"The Riddle of the Bread"
Mark 14:12-26
Preached by Bart Erlebach on 13th April 2025
Scripture
12 And on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover lamb, his disciples said to him, “Where will you have us go and prepare for you to eat the Passover?” 13 And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, 14 and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ 15 And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.” 16 And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.
17 And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. 18 And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” 19 They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?” 20 He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. 21 For the Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.”
22 And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” 23 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. 24 And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. 25 Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
26 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
(ESV)
Generated Transcript
And so we're reading from March chapter 14 versus 12 to 26, which is on page 1020 in the church bibles. On the first day of the festival of unleavened bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb. Jesus disciples asked him, where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover? So he sent 2 of his disciples telling them, go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him.Say to the owner of the house he enters. The teacher asks where is my guest room? Where I may eat the passover with my Cycles. He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready, make preparations for us there. The disciples left, went into the city, and found things just as Jesus had told them, so they prepared the pass over.
When evening came, Jesus arrived with the 12. While they were reclining at the table eating, he said, truly, I tell you, 1 of you will betray me, 1 who is eating with me. They were saddened and 1 by 1, they said to him, surely you don't mean me. It is 1 of the 12, he replied, 1 who dip spread into the bowl with me. The son of man will go just as it is written about him, but woe to that man who betrays the sort of man.
It would be better for him if he had not been born. While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, take it. This is my body. Then he took a cup and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many, he said to them.
Truly, I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of divine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of god. When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the mount of olives. Thank you, Emily, for reading that for us. Let's pray. Emily father, we thank you for your word and pray, please.
Again, that you would help us to be in awe of you as we come to your word, ready to listen, father teach us, we pray, and would your word be a a lamp to our feet and our light to our path? Our man. As has been said, we're doing a a a little Easter series building up to Easter called Easter Riddles, because we're looking at some of the strange things that happened in that last week, building up to Jesus' death and resurrection, some strange things that happened. We've looked at a couple of them already. And today, we're thinking about the riddle of the bread.
And we said that each of these riddles as we understand them, take us to the heart of what Easter is all about. So what about this riddle? The riddle of the bread. The scene is the last supper. Jesus gathered with his friends, having a meal together.
And Jesus stands up, breaks bread, gives it to them, and says, take it. This is my body. Maybe you've heard this many times before, you might well have done. And therefore, it's very familiar to you. It's not surprising that Jesus does that.
You're not surprised that he did. But the original disciples as they were there in the room with Jesus would have been shocked because Jesus was overturning, so centuries of tradition, reinterpreting a well known meal. Why did he do it? What did it mean? Well, we're gonna think about 3 things, from this passage.
The first is, that it is an essential meal. An essential meal. That is that Jesus was determined they were gonna have this meal. And I just want you to see in the passage how determined Jesus was. See, when the passage was read, you may have noticed that at the beginning, there's quite a bit about where they're going to eat the meal, where they're going to eat the passover meal.
The disciples ask verse 12, do you have the passage open in front of you? If you can, if you've got a Bible near you, do turn to it, page 1020, and then you can follow, what I'm saying. So verse 12, the disciples, it says on the first day of, the festival of unleavened bread when it was customary to sacrifice the passover lamb, Jesus disciples asked where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the pass over. And Jesus doesn't tell them an address. It'd be much easier if Jesus had just said, go to this house in whatever street.
Go there. That's where you go, but he didn't do that. You're noticing he had an elaborate plan laid out for how they're gonna find the room. So verse 13, it says he sent 2 of the disciples telling them, go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you follow him. Well, that would have made this man stand out.
It seems like, from what I gather, that men didn't generally carry water jars. They had other ways of carrying water, but they didn't carry water jars. That would have been women's work to carry the water jar. So this would have made this guy stand out. He said, going into the city and find this guy who's carrying this water jar, he will meet you.
And he will show you a large up stairs, room furnished and ready make preparations for us there. And that's what they found. First 16, the disciples left went into the city, found things just as Jesus had told them, so they prepared the passover. Now why does Jesus do it this way? Why not just simply say to the decipher the 2 disciples?
