Remembering Redemption / Mark 14:12-31

Well, church, it is good to see you again this week. I hope you’re doing well. If you are a guest among us, I just want to introduce myself. My name is Shay Sumlin, one of the teaching pastors here at The Well. If you have a Bible with you, I would love to invite you to turn to Mark chapter 14. We are nearing the end of our series, To Follow the Servant, a study of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ through the lens of the Gospel according to Mark.

Coming into the Church as an Outsider

As you’re turning there, if you’ve been around The Well for a little while, it is no secret that I did not grow up in a Christian home. I didn’t grow up gathering with a church on a Sunday like this. For years, my life was completely apart from the church. Some of you have stories where your life started right inside the church—you came out of the womb into the sanctuary, and you have simply grown up in it. For me, that just wasn’t the case.

What I’ve realized is that if you’ve been in the church for a while, it’s easy to forget what those early moments felt like when you first walked in. When I think back to my first experience in the gathered setting of a church, I remember how odd that day felt to me. There are so many practices we embrace on a typical Sunday that seem foreign to anything else in the world.

I remember my very first Sunday walking in and seeing them pass an offering plate. I really didn’t know what that was; I had never seen a concept like that before. I remember puzzling in my head, thinking, Is this one of those plates you put money into, or do you take from it? There was some cash in there that looked like it could do me some good!

Later that day—and this was deep into high school, visiting all by myself—I went into a Sunday school room with the youth group. Every song we sang had hand motions to it. I remember thinking, What in the world is this? At that point in my life, to date myself, I had been to enough Pearl Jam and Beastie Boys concerts to know hand motions, but they were of a completely different nature than what was going on in the church. Why did every lyric require some motion from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same?

Probably the most unusual thing for me that Sunday was sitting there and observing communion. Having no concept of this, I saw a silver tray full of little shot glasses coming down the aisle. I thought, What kind of crazy church is this? Then I took the little oyster cracker, tasted it, and thought, That is horrible. What is this?

In the years that followed, as I began to embed myself in the church and study the scriptures, I realized that every single one of those unusual forms was rooted in biblical imperatives and biblical values—except maybe the hand motions! Everything else had deep, intrinsic value. The practice that radically shaped me over the years was the idea of communion: how these two simple elements—a little cup of juice and a cracker—embody the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Tonight in Mark 14, Jesus is going to show us the origin of what we do on a Sunday when we observe the Lord’s Supper. Jesus does something in this text that radically reshapes the entire view of why we do what we do.

Preparing the Passover

Let’s look at Mark chapter 14, beginning in verse 12.

Mark 14:12-16 (NASB)

On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover [lamb] was being sacrificed, His disciples said to Him, ‘Where do You want us to go and prepare for You to eat the Passover?’ And He sent two of His disciples and said to them, ’Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him; and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, ’The Teacher says, ‘Where is My guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?’’ ‘And he himself will show you a large upper room furnished [and] ready; prepare for us there.’ The disciples went out and came to the city, and found [it] just as He had told them; and they prepared the Passover.

There was a massive event taking place in Jerusalem at this time: the Passover. This was one of the holiest celebrations in all of Israel. It celebrated the most divine act God had accomplished for them up to that point: the deliverance of God’s people from slavery in Egypt, when God parted the Red Sea and brought them through into redemption. This was a meal they had celebrated every year, in the exact same way, for fifteen hundred years.

This meal was part of a series of festivals in Jerusalem. It began on the fourteenth of Nisan at sunset and ran through midnight. In the Jewish calendar, the day began at sunset, so they ate the Passover meal from sunset to midnight. The very next morning began a seven-day festival called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Because Israel had to leave Egypt in such haste, they didn’t have time for their bread to rise, so it was unleavened. Yeast is often a symbolic picture of sin in Scripture, so this week represented repentance from sin and enjoyment of God.

Two days after Passover, they celebrated Firstfruits, offering up the first of the harvest to God in thanksgiving. Fifty days later came Pentecost, celebrating the full ingathering of the harvest. This was the celebration of all celebrations in Israel.

