis to in His teaching.
We get interesting angles when we look at the parallel passage in Mark 9:30-32: “And from there they went out and began to go through Galilee, and He did not want anyone to know about it. For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, ‘The Son of Man is to be handed over to men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later.’ But they did not understand this statement, and they were afraid to ask Him.”
See how much importance He gives so they understand that truth. He did not want anyone to know about that He was there. He was avoiding contact—why? How crucial. People who say Jesus’ primary mission work in this world was primarily to help physically suffering people, social service, to help suffering people primarily, say that is what the church should do. They argue that instead of preaching or teaching about the cross and the Bible, we should go and help the suffering people in the world. What will they say to this? He just healed a demon-possessed boy. How terrible! But there are thousands of such boys in Galilee. He can heal them all. He has more compassion on them than anyone. But He avoids all that ministry. He doesn’t want anyone to know so He can train His disciples on why He came, and to do the work of redemption. He pulls Himself back from contact—from that sea of suffering and needy humanity—and concentrates His ministry upon these disciples so that He might teach them the central and fundamental truth to the Christian faith, and to the message they were to preach, because only by that truth will souls be eternally saved. He didn’t come to remove temporary suffering in the world. It is good work, but that is not the primary work. Jesus even avoided that, for what? He gave importance to training disciples on this central truth. It is amazing to take time to repeat what He has already told them. See how much importance is given to that, for what purpose? To repeat this truth. Do you see how important it is?
When Luke tells his version of this story, he said that Jesus spoke in a way that we rarely hear of Him speaking to His disciples: “Let these words sink down into your ears,” He said, “for the Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men” (Luke 9:44). He was very serious about making sure that the disciples took in what He was repeating to them.
Of all teaching, what He gives the greatest emphasis to—that thing which He spoke of repeatedly and most solemnly—was what it was that He was about to do in Jerusalem on our behalf: His suffering, death, and resurrection.
Why so much importance? Why repeatedly emphasize it so much and avoid everything else, even the great, temporary needs of humanity? Because the foundation for all beginning and growth of saving faith is the truth of Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection. This is the only soul-saving message. Only by this message can an eternal, never-dying soul be saved, and a saved soul can grow in faith. This is the good news that we are to proclaim to this world.
Though the disciples hated to hear it, in spite of His repetition, and didn’t understand it properly till He rose from the dead, after their minds were illuminated by the Holy Spirit, they didn’t want to speak or hear of anything else but the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We see that repeatedly in Acts, and all the epistles. What is the central teaching of all that? It is the cross of Christ.
That message spread throughout the world when a group of people grasped the glory of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ and preached it from their hearts, avoiding all distractions. They turned the world upside down. Peter, who hated to hear that and even dared to rebuke Christ, now preaches it boldly. You see it in Peter’s bold sermon in Acts 2:22-24:
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it” (Acts 2:22-24).
You see this in his next great sermon in the temple, where he told his Jewish kinsmen (Acts 3:13-15):
“The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.”
You see this when Peter and John were called to task by the leaders of Israel and required to account for how they healed a crippled man in the temple; when they said:
“If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole” (Acts 4:9-10).
When Peter and the apostles were arrested and commanded not to speak about Jesus anymore, they said:
“We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to His right hand to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him” (Acts 5:29-32).
When Peter presented the gospel to the household of Cornelius—the devout Roman centurion—he spoke of:
“. . . And we are witnesses of all these things which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they killed by hanging on a tree. Him God raised up on the third day, and showed Him openly, not to all people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead. To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins” (Acts 10:37-43).
You also see it regularly in Paul’s preaching in the Book of Acts. He told the Jewish men of Antioch that:
“. . . And though they found no cause for death in Him, they asked Pilate that He should be put to death. Now when they fulfilled all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead. He was seen for many days by those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are His witnesses to the people” (Acts 13:26-31).
You even see it in Paul’s defense of his ministry before King Herod Agrippa:
“Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this day I stand, witnessing both to small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come—that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:22-23).
You see this in the message that the apostle Paul preached—the message he called “the gospel.” In 1 Corinthians 15, he writes:
“Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which you are saved. . . . For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures . . .” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4).
We know Paul’s great passion: I Corinthians 2:2, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
Now, look again at what Jesus says in our passage this morning. Look again at the message He seems to emphasize by repetition: “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up.” Can you see? He was repeating the message of the gospel to His disciples—the very message that they then went out and repeated all over the world! They turned the world upside down.
