What a Night: A Night of of Forgiveness
Matthew 26:26-29
If it’s true that you are what you eat, we’ve got a bunch of pizza sitting in here right now, right? [laughs] Of course, there is truth in it, isn’t it? What’s happened to that pizza? It has been ingested into me, and now it is filling my different parts of my body with the strength that I need. You are what you eat. The night on which he was betrayed, Jesus took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it, and he gave it to his disciples and said, “Take and eat. This is my body.” Notice what Jesus doesn’t say. Jesus doesn’t say, “This changed into my body.” He could have said that. There’s a Greek word for it. It’s the Greek word metamorphosis. We get our English word metamorphosis from that Greek word metamorphosis. Jesus didn’t say it, metamorphosized. Nor did Jesus say, “This represents my body.” He could have said that. I won’t bother you with the Greek on that. He didn’t. He said, “This is my body.” What’s he saying? He’s saying to his disciples and to us that yes, when you come to the supper, you really do eat bread, real bread, physical bread, and when you swallow, you are swallowing real bread. But in a miraculous way that goes beyond our understanding, you also receive Jesus’s real body. Wow. And then Jesus repeats in regards to the wine. “This is my blood of the covenant.” Not this changed into, not this represents, but this is that when you come to the supper, you’re really going to drink wine, but you’re also going to really get Jesus. And it’s the blood of the covenant. What’s that a reference to? It’s a reference to a Jeremiah passage where God says, “A new covenant I’m going to make with the house of Israel.” It’s not going to be like the old covenant I had with them, which was weak. “But I will put my law on their hearts and write it on their minds. I will be their God and they will be my people.” And then here’s the heart of it. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” By Jesus saying, “This is my blood of the covenant,” he’s saying, “With this meal, I’m forgiving you. With this meal, I am washing your sins away, putting my words into your mind and putting my words onto your heart, because this is my blood of the covenant.” They had just heard that one of them was going to betray him. And now they hear these words of absolute forgiveness. Oh, what a night. A night on which God gave us a meal for the entire New Testament age, by which he gives you and me forgiveness over and over and over again. What a night. Amen?
