The Love of the Cross
Text: Mark 14:12-31
Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, Utah
April 6, 2023 Maundy Thursday
Tonight we take Communion because we remember that it was on the night before he was crucified that Jesus first did this for and with his disciples.
It’s easy for Christians to get these warm, fuzzy feelings about Communion. In fact, sometimes people feel uncomfortable, or will not even take Communion, if they don’t feel good, peaceful, joyful, or happy. I think sometimes we think we have to feel spiritual or have it all together in our lives to eat the bread and drink the cup.
Isn’t that what we think when we hear Paul’s words in I Corinthians: “Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord”?
And we think, “Certainly, if I don’t feel at my best with God, I am the type of person Paul was talking about. I better not do this.”
Actually, what Paul is saying is that if we take the bread and cup without considering how faithless, weak, and contrary to God we can be, then we are doing it in an unworthy manner. The worthy way to take Communion is to examine ourselves and search our hearts and be honest. The worthy way to take the Lord’s Supper is to realize our need for God’s forgiveness.[1]
When Jesus first gave Communion it was anything but a warm and fuzzy moment.
Jesus tells his disciples to prepare the Passover meal, the yearly Jewish feast to remember God delivering the children of Israel from Egypt. Jews have always kept this meal and continue to do so today. Passover is a meal of freedom and a signpost of God’s salvation.
We’re told that during the course of the meal Jesus says to the Twelve, “I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me – one who is eating with me.”
If you want to stop good dinner conversation, if you want to create some awkwardness, this is a good way to do it. “One of you is going to stab me in the back. You will hand me over to those want to hurt me.”
It says the disciples were saddened. I would be saddened if my wife or daughters or a friend came to me and said, “You are going to betray me.” How could they think of such a thing about me? I would never do that. I would be hurt. Which is exactly what the disciples feel. Each one of them says, “Surely not I?” But Jesus tells them that it is true.
And indeed, right before this, Mark has already told us that Judas Iscariot has gone to the chief priests – the religious authorities – and has betrayed Jesus to them. He has made the deal and is only watching for the opportunity to close it.
So on one end of that first Communion is betrayal.
Jesus takes the bread, gives thanks, breaks it and gives it to the disciples. He tells them this is his body. Jesus takes a cup, gives thanks, and gives it to them to drink pointing to blood that he would shed for them on the cross.
Jesus gives himself to all of the twelve disciples. All get the bread. All drink from the cup. Including Judas.
After they sing a hymn they go out to the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives is up on a bench that overlooks the city of Jerusalem. This was probably a favorite gathering place for Jesus and his disciples. It was probably a place where Jesus would teach them. It was the place where Jesus would go to pray.
But while they are here, just having shared what we call the first Communion, Jesus says they will all fall away.
First, it’s betrayal. Now it is giving up and turning their backs on him.
The disciples won’t plan or even want to abandon Jesus, but that forces outside of them will cause them to do so. It won’t be so much some outrageous rebellion as much as a momentary failure. The meaning of “fall away” is getting caught up in something you don’t want to fall into but you get swept away with the fear, momentum, or whatever it is that influences you to do that. “We don’t plan on sinning, but neither do we hold the fort when we ought.”[2] So much of our failure as Christians is like this, isn’t it?
To fall way is the opposite of what Jesus had tried to teach his disciples to do – that is, stay alert and be watchful.
Peter is the one who has the hardest time with Jesus saying they will all fall away. Or, we might say, he is the one foolish enough to take Jesus on. He has done so before. Peter says, “Even if all the others fall away, I will not.” He has a high estimation of himself. Peter has a lot of pride. He is better than the others.
Jesus is honest with him, and even tells Peter that Peter will disown Jesus three times. But Peter is emphatic that there is no possible way he would disown Jesus, even to the point of having to die.
How strong of a Christian are you? Would you be able to stand if you were in danger for your faith? Would you remain faithful to Jesus even if your life, or the lives of your loved ones, was threatened? Peter is brimming with self-confidence. No matter the danger or pressure he is sure that he will never let Jesus down.
In the highly-acclaimed novel “Silence” by the late Japanese writer and Christian, Shusaku Endo, disowning Christ is a major theme. It’s an intense book. It was made into a movie just a few years ago but I haven’t watched it out my own fear about how intense it probably is.
The story takes place in the 17th century in Japan. At that time a huge and terrible persecution of Christians took place. The various areas were ruled by shoguns who were military dictators appointed by the emperor. The shoguns saw Christians as a threat to their power. Japanese Christians at that time were given the choice of rejecting their belief in Christ by walking over a wooden board with the face of Jesus on it, called a fumie, or, if they didn’t, suffering a terrible death.
The story is about a Portuguese priest named Rodrigues who goes to Japan to find out if it is true that his mentor, Father Ferreira, has committed apostasy and renounced Jesus Christ. Apostasy is to renounce your faith beliefs.