Deuteronomy 16:16 (NASB)

’Three times in a year all your males shall appear before the LORD your God in the place which He chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread and at the Feast of Weeks and at the Feast of Booths, and they shall not appear before the LORD empty-handed.

Deuteronomy mandated that Passover could only be celebrated within the walls of Jerusalem. Any Jew living anywhere across the Roman world had to make the pilgrimage. The Jewish historian Josephus estimated that around AD 66, between two and three million Jews packed into Jerusalem for the Passover. Families were required to set aside guest rooms for visitors. Between 75,000 and 100,000 lambs would be sacrificed for the meal.

In the midst of that massive chaos, Jesus, in His divine providence, orchestrates a place where He and His disciples can celebrate together. He sends two disciples ahead, they meet the man carrying a pitcher of water just as Jesus prophesied, and they prepare the upper room.

The Story Behind the Seder

To understand what Jesus is about to do, we have to understand the history. Fifteen hundred years earlier, the Jews were enslaved in Egypt for 430 years. After centuries of broken backs and affliction, God sent Moses to Pharaoh to demand the release of His people. Pharaoh hardened his heart, and God sent ten plagues.

Exodus 12:1-13 (NASB)

Now the LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, ’This month shall be the beginning of months for you; it is to be the first month of the year to you. ’Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying, ‘On the tenth of this month they are each one to take a lamb for themselves, according to their fathers’ households, a lamb for each household. ’Now if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his neighbor nearest to his house are to take one according to the number of persons [in them]; according to what each man should eat, you are to divide the lamb. ’Your lamb shall be an unblemished male a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. ’You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month, then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel is to kill it at twilight. ’Moreover, they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. ’They shall eat the flesh that [same] night, roasted with fire, and they shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. ’Do not eat any of it raw or boiled at all with water, but rather roasted with fire, [both] its head and its legs along with its entrails. ’And you shall not leave any of it over until morning, but whatever is left of it until morning, you shall burn with fire. ’Now you shall eat it in this manner: [with] your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste– it is the LORD’S Passover. ’For I will go through the land of Egypt on that night, and will strike down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments– I am the LORD. ’The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live; and when I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy [you] when I strike the land of Egypt.

The final plague was the worst of all: the Angel of Death. God instructed His people to sacrifice a spotless lamb and spread its blood on the lintel and doorposts of their homes. When the Angel of Death saw the blood covering the household, wrath was appeased, and death passed over that home. Pharaoh’s firstborn died, his resolve broke, and Israel was thrust out into freedom. God commanded Israel to remember that deliverance every single year.

The Passover meal—also called the Seder meal, meaning “order”—followed four distinct movements. The eldest male presided over the meal, and each movement ended with a specific cup of wine.

The first cup was the Cup of Sanctification, representing God’s promise to bring His people out of affliction and set them apart.

The second cup was the Cup of Deliverance, reminding them of God’s promise to free them from the yoke of slavery.

The third cup was the Cup of Redemption, symbolizing that deliverance came not by their own works, merit, or strength, but by God’s power and grace alone.

The fourth cup was the Cup of Restoration, pointing to the promise that God would fully restore His relationship with His people.

Along with the cups, they ate unleavened bread—the bread of affliction—recalling their suffering and their hasty departure. They ate bitter herbs to remember the bitterness of slavery. They ate sweet fruit mixtures representing joy amidst suffering, and they ate the roasted lamb, a visual picture of the ransom paid for their lives. For fifteen hundred years, the meal had been celebrated in this exact order.

The Redefinition of the Elements

Then we arrive at verse 22.

Mark 14:22-24 (NASB)

While they were eating, He took [some] bread, and after a blessing He broke [it], and gave [it] to them, and said, ‘Take [it]; this is My body.’ And when He had taken a cup [and] given thanks, He gave [it] to them, and they all drank from it. And He said to them, ’This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.

