Скачать или смотреть Maundy Thursday - Holy Week Devotional Day 5

Join us for Day 5 of our Holy Week Devotional. In this video, we reflect on the significance of the bread and wine, symbolizing Christ’s atonement and the spiritual strengthening we receive through this sacrament. Dr. Simon Vibert helps us understand the deep meaning of this moment and its lasting impact on believers.

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Transcript:
On the night before the Jewish feast of Passover, Jesus gathered with his disciples and shared a final meal, often called the Last Supper. That same night, he also gave them many instructions both through teaching, often known as his Farewell Discourse, recorded in John 13–16, and through his High Priestly Prayer in John 17. On that same evening, the disciple Judas left in order to betray Jesus. During this Last Supper, Jesus did something very special that Christians have been commemorating ever since: he instituted the Lord’s Supper as a Christian sacrament or ordinance.

As we’ve said, the Last Supper was a Passover meal. It commemorated the fact that God had rescued the nation of Israel from slavery in Egypt. But at the end of this meal, Jesus used the symbolism of Passover to draw attention to his own work as the Christ. Specifically, he selected two items from the dinner — the unleavened bread and a cup of wine — and assigned new meaning to them. According to Luke 22, Jesus associated the bread with his body, which he was about to present to God as an offering for sin. And he associated the cup of wine with his blood, which would also be part of that same offering for sin. Moreover, when we combine his teachings in Matthew 26:29 and Mark 14:25 with his instructions in Luke 22:19, we see that Jesus taught his disciples to use these elements on a perpetual basis as a memorial to him until he returns and finishes the work he began.

The Lord’s Supper in Christian tradition has often been described as the “visible words of Christ” because they give a visual demonstration of what happened on the cross. So broken bread, wine poured out, point us to Christ whose body, nailed to the cross, his blood shed for us, and the way in which the symbolism works, or the sacrament works, is to point us back to Christ, to enable us to partake of the benefits of his death by eating and drinking in memory of all that he did for us. And there is a sense in which believers also feel that there’s a great spiritual strengthening that happens when we eat and drink, we participate in the benefits of all Christ has done for us at that point.
– Rev. Dr. Simon Vibert, Christ Church Virginia Water, England

There are two aspects of the meaning of the Lord’s Supper that we should mention specifically, beginning with its reference to Christ’s atonement. The basic symbolism of the Lord’s Supper is easy to understand. The bread represents Jesus’ body, and the wine represents his blood. But why are these significant? Because his body was given for us, according to Luke 22:19, and his blood was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins, as we read in Matthew 26:28. In other words, his body and blood are significant because they’re what he offered to God on the cross, in order to atone for our sin.

The second aspect of the meaning of the Lord’s Supper is that it signifies the inauguration of the new covenant. Listen to what Jesus said in Luke 22:20:

This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

Here, Jesus referred to the renewal of the covenant that the prophet Jeremiah had foretold in Jeremiah 31:31-34.

The new covenant is both the guarantee and the renewal of the covenant promises previously made by God in the days of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and David. These prior administrations of God’s covenant expressed God’s benevolence to his people, but also required their loyal obedience, promising blessings to those who obeyed God and curses against those who disobeyed him. And as the Christ, Jesus was the administrator of the last stage of God’s covenant with his people — the stage in which the covenant was “ratified” or “sealed” by the shedding of his blood.
– Dr. Dan Doriani, Covenant Theological Seminary