Just go to that house. Why do this system where they've gotta go in, find the guy, and the guy's gotta then they give them their password. He even has a password. Do you remember? A bit like a couple of weeks ago when we had the riddle of the donkey, and Jesus sent a couple of people to go and get the donkey, and they kinda had a password.
You know, the lord needs it. Now they've got a different password. They go in, find this guy and say teacher says where's the room, and he takes them. Well, why do it like this? Well, we need to know that Jesus' opponents are ready to strike.
The Jewish leaders have decided that they want Jesus dead. And the verses just before our passage, Judith has just agreed to betray Jesus. So just cast your eyes back to verse 10, of the chapter, it says, then Judith Iscariot, 1 of the 12, went to the chief priests to betray Jesus to them. They were delighted to hear this and promised to give him money, so he watched for an opportunity to hand him over. Do you see?
They're ready to kill Jesus, and they've got Judith ready to betray Jesus. And you might have wondered, why do they need Judith to betray Jesus? I thought it's not like Judith gives them any sort of secret information really about Jesus. Why do they need Judith to betray Jesus? Couldn't they just arrest him?
Well, the answer is that they didn't want to arrest Jesus when there was a big crowd around. So if you look back to the beginning of the chapter verse 1 and 2, it says, now the Passover and Festival of unleavened bread were only 2 days away, and the chief priests and teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him, but not during the festival, they said, or that people may riot. Here's the problem the religious leaders have got. They want to kill Jesus, but if they arrest him while there's a big crowd around, they could be a riot. Be like if no.
I don't mean, and political by this. I'm not saying either way. But if Donald Trump were arrested during 1 of his 1 of his rallies, they could well be a huge riot, couldn't they? So too with Jesus. If Jesus were arrested amongst a crowd, there could arrive.
So what they need is they need someone to tell them when Jesus is on his own or when he's in a small group. And this meal would be an ideal opportunity. And so when Jesus is asked, where do you want us to prepare the passover meal? In that crowd around him, there's Judith. And be in no doubt, Jesus knows, Judith is gonna betray him.
We're not gonna focus on this in a big way, but beginning part of the meal, Jesus talks about 1 of you is going to betray me. He knows who it is. And notice, that Jesus says verse 21. The son of man will go just as it has been written about him, but woe to that man who betrays the son of man. In other words, Jesus is say Jesus is saying, I know what's gonna happen to me.
I know I'm gonna be taken. He knows. He's already told them. He knows he's gonna be killed. He knows he's gonna be arrested, but he doesn't want it to happen yet.
He wants to make sure they have this meal before he's arrested. So with Judah amongst the group. When they say where should we have the meal, he says, 2 of them go off into the city. You'll find this guy. He'll show you the room.
That's why he set it up like this. So that Judith couldn't then immediately go to the chief priests and say, we know where I know where he'll be this evening. You could arrest him then. You see, Jesus wanted to make sure they had this meal. It was his essential that they did.
And in the meal, he gets up and says, takes the bread, breaks it, and says, take it. This is my body. He's saying to them, we've gotta have this meal because this meal, it explains my death. And it's gonna be this meal this Parso for meal. You you kind of missed it if you were to reread it.
The beginning part of the past it over and over again, it emphasizes this is the passover meal. Decciples say, where should we prepare the passover? And then then it says, you know, so they went and prepared the passover. It's the passover meal. You'd get that really clearly.
It's gotta be this meal that they have, because this meal explains Jesus' death. Now there are lots of people who might say different things about the meaning of Jesus' death. Some say, well, it was just a death like any other. Everyone dies. Jesus died.
Others will say, well, it was a political thing. Well, yes, he'd upset the religious leaders, and he'd upset the political leaders, and so they had him killed. That's what it's all about. Others will say, well, it's an example of just the injustice that there is in the world. And others will say, well, it's an example of Jesus's love that he would come alongside us and experience the kind of things that we experience in this world, the sufferings and the trials and the difficulties.