Mark tells us they were eating, which means they were roughly three-quarters of the way through the meal, right at the third cup. Prior to taking the Cup of Redemption, Jesus takes the bread of affliction. He breaks it, passes it out, and says something that must have stunned the room: “Take it; this is my body.”

Jesus is saying, “For fifteen hundred years, you have broken this bread to remember the affliction of Israel. But for fifteen hundred years, this bread was a shadow pointing to Me. My body is the Messiah’s body that will be afflicted on behalf of the people of God.”

Isaiah 53:5 (NASB)

But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being [fell] upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.

The disciples likely did not fully grasp it in that moment—they would understand it on the other side of the resurrection. Jesus was pointing to the nails, the crown of thorns, the scourging, and the cross. He was declaring that His body would be broken as their substitute.

Before they can fully process that statement, Jesus lifts the third cup—the Cup of Redemption—and says, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”

1 Corinthians 11:25 (NASB)

In the same way [He took] the cup also after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink [it], in remembrance of Me.’

For fifteen hundred years, that third cup pointed back to the lamb’s blood applied to the doorposts in Egypt. That blood turned away temporal death and brought physical freedom from slavery. Jesus says, “Now, this cup points to My blood. My blood appeases the eternal wrath of God. My blood breaks the spiritual bondage of your sin and purchases your eternal life. This is My blood poured out on the cross of Golgotha.”

John 1:29 (NASB)

The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, ’Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

Jesus was the true Lamb all along.

The New Covenant of Grace

By speaking of the “blood of the covenant,” Jesus was also addressing the covenant made at Mount Sinai. That Old Covenant revealed God’s perfect, unwavering holiness and righteousness. It showed humanity God’s standard: do these things and live; fail to do them and die. God did not give that law so we would say, “I think I can do that.” He gave it so we would say, “There is no way I can do that. I fall short. My righteousness is like filthy rags. I need a Savior outside of myself.”

Instead of turning to God for mercy, Israel added hundreds of additional rules, trying to manufacture their own righteousness. But God promised a day was coming when things would change.

Jeremiah 31:31-33 (NASB)

‘Behold, days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,’ declares the LORD. ‘But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ declares the LORD, ’I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

God promised a New Covenant where the law would be written on our hearts, operating under grace rather than law. Jesus holds up that third cup and declares: That day is now. The New Covenant is instituted through His blood. It is received not by human effort or performance, but by grace alone through faith alone.

You transfer your trust off your own good works, off your own resume, and you place it fully on Jesus. You say, “He died the death I was supposed to die. He shed His blood so my sin could be forgiven.” When you do that, you enter the beauty of the New Covenant: there is nothing you can do to make God love you any more, and there is nothing you can do to make God love you any less. He loves you based on the performance of His Son, not yours.

Four Ways We Approach Communion

After the resurrection, Jewish believers continued to celebrate Passover, but they viewed it through the lens of Jesus as its fulfillment. The early church began gathering on Sundays to celebrate the resurrection, anchoring their worship in these two central elements: the bread and the cup.

When we take communion today—whether by intinction, where we dip the bread into the cup, or through little communion cups—what are we actually doing? Biblically, there are four primary directions our hearts should look when we come to the table.

1. Looking Back

First, we look back. We remember what it was like when the bondage of sin enslaved us. We remember that our sin nailed Jesus to the cross. That is a sobering reality, but it is immediately met with celebratory thanksgiving. God provided a Lamb whose broken body and shed blood are entirely sufficient for us. When we take the bread, we remember our substitute. When we dip the bread into the cup, we remember His blood washing our sins white as snow. We don’t come to the table to toast our own performance; we come to celebrate His grace.

2. Looking Within

Second, we look within. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul instructed the church in Corinth because their communion gatherings had devolved into chaos. People were showing up hungry, treating it like a happy hour at a local pub, getting drunk, and ignoring the poor. Paul warned them against taking communion in an unworthy manner, which holds the gospel in contempt.

