We begin our consideration of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, we turn first of all to John chapter six, where we begin reading at verse 35. John six, beginning at verse 35. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto you that ye also have seen me, and believe not. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. This is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that hath sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me. Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God, he hath seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. as the Living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead. He that eateth of this bread shall live forever. These things said he in the synagogue, as he taught in Capernaum. Now we turn to Mark chapter 14, later in the life of Jesus, very soon before His crucifixion, and we begin reading Mark 14 at verse 12. And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the Passover, his disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the Passover? He sendeth forth two of his disciples, and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water. Follow him. And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the good man of the house, The master saith, Where is the guest chamber where I shall eat the Passover with my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room, furnished and prepared, there make ready for us.' And his disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as he had said unto them, and they made ready the Passover. And in the evening he cometh in with the twelve. And as they sat and did eat, Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, One of you which eateth with me shall betray me. And they began to be sorrowful and to say unto him one by one, is it I? And another said, is it I? And he answered and said unto them, it is one of the 12 that dippeth with me in the dish. The son of man indeed goeth as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the son of man is betrayed. Good were it for that man if he had never been born. And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and break it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many. Verily I say unto you I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine Until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God and so far we read God's inspired word this morning We turn then to the instruction of our Heidelberg catechism in Lord's Day 28 and Questions and Answers 75-77. How art thou admonished and assured in the Lord's Supper that thou art a partaker of that one sacrifice of Christ accomplished on the cross and of all his benefits? that Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and to drink of this cup in remembrance of him, adding these promises. First, that his body was offered and broken on the cross for me and his blood shed for me, as certainly as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup communicated to me. and further that he feeds and nourishes my soul to everlasting life with his crucified body and shed blood as assuredly as I receive from the hands of the minister and taste with my mouth the bread and cup of the Lord as certain signs of the body and blood of Christ. What is it then to eat the crucified body and drink the shed blood of Christ? It is not only to embrace with a believing heart all the sufferings and death of Christ, and thereby to obtain the pardon of sin and life eternal, but also, besides that, to become more and more united to His sacred body by the Holy Spirit who dwells both in Christ and in us, so that we, though Christ is in heaven and we on earth, are notwithstanding flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone, and that we live and are governed forever by one Spirit, as members of the same body are by one soul. Where has Christ promised that He will as certainly feed and nourish believers with His body and blood as they eat of this broken bread and drink of this cup? In the institution of the supper, which is thus expressed The Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he break it and said, take, eat, this is my body which is broken for you, this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup when he had supped, saying, this cup is the New Testament in my blood, this do ye as often as ye drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye to show the Lord's death till he come." This promise is repeated by the Holy Apostle Paul where he says, "...the cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, being many, are one bread and one body, because we are all partakers of that one bread." Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, in Lord's Days 28 through 30, the Heidelberg Catechism unfolds the biblical teaching of the Lord's Supper. And in light of the historical controversies in those years immediately following the Great Reformation, the Catechism's treatment of the Lord's Supper is extensive. These three Lord's Days are the longest in the Catechism. They follow the rather extensive treatment that the Catechism gives the Sacrament of Baptism. We've seen that baptism is the sacrament that signifies our being received into the covenant life of God. When we are baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, God gives us a sign and seal that he takes us through that cleansing blood of Christ into the fellowship of his own life and love. Baptism signifies that we who are baptized with the Spirit of