There are lots of things we can say to the people of this world that may be useful, and lots of things we can do to temporarily help them. We should, when it is very needful. But our primary task, and there’s only one story we can tell that will lead to the salvation of the human, never-dying soul; and it’s the story that the world most needs to hear from us. It’s the story that Jesus Himself emphasized by repeating over and over. It’s the story that the disciples proclaimed over and over. It’s the story of who Jesus is and what He did. It is not just another solution to another of our problems that He proclaimed. It is the only solution to the great problem from which all our problems come—sin.
This is the central, saving truth of the Christian faith, because man’s greatest problem is sin, and sin is the greatest hindrance to God accepting man. His justice demands payment and punishment for sin. It is in the death of Christ that the greatest obstacle in the way of man’s greatest need being met is removed, in the blood-letting of the Son of God who died the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.
What we need above all else is the forgiveness of our sins and a restoration of fellowship with the holy God who made us for Himself. The meeting of that need is what is proclaimed in the story of the gospel. And that’s a story that’s worth repeating. It’s a story that is basic to the saving of our souls and the solving of all our problems.
Let’s be sure that that’s our story to the world. “This is my story and this is my song.” That is the story we preach in communion. Didn’t the Lord say as often as you do it, you proclaim the Lord’s death and also His resurrection, because it says, “until He comes?”
This is a story that must be repeated because it is the central truth for the beginning of faith.
Not only is it the story for a soul when it believes, creating saving faith, but a saved soul’s faith grows by this story. As believers, remember mustard seed faith. It is looking unto Jesus, not in our self-righteousness, self-confidence, or thinking we have all it takes to live the Christian life and do Christian ministry. Proud self-confidence comes after living for some time and learning how to pray or sing, which becomes a hindrance to constant dependence on Christ, looking unto Christ. Our union with Jesus, abiding in Jesus, is what allows Jesus’ power to pass into our lives. How does that faith grow? Only by repeatedly hearing this story. Our confession on the Lord’s Supper first paragraph says: “The Supper of the Lord Jesus was instituted by him, for the perpetual/continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the Lord in His death, thereby the confirmation of the faith of believers in all the benefits thereof, their spiritual nourishment, and growth in Him.”
Not only for beginning faith, but if we need to grow in mustard-like faith—not live in self-confidence, but live in union with Christ—it is essential this story needs to be repeated. The song, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” says: “Only When I survey the wondrous cross, On which the Prince of glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride, my self-righteousness, self-confidence. God forbid that we should boast, Save in the death of Christ.”
The Supper serves to stimulate our union with Christ, which is the very essence of our salvation. That happens by constantly remembering our Lord’s suffering, death on our behalf, and the benefits we received through that. Remember what He purchased for us on the cross: propitiation, perfect righteousness, justification, reconciliation, adoption, the gift of the Holy Spirit who presently works to sanctify me, sanctification, glorification. Ah, our faith grows only when our soul feasts on this central truth of what Christ did for us on the cross. We begin more and more looking unto Him and living in union with Him.
Shouldn’t we repeat this story again and again and again? How foolish for people to think this is a heard story. “Once again, tell me the story of Jesus. I want to hear of His love for me, how He cleansed the dross and He set me free. Oh, the depths of love of Calvary. I want to hear, to hear this mystery. I want to hear—oh, tell me of Jesus!”
We also see from Jesus’ words that the story of what He was going to do in Jerusalem was also a story worth repeating because:
2. It’s a Story That Reveals the Depths of Divine Love
Last week we celebrated Jesus’ birthday; today we celebrate Jesus’ death day. In both, what a revelation of God’s love! This story tells us the depth of God’s love—how God loved you and me so much. In verse 15, He calls Himself “the Son of Man.” That baby we saw last week was fully God and fully man, both united, with all the attributes of God and all the attributes of man. Yet, He emptied Himself and took the form of a slave, a strange form, so man could do anything to Him.
That baby with small hands, small feet, and body has now grown big, and has now become the Son of Man. The Creator of the universe, in love for you, not only became a man but grew into a man, living 33 years in this world.
“The Son of Man” is an Old Testament name for the Messiah, from Daniel 7:13. That vision gives us a picture of the Messiah as He assumes His glorious reign over the kingdoms of the world:
“I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:13-14).
Just think of it! It was Jesus—this same “Son of Man,” who assumes the dominion over all the kingdoms of this world—who is here being said to be “delivered into the hands of men.”
