Christ prepared his disciples completely for the Lord’s Supper. He revealed to them their truth, and led them into deep repentance with brokenness of their hearts, for only in case of continuous repentance we are worthy of participating in the blessed Lord’s Supper.
Christ proclaimed the treachery of one of the disciples who had accompanied them from the beginning, worked with them, and prayed in their fellowship. The traitor lived from Christ’s grace, and employed the Lord’s power to serve his own secular interest, and when he failed to carry out his own plans, he hated Jesus that he intended to consume him entirely.
This uncovering proclamation hit and frightened the disciples as an explosion in the midst of them, and they were all upset.
How strange! They did not accuse others, but each one of them began to be suspicious of himself, feeling the possibility of betraying him into his heart.
Did you observe this horrible confession from the mouth of each apostle? No one was certain of himself or of his own godliness. They all felt there was a fountain of evil in each mans’ heart, unless he was saved by Christ.
Blessed are you when you become ashamed of your sin, and when you tremble at the possibility of falling away from Christ and his salvation.
Jesus wanted to save Judas, at the last moment, through this concealed declaration. He loved his traitor and tried to establish repentance into his heart with powerful words filled with passion. We do not see any disagreement between Jesus’ statement that it is written from eternity that the Son of Man would die, and the fact that Judas Iscariot would be responsible for betraying him.
Jesus warned him clearly that his guilt and punishment were great, and that it would have been better for him if he had never been born. As such, Jesus endeavored to shake Judas’ subconscious before it was too late.
Yet, the traitor was determined to betray him. He did not hear Jesus’ kind words, and was unable to understand them, for he had become increasingly hardened that he bore grudge against the embodied love of God.
Dear brother, dear sister, come to Jesus with broken hearts and tears of repentance, and confess all your sins. As such only, you become worthy to eat the Lord’s Supper prepared by Christ not for the godly, but for the broken repentant. Today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.
During the blessed supper, Christ thanked for the broken bread. He brought it out as a symbol of his crucified body, and commanded his disciples to receive him practically in their hearts just as the bread went inside them.
Christ wants to dwell in you, not because you are righteous, but because he loves you, and wishes to be with you, and rather in you at all times.
How great is the love of God, which does not refuse us poor sinners, but he himself dwells in us through his word, in the Lord’s Supper, through the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s heart! The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit dwell in whoever opens himself to Christ.
Jesus made the wine a symbol of his blood, and told his disciples that this blessed blood would cleanse them completely, as the warmth of wine runs into the thinnest veins of those who drink it. The blood of Christ is not the blood of an ordinary man. It is the blood of the Son of God who appeared in the form of man, and shed his own blood, for one time only, to cleanse continuously all those who entered through him into a new covenant with God.
There is neither connection nor unification with God without cleansing of sins. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all sin. This new covenant is not confined to a certain tribe, nation, or people, but is opened to all peoples, tribes and nations. He who drinks of this pure blood, and becomes pure in his conscience from the past sins, and sanctified graciously, is worthy of entering and continuing in the new covenant.
Did you recognize that the holy eternal God is connected with the disobedient created men, and that he becomes united with you and with every repentant, for Christ justified us by his death?
Did you enter consciously and determinedly into the covenant with God? Did Christ dwell actually in your heart? Did his blood cleanse you from all impurity and sin?
God the Father invites you, today, to his heavenly banquet, and offers all his graces to you in his Son. So, what will you do? How will you thank him?