Christ are received by faith into the fellowship of the body of Christ. It is not the mere sign of baptism that achieves that, as we saw last Sunday, but by the reality of Christ's cleansing blood, we and our elect children are received into the covenant and Church of God. Baptism's only the beginning of the life which God gives us in Christ. That life must also come to expression and fruition within the fellowship of Christ's body. If there is no faith, you understand, that's impossible. A person might have received the sacrament of baptism and come under all the benefits of those spiritual blessings seen within the Church of God, but that person without faith is incapable of participating in the real life of the Church. But where there is faith, where there is newness of life in Christ, The person who was once baptized comes to enjoy and to know personally the fellowship of Christ and in firm conviction desires to express his or her gratitude to God for that fellowship with Christ's body. And accordingly, God has also given to us a second sacrament, one which serves to establish and bring to expression our unity with Christ's body. As far as the outline of the Heidelberg Catechism is concerned, we begin in Lord's Day 28 with a general explanation of the institution and meaning of the Lord's Supper. And then, and that must be our focus today, but then in Lord's Day 29, we're called to distinguish between the sign and the thing signified, and there we must consider more carefully what actually takes place in the sacrament, how does the Spirit work, And what do we eat and drink in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper? And then, in Lord's Day 30, the Catechism exposes the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church and her Mass. before concluding by calling our attention to the importance of properly partaking of the Lord's Supper and what that means to be a proper partaker of the Lord's Supper. So today we focus on the table of the covenant. We notice first of all the meal served there, secondly the hungry guests present, and finally the nourishment received at that table. In the Lord's Supper we approach by faith the table of the covenant and partake of the meal which Christ has prepared at that table. The entire sacrament with all its various elements and symbolism speaks in those terms. It's evident that there is a connection between the Old Testament Passover celebration and the Lord's Supper. That's clear from what we read in Mark 14 and for that reason we need to review for a few minutes that Old Testament ordinance. In the first place, the Passover was a commemoration of a significant historical event. You children remember how Israel was held in bondage by Egypt. And God sent his servant Moses to lead his people out of Egypt. Pharaoh, the wicked ruler in Egypt, would not let God's people go. And even though God gave Pharaoh signs and sent plagues upon Egypt, Pharaoh's heart was hard. He refused to release the children of Israel from their bondage and continued to persecute the people of God. So Jehovah came to Moses and said, as we read in Exodus 11, ìYet will I bring one plague more upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt. Afterwards he will let you go hence, and when he shall let you go, he shall surely thrust you out hence altogether.î And so God explained to Moses that he was going to walk through the land of Egypt and kill all the firstborn of man and beast. Their iniquity would bring death upon them, the expression of God's fierce wrath. But Israel must also understand they are no better than the Egyptians. God could not spare them either, except for one thing. They must be distinguished from the Egyptians. They must be distinguished by a mark that sets them apart as different. And the mark of that distinction would be sovereignly appointed by God himself. So he continues in Exodus 12 to instruct Moses that on the evening of that night when God would walk through the land to execute His judgment, those who are His must take a lamb, a lamb without blemish, and kill it and take of the blood and spread it upon the doorposts and the upper doorposts of the houses where they would also eat. And they were to eat of that lamb with unleavened bread, not leaving anything left over, eating with haste, their loins girded, their shoes on their feet, their staffs in their hand, and the lamb of which they would eat and more particularly the blood of that lamb sprinkled on the doorposts would be the sign, the mark of distinction that separated them from the ungodly and prevented them from being themselves the objects of God's fierce execution of wrath. That distinction between Israel and Egypt lay only in the blood. That was God's sovereign distinction. And so we read in Exodus 12 verse 13, and the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the land of Egypt. By the blood, Jehovah delivers his people. And so he calls them to observe this wonderful deliverance by a feast of commemoration. Verse 14, and this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. Ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever. And when the young children would ask, what does this mean? then Father would recount the story of Israel's deliverance out of the bondage of Egypt by the wonder work of God's grace. It was a feast of commemoration. But that Passover feast also was a type. It not only looked back, it also looked forward. And the blood that was sprinkled upon the doorposts was a sign of the blood of God's Lamb, Jesus Christ. As we are told in the opening verses of Exodus 20, Egypt was the house of bondage. The type of the bondage of sin and death. That deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt was a picture of our own deliverance out of the bondage of sin and death and our entrance into God's everlasting tabernacle. That deliverance and that salvation is ours only through the blood of the Lamb. For the faithful children of God in the Old Testament, therefore, every time they looked, they observed the Passover, they looked back to that very wonderful night of their deliverance But they also looked ahead to that day when their typical deliverance would enter into its spiritual fulfillment. Also, this ordinance of God belonged to that schoolmaster which pointed God's people to Christ. Now we have the Lord's Supper. an ordinance of God for his church by which we partake of that salvation that is ours in Christ, the salvation which fulfilled that to which the Passover pointed. Christ instituted the Lord's Supper on the very evening when he partook of the last Passover with his disciples. there in the upper room, after taking of that Old Testament ordinance, Jesus took from that feast two elements that were on the table, the bread and the wine, and constituted them a new ordinance, a holy sacrament. So we read in Mark 14 verses 22 through 24, And as they did eat, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and break it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat, this is my body. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many. He did this, you understand, after telling the disciples that the time had come when he would be betrayed. And he did this setting before them vividly the truth that his blood would now be shed for the washing away of their sins. This is my blood. which is shed for many. So Jesus pointed to himself as the fulfillment of that Passover lamb. And so we are given the ordinance of the Lord's Supper, called to the table of the covenant, where Christ himself is the fulfillment of that relationship which God has established with his church out of his own good pleasure. We have no lamb any longer at the feast table of the Lord. Christ observed with his disciples the last Passover. With his eyes fixed on Calvary and on the work that he came to perform, he instituted the sacrament of the Lord's Supper as a sign and seal of the fulfillment which is in him. Now Christ has shed his blood. We have the Lamb, we have His body, His blood as signified in the elements of the bread and the wine. At that table of the Lord there is rich symbolism all pointing to the covenant fellowship that we enjoy with God. I speak this morning of the table of the covenant. At the Lord's table, we enter into fellowship with Jehovah our Redeemer. We do that not only in the Lord's Supper, we do that in every worship service. Whenever we enter God's house truly to worship in spirit and in truth, we enter fellowship with God. Worship is fellowship with the Holy One. And especially in the preaching of the Word, as we have considered many times before, and as is our own experience, we enjoy God's fellowship with us as He speaks, conversing with us in language that we can understand, taking us into His own life of fellowship and love. We do that in the communion of saints. expressing our oneness in the faith with every member of Christ's body. That's what we do when we worship. And that fellowship is confirmed richly in the Lord's Supper. In communion with one another, in the bond of love, as sinners alike redeemed by Christ, we are taken into the fellowship of God. We confess our enjoyment of that when we partake in faith of the supper of our Lord. And we confess that the only way that we have such a blessed place in the Church of God is by the broken body and shed blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And so we have the bread and wine. As we read in John 6, Jesus said, I am the bread of life. And he explained in verse 51, I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. And then we read in verses 53 and following, Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him." Jesus, the bread of life. And then there is the wine. Wine is the symbol of joy, that which is extra. Notice, I don't say that which is excess. To consume excess wine is to abuse the very symbol given by God in that drink. It's to sin against the Lord. But wine is the symbol of that which is extra. When Jesus delivers us from sin, He doesn't simply lead us back to what we once had in Adam. He leads us into the everlasting life of heavenly perfection and joy, covenant fellowship with Jehovah in Jesus Christ. But there are other elements of symbolism in this communion of the Lord's table, not just the elements of the bread and wine. There's the breaking of the bread and the pouring out of the wine. That's also important symbolism. Christ's body was broken. His blood shed, poured out for you and for me. They drove those spikes through his hands and feet. They pierced his side with the spear. His body was broken. His blood poured out for you and for me. And that's why we observe, even while the table is being prepared during the communion service, the bread being broken, the wine poured out into the cup. That's proper symbolism. So we are reminded too that Christ gave his life. He shed his blood on the altar of God's righteousness and justice, that we might have life. In addition, there's the symbolism of eating and drinking