Who is delivered to whom? What an amazing thing that is! The Son of Man, who has all dominion and authority, will be delivered to men. What kind of men? Sinful, depraved men who were thirsty for His blood. He is delivered to them to do whatever they want to do. The Sanhedrin would unjustly condemn Him in the middle of the night. Because they cannot legally kill Him, they go to Pilate. Pilate is unable to find charges against Jesus that warrant death, so he sends Jesus to Herod Antipas. Herod insults Him and sends Him back. What is being done to the Son of Man? What indignity! Whose sandal John was not worthy to untie. During these trials, Pilate, wanting to release Him, tries to satisfy their bloodthirstiness. He makes them scourge Him. They scourge Him. Flesh and blood flows; bones are visible on His full body. Guards mock, blind Him, prophesy, spit on His face, throw things at His head, and beat Jesus (Mark 14:65; Luke 23:11).
So much torture! He was almost dead. Pilate says, “Behold the man!” They cry, “Crucify him!” No, he tries Barabbas. They can see Barabbas as a messiah, not this Jesus, so they ask for him. At the end, Pilate asks the crowd what to do; they cry out, “Crucify him” (Mark 15:12–13). He allows them to crucify Him.
On the cross, when men had done the worst, He was delivered into the hands of an angry God. Oh, God switched off the light for those three hours, poured the hell of all hells that has to come on us onto Christ. The wrath that was to come on our head… He drank and drank the cup of God’s wrath till it was finished. He cries, “My God, My God, why did You forsake Me?”
What He went through on the cross is a mystery in eternity. You remember in Gethsemane, His soul was sorrowful, exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death, and all this—for such sinners as us! His sufferings we realize only physically, but who can understand His soul suffering?
How much bodily pain we have can be borne when the soul is rejoicing in the pleasing sense of God’s love. Many martyrs were so happy even while physically tortured. But the Son of God, whose holy soul was imputed with the infinite mountain of our guilt, shame, and curse, was made sin. He cried out and sweat blood. His soul was sorrowful, exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death, and all this—for such sinners as us! He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities. That is when He cried out to the Father: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39).
Note the word “delivered”—He had to be delivered for all. Who delivered Him? Was it Judas, the Sanhedrin, or Pilate? It was His own Father that delivered Him. Peter says in Acts 2:23: “this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.”
He had to be killed. God could not forgive and save anyone apart from the satisfaction of His eternal justice that required eternal damnation for every son of Adam. Christ experienced the agony of God’s eternal justice for us at the cross. He had to be killed in such a way—the Innocent One on behalf of the eternally guilty—so that the guilty might be declared righteous and now citizens of God’s kingdom forever.
He knew all this in advance, and yet, He went to Jerusalem to be delivered into their hands.
What condescending love! Here we find the mercy and grace of God magnified by the fact that the eternal Son of God yielded Himself to the hands of men so that our sin and guilt might be removed.
Not only was it the Son of Man who willingly permitted Himself to be taken into the hands of men to be crucified, but it was also the very decree of His Father that it be so. For it was God Himself who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.
This is the depth of infinite love. Romans says, “He did not spare his own Son but delivered him for all of us; how will he not with him give us all things?” If God can do this, will He not do everything in life for our good? If He can do this, will He not give us eternal heaven and an inheritance, making us inheritors of all things? If He can do this, everything else is easy.
And that’s yet another reason why this story is so worth repeating, as Jesus Himself exemplifies for us! It is the greatest expression of divine love we could ever share. It’s the best news the world could ever hear—that God loves sinners and has taken the initiative to forgive their sins and to restore them to Himself!
Oh, how much this world needs to hear it over and over! How much we need to hear this!
As a believer, are you sitting here discouraged by temporary circumstances, dull, sad, or lonely? Are you wondering if someone loves you or cares for you because you are facing so much difficulty? That is because you forgot this story. You need to repeatedly hear this story, remembering the infinite depth of love revealed in it.
See how much God loved you. See how much Christ values you, having purchased you with His eternal blood.
3. It’s a Story That Affirms Hope in the Face of Loss
Another reason why the gospel story bears repeating is because Jesus gives us a clue to the hope that is in it—although it seems that the disciples missed it. Jesus speaks of the grim realities of His death, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of men to be killed. But then, He adds, “[A]nd the third day He will be raised up.”
Now, I have wondered if Peter, James, and John might have been a little more inclined to grasp this hope than the other nine disciples. After all, it was they who had just been given a vision of Jesus’ glory on the mountain. But they had been commanded, “Tell the vision to no one until the Son of Man is risen from the dead” (17:9), so they couldn’t pass what they had seen on to the others. Even so, it seems clear that they struggled to believe it.