And there's truth in those things. But what's at the heart of it? What's the real meaning of Jesus' death? Is there more to it? And what we really want to know is, Jesus, what do you say is the meaning of your death?
And for that, we come to this meal because he's this is kind of the big explanation of his death that Jesus gives. Now he talks about his death elsewhere, but this is the time when he explains it. Now to understand it, we need to understand the Passover meal and what it was originally about. Because actually in the meal, Jesus doesn't say very much, does he? If this is the explanation, there's not a lot in there.
But that's because we need to know what the original passover meal was all about, and then we'll understand what Jesus's death was all about. And the passover meal was this is our second point, a meal to remember a rescue. It was a meal to remember a rescue. See, we need to understand the original script for the meal, because Jesus changes it, but you're not gonna understand the change until you understand the original script. The Passover meal was a huge annual celebration for the Jewish nation.
It was a meal to remember a rescue. The rescue that had taken place hundreds of years before, and you may be familiar with this. It was when god's people were slaves in Egypt, And they cried out to god because of their suffering. And he sent them Moses to lead them out of Egypt. And if you know the story, if you've watched the films or read the book, then you'll know that there that the lord sent plagues, 10 plagues on the people.
Maybe you know some of them. I won't go through all of them, but, you know, there were frogs and flies and gnats and boils and darkness. And then there was the last plague. The last plague after which god would lead them out of Egypt to their own land, a land he would give them. And that last plague was the plague of the firstborn.
God said, the angel of the lord would pass through the land that night. And in every household, the firstborn son was going to die. But god could keep his people safe. He said you can be safe, if you take a lamb, 1 lamb for each household, and you kill that lamb. And you take the blood of the lamb, and you paint the blood on the door posts of your house, and then you roast that lamb, and you eat it.
And if you do that, you will be safe. And you can imagine the Israelite families gathered around that evening, eating that roast sound nervous. They'd be worried, wouldn't they? Is this gonna work? Is the angel of the lord gonna come through the land?
Are we gonna be safe? And there'd be 1 in the family who'd be particularly nervous? That first born son, particularly anxious that. Have you have you put the blood on the door posts? Yeah.
It's alright, son. I've put them under. Can I just go and check? Yeah. You can go and check.
Maybe we could put a bit more on the door post just in case. It's alright. We've put I'm on the door place. And that night, the angel of the lord went through the land. And the next morning, in every household, there was a dead body, either the son or the lamb was dead.
And the lord brought them out of Egypt and took them to the land. And every year, they celebrated the Passover meal to remember that rescue. And they ate the same food. They'd have lamb, and they would have bread, unleavened bread, because the that was to remind them that when they came out of Egypt, the bread they had, there wasn't time for it to rise, so they had to take it neatly, without it having risen. So they would have unleavened bread to remind them of add, and they would have bitter herbs that they would eat as well to remind them of the bitter suffering that they went through.
Every year, the same food at this celebration. And every year, the same script, the head of the household would say the same thing every year to remind them of this rescue and how God had brought them out to be his people how he detected them. They were safe under the blood of the lamb that had been killed for them. And this is the meal Jesus wanted them to have. This meal, which remembered an old rescue.
And to understand the cross, we need that meal in our minds. Because we now see Jesus change the script. Third point, it's now a meal to explain our rescue. That's 20 to, while they were eating, Jesus took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, take it.
This is my body. Can you imagine the surprise eyes around the room. Jesus has gone completely off script. What's he doing? I wonder if you have I wonder if you have any kind of things like this in your family or that that you have every year where where you have the same kind of script.
You probably think, well, no. There probably isn't quite that kind of thing. We do in in our family, and and my family will be delighted that I'm raising this. Every Christmas, with my side of the family, we, we play a game called cards in the hat, which is a great game. And even those who pretend they don't like it, will they actually secretly admit it's a brilliant game.