that takes place at the table of the covenant. We don't simply look on. Jesus said Take, eat, drink ye all of it. This do in remembrance of me. We eat and drink. By faith we eat and drink in the fellowship of believers and that eating and drinking demonstrates the truth that we take Christ to ourselves. By faith, we appropriate Him and all His benefits by the spiritual activity of that true faith worked in us by the Spirit of Christ. Still more, the words of the institution of this supper are spoken by the minister. That also belongs to the symbolism of the Lord's Supper. Those words that we hear, the words of Scripture, are not simply the words of a command that we must obey, it is that, to be sure, this do in remembrance of me. That's a command to the church. And failure to obey is an act of grievous disobedience to God, but it's more than a command. The words of institution given by our Lord also signify that Christ speaks His own efficacious Word to His people, even in the elements of the Lord's Supper. Else we wouldn't have a sacrament. Without the presence of Christ and the power of His Word, we would have nothing but empty form. But as Christ himself speaks through his word and by his spirit, the Lord's Supper becomes to his church a means of grace, nourishing and strengthening all who partake in a true faith. Then there's one more element of symbolism. That's the table. It is indeed the table of communion. where we partake of the Lord's Supper. So even though When our congregations are larger than can sit around the table, we stay in the pew. The table still stands there as that symbol of what we have in fellowship with God. We have here a sign of His fellowship and love with us. We've been taken into the very covenant fellowship of God, taken into that fellowship with all his people who are members of the congregation in this place and in any given place. Lord's Day 28 expresses that in several ways. It does so in the first place by pointing out that Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat and to drink. It emphasizes, in other words, the communion of saints. It emphasizes that secondly by its repeated reference to we. We become one with Christ. flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, so that we live and are governed by one spirit as members of the same body are by one soul. And in question and answer 77 we are pointed to the very institution of the Lord's Supper where the conclusion recorded in 1st Corinthians 10 verse 17 is this, For we being many are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. And so when we partake of this supper, we express our love, our love for our Redeemer. But as Scripture makes clear, we can't love Him except we love one another. So that also must be our confession lest we eat and drink damnation to ourselves not discerning the Lord's body. In my second point this morning I call your attention briefly to the fact that at the table of the covenant there are hungry guests present. The guests that have been called to this table of the covenant are members of Christ's And so question answer 75 opens, how art thou admonished and assured in the Lord's Supper that thou art a partaker of that one sacrifice of Christ accomplished on the cross and of all his benefits? Thus, that Christ has commanded me and all believers to eat of this broken bread and to drink of this cup in remembrance of him. Christ has instituted the Lord's Supper for his church. That requires membership in the church where the sacrament is administered. We shall have opportunity, the Lord willing, in connection with Lord's Day 30, to consider the question of who are proper partakers of the Lord's Supper. But immediately the emphasis of the catechism is on the fact that all who confess faith in Christ are commanded to partake of this sacrament that is to be administered in the church. That's an obligation. Make no mistake. Christ says, this do. There's no option there. we must partake properly, we must partake in faith, but partake we must. The law of the Old Testament with respect to the observation of the Passover holds true now with respect to the table of the covenant. God said to Israel in Numbers chapter 9 verses 12 and 13, that all were obligated to keep the Passover, but the man that is clean and is not in a journey, in other words, this man is healthy, he's not away on a journey, and forbeareth to keep the Passover, that is, he doesn't observe the ordinance of God, Even the same soul shall be cut off from among his people, because he brought not the offering of the Lord in his appointed season. That man shall bear his sin." I don't have to add words of emphasis there. You heard it correctly. and what applied to Israel in connection with the observance of the Passover is just as applicable today in our partaking of the Lord's Supper. So we heard in John 6 verse 53, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. to claim to be members of Christ's Church and not to partake of the Lord's Supper is a malformity, a monstrosity in the church. It's a misrepresentation of all truth concerning what it is to belong to Christ. One cannot belong to Christ and ignore his fellowship at the table of the covenant. Now don't misunderstand me. I don't mean to say that our young people must make confession of faith just for the sake of taking communion at a certain age. Indeed not. to say in that confession, confession of faith, that you love Christ in the truth as taught in this Christian church, when you don't, is