Father Rodrigues comes to Japan filled with certainty and strength in faith. But as he walks through Japan he is disturbed by the simplistic faith he finds among peasants who have become converts and are part of an underground church. He is also shocked by the brutal suffering they endure when they are found out. They are tortured and killed by the most cruel means possible.
Father Rodrigues is ultimately betrayed, and as he waits for help and deliverance and answers from God, all he hears is silence. No answers to prayer. God is silent.
As he is held by authorities he hears the groans of other Christian prisoners being killed, and knows that if he merely walks over the fumie and disowns Jesus, it will stop and he will be OK. He agonizes under the mental, emotional and spiritual pressure for days and weeks.
Finally, he breaks. Father Rodrigues takes that walk, right over the face of Christ, and becomes an apostate, disowning the Lord.
It is the same walk the disciples took first. Peter did deny Christ. The disciples – every one of them – fell away when Jesus was arrested.
Surely, not I Lord.
What I want us to see is that before Jesus’ shares his body and blood with his disciples is betrayal. And after Communion is denial, disowning him and falling way. In between Judas and the falling away of the disciples Jesus gives himself to them. He does this freely, without condition, knowing full well what these men were doing, would do, and were about.
I ask you, if you knew someone was going to betray you in a way that would hurt you tremendously, would you share a meal with them, let alone give yourself in any way to them?
If you knew those people were going to abandon you and disown you in your greatest hour of need, would you give yourself to them? Invite them over for dinner? Give them your best? Maybe some treasured possession?
That is exactly what our Lord did on the night he broke the break and poured out the cup and gave it to his disciples.
Think about that! Jesus gives The Lord’s Supper – which speaks of his very life, of forgiveness, of a new covenant - to these disciples knowing they are betrayers, deniers and will all fall away.
He didn’t wait to make sure they would be committed and faithful to him. They weren’t.
He did not give the bread and the cup because he believed it would strengthen the disciples to overcome temptation. It didn’t.
He didn’t give them The Lord’s Supper because it would make them successes. They weren’t.
Jesus knew what was going to happen and he shared the meal with them anyway, knowing what the future would hold.[3] He didn’t say, “this is only for the ones who will not betray me.” He didn’t say, “you can do this only if you stay faithful to me through thick and thin.”
Jesus gives them his body and blood knowing full well who they are and what they will do.
When we understand when and how Communion was first given we see it isn’t a table for victors, or the spiritually successful, or even those who are deeply confident in their faith. The first time it was for betrayers and deniers. It is for disciples who have failed and can’t necessarily be trusted. This table is smack dab in the middle not of beauty and wonderful spiritual fellowship, but hostile circumstances.
I think Jesus knows where we’ve been, what we are and what we will do. And he says, “come to the table.”
“Come, because this table speaks of my cross and I went to the cross for you. I went for all the times you failed and will fail. I went for your lack of faithfulness to me, for your bad temper, for your marital unfaithfulness, for your hypocrisy, for your foul mouth, and every time you gave in to the temptation.”
“I went to the cross for your greed, for your selfishness, for your struggle with that addiction, and for your jealousy. I went to the cross out of love for you.”
And if you want to know what love is listen to the disciple John when he writes, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us…” and showed that love by sending his Son to die on the cross for our sins.[4]
This table speaks of the love God has for us.
But I think this table also makes a claim upon us. If Jesus extends such love to us, even at our worst, and if he invites us to this table though we have failed and will still fail, then how are we to be toward others?
How can we receive Jesus’ love and then deny giving love to others? To the person who irritates us? To the person who stung us? To the person who we couldn’t disagree with more?
I think we really learn to love when our love for another person does not depend on how they treat or respond to us.
John’s Gospel if very different than Matthew, Mark and Luke’s Gospels. John doesn’t tell us anything about Communion. He gives us Jesus washing his disciples’ feet and giving them a new commandment. And there are some questions as to whether John and the other Gospel writers are recording the same night and the same place.
But if Jesus gave them Communion, washed their feet and told them to love one another in the same way he loved us all on the same night – which I think happened - then I think we should probably take that to heart.
The cross of Christ is one of love for us and others. It is for us, in that, while we were still enemies Christ died for us. God’s love extended to us at the cross.
The cross is also for others in that Jesus wants us to show and give what we have received.
We may not be treated so well sometimes. Jesus says, “Love them anyway.” He knows it’s not easy. He knows sometimes its darn near impossible. It is the life of the cross. But our love is the exclusive mark of our belonging to Christ.
Our Master said it is love that will show you are my disciples.
That’s one of the reasons churches have said we need to remember this evening every year. It’s one of the reasons we do communion again and again: to mark this love.
So, if you aren’t at your best right now – not particularly full of faith, maybe on the edge, even suspicious you could fall away, come to the table where the love of the cross is in things we can see, touch and taste.
Come as you are. Jesus knows what we are about. Just as with those twelve disciples, Jesus wants us anyway.
[1] See I Corinthians 11:27,28
[2] James Edwards, p.428
[3] Dale Bruner, Vol. 2, The Churchbook, Matthew, pp.970-71
[4] 1 John 4:10