Cause you get a whole family, it doesn't matter what age you are. You get sort of sitting around the room, and you got 2 teams, and you're throwing cards into it actually waste paper basket. And you you win points and all this kind of thing, but it's the same every year. And it's the same script every year. Same rounds that you do in the game, and my dad who probably learned it from his dad sort of says the same things every year.
And if you go off script. If he goes off script or if he tries to vary it, then we'll go, no. Hang on. No. You gotta do that.
You gotta do it properly. Gotta do it right. And every year we do it. Can't go off script. If he did, if he said this year, I think we play a different game.
There would be our bridge. In the room here, Jesus has just gone completely off script. They would have been utterly surprised. What are you doing? He's reinter interpreting the meal.
But he's not ditching the meal. It's not like you can say, oh, forget about passover. Let's just do something different. Because he could've done that at any time. No.
He's taking the passover meal and he's reinterpreting it and he's saying, this is what it's really all about. Jesus is clearly saying the bread and wine represent his death, he says. Take it. This is my body. And then he takes the cup.
And when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And he says, this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many, he said to them. He saying, look, the bread and the wine, they represent my body. In other words, I'm gonna be killed. I'm gonna die.
Body broken, blood poured out. And he's saying that old deliverance That old indifference from hundreds of years ago, that old rescue was really pointing to him, and the rescue he was about to achieve. Hundreds of years before when the families gathered round at night They were getting ready for the rescue the next day, and here's Jesus with his friends gathering having this meal ready for a rescue he's gonna achieve the next day. And you notice in the meal, every bit of it actually is about Jesus. The bread actually is he's saying this is my body.
It represents his body. The blood rep the wine represents his blood. What about the lamb? There's no lamb. There's no lamb at this meal.
I mean, you gotta have lamb. There's passover. The lamb is mentioned verse 12 on the first day of the festival of unleavened bread when it was to sacrifice the passover lamb. So the lamb is mentioned, but there's no lamb mentioned in the meal. Why not?
Well, it's rightly been said. There's no lamb on the table, but because the lamb is at the table. Jesus is the lamb. When John the Baptist first sees Jesus, what does he say of him? He says, look, the lamb of god who takes away the sin of the world.
Jesus is the lamb. Every bit of the meal points to him, the bread, the wine, and he is the lamb. And Jesus isn't ditching the part over meal, but using it, he's saying, look, my blood was poured out for many in place of many. Just like the lamb's blood was poured out for the people in that household, he's saying, my blood is gonna be poured out for many. To cover many.
And just as the families were rescued through the sacrifice of the lamb, we can be rescued through Jesus' death, but rescued from what? Well, we were talking about this in holiday club work, that, the biggest problem that we have is sin. When the guy was the paralyzed man was lowered down in front of Jesus, Jesus' first words to him are, son, your sins are forgiven. Not your legs need to be healed, but your sins are forgiven. Sin is our greatest problem.
It's our greatest need. And sin is our rejection of god, our ignoring of god, our rebellion against him, which is the cause of all the problems actually that we see in the world around us. You see, our greatest problem is not war, it's not climate change, it's not sickness, it's sin, and that is the root of all the problems. And that's why Jesus name. That's what he came to rescue us from.
And that is the meaning of the riddle of the bread. It explains Jesus' death. Not just that he was going to die, but why? But just as the Israelites were rescued from the death, by through the death of a lamb, so we can be rescued from sin by Jesus since his death. Now would you just consider just 3 implications of this?
3 implications. They're brief. The first is this. Just consider for a moment what this says about how bad sin actually is. If the cure is for Jesus to come and sacrifice himself for us.
You you can often see how serious illnesses. Sometimes you can see how serious an illness is. By the treatment needed, a minor grade, you just put a plaster on it if that. But some illnesses, as we know, require serious lengthy treatment with not side effects. And you're only gonna do that if the illness is very serious.
I wonder whether you think sin can't be that bad. Isn't it just a bit of a graze, bit of a cold. It's not that bad, is it? But look at the treatment for it. It is that the son of god came and went through the agony of the cross, bearing the weight of our in on himself.