And yet, all of them had seen Jesus restore life to a young girl (Matthew 9:18-25). And they would all very soon see Him call His friend Lazarus out of the grave (John 11). And all of them hear now the promise that He had already made to them before—that even though He would die, He would be raised. He announced that He would die, but He promised that He would not stay in death. Death would only have hold of Him for three short days.
The story of Jesus’ death is a story that is to be repeated. But we mustn’t repeat it without also telling the story of His resurrection from the dead. The cross, all by itself, is not “good news.” It’s the fact that the cross was followed by the empty tomb that gives us the content of hope in this dark and fallen world.
Jesus told His disciples, before He went to the cross, “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also” (John 14:19). He spoke to them of the sorrow they would feel when He was taken from them, and told them:
“Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you” (John 16:20-22).
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is glorious news. How do we know that God accepted the death of His Son on our behalf? Jesus explains, “And He will be raised on the third day.” The resurrection served as the divine exclamation point that God was fully satisfied in the death of His Son. Nothing more can be added; no more debt for our sins is owed. Christ has conquered every foe, inwardly and externally, that stands between God and us, and with it, established kingdom citizenship.
The work He did on our behalf is complete and accepted. All our sins are atoned for by His sacrifice. God has accepted and forgiven all sins and given proof by raising Him from the dead. His life brought justification. His death brought propitiation. His resurrection brought regeneration, giving us new life. We are no longer slaves to sin but dead to sin. Resurrection brings the promise that we will be raised with Him—which means that death is conquered. We have hope in the face of the loss that came into this world through the sin of Adam. We need to repeat the message of this hope over, and over, and over again!
The hopelessly sitting world needs to hear this. If you are sitting hopelessly, it is because you are not remembering and listening to this story again and again. The more you remember, it will fill us with hope in any hopeless situation. This message fills us with hope.
4. It’s a Story That Must Be Personalized to Be Grasped Rightly
And finally, as a very practical matter, this is a story that bears repeating because the story must be personalized to be grasped rightly.
Note the disciples’ reaction to the things Jesus said. He told them that He would be handed over and killed, but that He would then be raised. And yet, their response to it all was to be “exceedingly sorrowful.” Mark tells us, “But they did not understand this saying, and were afraid to ask Him” (Mark 9:32). Even when they looked into the empty tomb, they still didn’t fully understand. As John says, “For as yet they did not know [or “understand”] the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead” (John 20:9).
But they eventually did understand! They understood it fully when they spoke with Him after He was raised! After the resurrection, when He had met with them and ate with them, Luke writes:
“Then He said to them, ‘These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.’ And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things'” (Luke 24:44-48).
They could only finally grasp this story when it had been fulfilled before them; and even then, they needed Holy Spirit illumination to understand. They needed Jesus to personally open their understanding.
I suggest that this is yet another reason why this story is so much worth repeating. The story of who Jesus is and what He has done—the very story He expressed in our passage this morning—is a story that must be personalized to us before it can be grasped by us and declared by us. It must first be known by us ‘experientially’—through a personal relationship with the resurrected Jesus Christ by faith—before it can be the story that leads to our salvation.
In fact, He went to Jerusalem and died on the cross in order that you and I may enter into the fullness of that personal relationship with Him. No wonder we could never grasp it until we experience it personally.
It needs to be repeated because only the Lord Jesus Christ, through His Holy Spirit illuminating us, can help us grasp the glory of this story. That is why it has to be repeated.
May He do that to all of us this morning as we come to the Lord’s table. See, we need to come to the table with Faith. There is nothing in the bread or wine; nothing changes in the substance. But it becomes a means of grace when we participate in them through Faith.
I don’t think that they are alone. Some among us quite likely have wrestled over this whole issue of the death of Jesus Christ fully satisfying God’s eternal justice. You just cannot believe it, even though Jesus declared, “It is finished” in His last breath on the cross (John 19:30). You just cannot grasp that the divine will is that “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). You are still trying to find your place in doing something to bring about forgiveness from God. It’s not that you altogether discount the cross of Christ; it’s instead that you want to add something to it. You cannot fathom that trust in what Christ has already done brings you into the family of God and unites you with all believers as kingdom citizens. You are unwilling to accept God’s way in favor of trying to devise your own way to God. You don’t have to. This is great news: you just put all your trust in what Christ has done, and believe that He was delivered, killed, and rose again for you. You are saved. How many times you should hear this! What beautiful music for the guilty sinner!
Hear the words of our Savior one more time. “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and the third day He will be raised up.”
Let’s take those words to heart as we come to His table this morning—and as we, once again, remember what He has done for us. By His own example, He shows us that this is a story very much worth repeating.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 