to speak a lie of profound proportions. confession of faith must be made spiritually as a matter of one's own knowledge and experience and spiritual desire. But we must understand that to belong to Christ compels us to make that confession. If we as God's people are faithful in church, homes, and schools, Then under normal circumstances, a young person will reveal himself as a child of God before the ages of 18, 19, or 20, and they will understand the spiritual necessity of taking a stand. There are those who will not. For one thing, there's always that seed that doesn't have spiritual life. But there are also those in whom that spiritual development is very slow, for whatever reason. But under normal circumstances, a man or woman in their youth will confess their faith and partake freely of the fellowship of Christ's body in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. And that we must. To neglect that is to walk in disobedience against the Lord Christ, not against the church, against the Lord Christ who said, this do in remembrance of me. But those who have been called to the table of the covenant also come as those who stand in fellowship with their Redeemer and who are hungry therefore for the blessings of that table. The church and we as parents cannot instill hunger in our youth. Nor is our own spiritual hunger something that is naturally motivated. It's the work of God's grace in us. And it comes in consequence of seeing our own sinfulness. You remember the Catechism is divided into three parts, the three things necessary for us to know that we might live and die in the joy of the Christian life, in our only comfort in life and death. The first section, therefore, treats our misery, exposing how great is our sin, our need for Christ. In the second section, in which Lorsay 28 falls, we are considering the deliverance that is ours in Christ. And we're doing that from many different perspectives, as you understand. But in the sacrament, we are indeed led to Christ and to the deliverance that He alone gives us. But even though we've not yet crossed into the third section of the Catechism, there's an element here that brings us into that section. I refer to the fact that in consequence of our deliverance, we express our gratitude to God by the whole of our life. When we live in the consciousness of how great our sins and miseries are, And when we know that God has revealed His Son to us as our Savior, the result is we hunger and thirst after Him with our whole being. That spiritual hunger is the work of the Holy Spirit. But those who come to the table of the Lord come as hungry Christians. We know there's only one joy in life, There's only one comfort, and that is that we belong to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who shed His precious blood to satisfy for all our sins. We want Him. We long for His fellowship. We long to hear Him and to enjoy communion with Him. In the fellowship of our redeemed brothers and sisters, that's how we come to Him. We long for the nourishment that He alone can provide. And at the table of the covenant, we receive rich nourishment. What a feast is ours! In that little piece of bread, in that little wine, It's a feast that fills our souls with the promises of our Redeemer. God gave Him to us. God is the host at the table of the covenant. The whole feast in all its detail was given us by Him. And so it is with all our salvation. Christ went to the cross for us, beloved. We didn't plan that. It was all of God. We didn't desire that, being dead in trespasses and sins. But God, who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us, having chosen us from eternity unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ unto Himself, has redeemed us in Christ Jesus His Son. He sent His Son to the cross for us, as we read in Ephesians 1, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace. And so at the feast table of the covenant, in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, God speaks to us in Christ Jesus, commanding us to eat and to drink. He speaks to us adding these promises. First, that His body was offered and broken on the cross for me and His blood shed for me as certainly as I see with my eyes the bread of the Lord broken for me and the cup communicated to me. But even that, wonderful as it is, is not all. For he also adds, and further, that he feeds and nourishes my soul to everlasting life with his crucified body and shed blood as assuredly as I receive from the hands of the minister and taste with my mouth the bread and cup of the Lord as certain signs of the body and blood of Christ. And so, in this blessed feast, we are strengthened by Christ's life. Not only do we find in Him the complete forgiveness of all our sins and life eternal, but we see that as we are continually nurtured By Christ, through His Word and Spirit, we become more and more united to His sacred body. Though Christ is in heaven and we on earth, we are yet flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone. The Spirit of Christ dwells in us and with us. We are partakers of the covenant life of our God and so we long to live unto Him. That's our life. Amen. Our Father and our God, help us to understand the wonder of these things revealed in the gospel, and to lay hold by faith of the mysteries of Christ who gave Himself for us, And grant that seeing these things, we may be faithful in our expression of thankfulness to Thee as we live in the midst of Thy Church. For Jesus' sake, amen.