That is how serious it is. Second, it it shows the incredible love god has for us, that he was prepared to give his son to achieve our rescue. Tim Keller, who makes, the case in his book, King's Cross, that all real life changing love is in some way a form of costly substitutionary sacrifice. I know that you say, look, those times when you're really moved by someone's love for you, or when you do something for someone else where it really moves them really changes them. It's always some form of substitutionary sacrifice.
In other words, you're taking on something of theirs, some suffering of theirs, some problem of theirs onto yourself. At which is why in books, the the books and films that really move us are the ones where there's that going on. You you know it's gonna happen at some point that someone's gonna sacrifice themselves for someone else. And Keller, in in his book, takes you to the Harry Potter books. It says, remember Lilly Potter, maybe you've not read them, but Lily Potter was Harry Potter's mom.
And at 1 point in the first book, lord Voldemort, the evil lord Voldemort tries to kill Harry Potter, but he can't touch it. And Harry later goes to Dumbledore and asks, why couldn't he touch me? And Dumbledore answers, your mother died to save you. Love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its mark, not a scar, no visible sign, but to have been loved so deeply, will give us some protection forever. Now why does Dumbledore's statement move us?
It's because we know from experience, whether from mundane things or from really dramatic things that sacrifice advice is at the heart of love. And therefore, it makes sense that a god who is more loving than you and me would come and sacrifice himself for us. Jesus is sacrificed for a shows the incredible love god has for us. But lastly, last implication, don't forget this is a meal. The Israelites had to eat the lamb.
The disciples had to eat the bread. And what's that pointing us to? It's saying, well, we need to receive the sacrifice Jesus made for us. We don't just remember the rescue. God.
Yeah. No. We need to receive it, take it in, lay hold of it. A pile of food that's been wonderfully prepared doesn't, in and of itself, do you any good, unless you eat it? So too, we need to receive Jesus' sacrifice for us.
And by doing so, we're saying, I need this. I need this rescue, and I accept what Jesus did for me. Now you might think that it would be natural follow on by having communion, which we're not gonna do. You can see it's not laid out. We're not gonna do that.
We're gonna have it on Thursday, Thursday evening, Monday, Thursday. When when we remember Jesus having this meal with his followers. So do come along if you can on Thursday evening. It'd be great to have you there. But it's okay not to have communion today.
I mean, it it kind of might have followed on, but it that's alright. Because the act of eating the bread and drinking the wine in and of itself doesn't save you. Actually, Jesus's death in and of itself doesn't save anyone. Because you do need to save it. You need to put your trust in it.
In the anglican liturgy, when you come to the communion, the distribution of the bread and wine, there's a bit which says, where you're instructed to feed on him in your hearts, by faith and with Thanksgiving. That's the important thing. Feed on him in your heart by faith. Trust in him. See, the key thing for those families gathered around when they were eating that lamb was that they were trusting god.
They trusted god. They they might have been frightened. They might have been worried. They might have been nervous, but they still trusted god and therefore did what told them to do, put the blood on the door. For you, will you put your faith in what Jesus has done for you?
His sacrifice for you, his bloodshed for you. And if when we come to take communion Thursday future weeks, you've received the bread and money. That is an act of saying, actually, yeah, in my heart, I trust in Jesus, and in his death. So the riddle of the bread Jesus made sure they had this meal. He was determined they were gonna have this meal before he was arrested because this explains his death.
And he did it so he could change this meal, which was to remember an old rescue and to use it to explain our rescue. For us to understand and remember that through Jesus, the death of the lamb, our sin can be dealt with, and we can be rescued. Let me pray for us. Father, we thank you for this meal that Jesus had with his, with his friends. And thank you that it's takes that passover meal and reinterprets it and points to what it's really all about, his death, his body break, and his bloodshed.
And father I pray that you would help everyone here to receive that sacrifice for themselves and to be rescued from sin, amen.