1 Corinthians 11:27-28 (NASB)

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Taking communion is an opportunity to examine our hearts. If you have trusted in Christ, your salvation is secure, but unconfessed sin disrupts your fellowship with God. Coming to the table allows us to bring our sin into the light, receive the forgiveness already purchased at the cross, and walk in repentance. We also look within to remember that the same grace that paid the penalty for our sin is the sustaining grace currently breaking the power of sin in our lives.

3. Looking Forward

Third, we look forward. Look at what Jesus says in verse 25.

Mark 14:25 (NASB)

‘Truly I say to you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.’

Jesus did not drink the fourth cup—the Cup of Restoration—at that table. He deferred it, looking ahead to the ultimate restoration of all things. When we take communion, we look forward to what Scripture calls the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

Revelation 19:9 (NASB)

Then he said to me, ’Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’’ And he said to me, ‘These are true words of God.’

One day, we will no longer participate in shadows. We will sit face-to-face with Jesus in the full substance of His presence, where the presence of sin is completely eradicated. Every time we take these stale crackers and grape juice, we are longing for the day we sit at the banquet table with our King.

4. Looking Around

Finally, we look around at the corporate body. We have not only been saved from sin and for God; we have been saved into a family. God gave two ordinances to publicly display our identity in Christ: baptism, which is an individual declaration of our death and resurrection with Jesus, and communion, which is a corporate declaration of our shared unity in His broken body and shed blood.

We come to this table as one body—unified across every racial, generational, and socioeconomic line by the blood of Christ. That vertical reconciliation with God creates horizontal reconciliation with one another. When you get in line tonight and someone steps on your foot or cuts in front of you, remember: this family of sinners is exactly who Jesus died to redeem.

Deserters at the Table

Notice where Mark places this story. In verses 18 through 21, Judas sits at the table, having already betrayed Jesus for silver. Judas leaves early; he proves to be a fraud who wants nothing to do with what this meal represents.

Mark 14:27-31 (NASB)

And Jesus said to them, ’You will all fall away, because it is written, ‘I WILL STRIKE DOWN THE SHEPHERD, AND THE SHEEP SHALL BE SCATTERED.’ ‘But after I have been raised, I will go ahead of you to Galilee.’ But Peter said to Him, ‘[Even] though all may fall away, yet I will not.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Truly I say to you, that this very night, before a rooster crows twice, you yourself will deny Me three times.’ But [Peter] kept saying insistently, ‘[Even] if I have to die with You, I will not deny You!’ And they all were saying the same thing also.

Right after the meal, Jesus tells the other eleven disciples that before the night is over, every single one of them will desert Him. On one side of the table you have a betrayer; on the other side, you have eleven deserters. Right in the middle stands the broken body and shed blood of Jesus, offering grace to cover it all.

We are all on level ground at this table. Every single one of us has fallen short. We come to the table not because we are worthy, but because our Savior is.

The Bible begins and ends with a meal. In Genesis 2 and 3, there was a meal humanity was commanded not to eat. Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, plunging the world into alienation and death. In Revelation 19, the Bible ends with a meal: the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, celebrating the eternal union of Christ and His bride.

How do we get from the tragic meal in Genesis to the glorious feast in Revelation? Right through the middle: through the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ, received by grace alone through faith alone.

If you are here tonight and have never put your faith in Jesus Christ, taking these elements means nothing. An outward ritual cannot change an inward reality. I invite you tonight to consider the claims of Christ, surrender your life to Him, and receive His salvation.

For all of us who have put our faith in Jesus: let us come to the table as forgiven deserters, relishing in the immense grace of our King.

Let’s pray together.

Father, we thank You for the immense grace You have provided in Jesus. We have no room to boast in anything we have done. Our boast is in Jesus Christ alone. You were faithful when we were faithless, providing a Lamb to be crushed for our iniquities and shed His blood so that we might have life everlasting. Until Jesus returns and we feast with Him face-to-face, we take this meal with joyful thanksgiving for what You have done and are continuing to do. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.