I AM the Resurrection and the Life

 

Good morning! He is risen! Today we are going to focus on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Jesus is unique in history because He predicted His resurrection and then it took place. We find the first reference of this in John 2. The context is that it was almost Passover, and Jesus went into the temple courts and found some people selling animals for sacrifice and others exchanging money. The passage says that He made a whip out of cords and drove them all out. (This was the first – but not the only – time He did this.) The passage continues: 

The Jews then responded to Him, “What sign can You show us to prove your authority to do all this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and You are going to raise it in three days?” But the temple He had spoken of was His body. After He was raised from the dead, His disciples recalled what He had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken. – John 2:18-22

Jesus predicts His death and resurrection here close to the start of His ministry, and He even explains how long He will be dead – three days. And for us, as we today celebrate His resurrection, it is important to note that Jesus explains that this was a proof of His authority. 

Now, the importance of the crucifixion cannot be overstated. Jesus went to the cross willingly, as the only person who had never sinned, to die for the sins of others, to die for you and me. And we receive the gift of salvation – of being saved from our sins – through faith in Him, a faith that is demonstrated through a prayer of repentance to Him and through a commitment to let Him be Lord of our lives. That is, we live for Him because He died for us. 

But the resurrection of Christ serves a different purpose – as this passage explains, it proves His authority. It proves that He is not only man, but God. It proves that His sacrifice for our sins was accepted by God. And it proves that we can trust everything He says.

In Matt. 12, the crowds bring to Jesus a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute. What a combination! The passage is not clear about whether the blindness and muteness were caused by the demon, or whether the man had already been blind and mute before the demon came upon him. But in any case, Jesus fully heals this man of all three conditions – He removes the demon, makes him able to talk, and makes him able to see. The Pharisees, seeing this, say to themselves that Jesus must be in league with Satan so as to be able to do this. Jesus hears their thoughts and responds, condemning them for their evil hearts. Then the Pharisees and teachers of the law demand that Jesus give them a sign. 

He [Jesus] answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. – Matt. 12:39-41

Again, Jesus predicts His death and resurrection, this time by comparing Himself to the prophet Jonah. Indeed, for all apparent purposes, Jonah was dead and gone when the giant fish swallowed him. Who could possibly survive that? Yet, three days later, Jonah reappeared, at the location God had told him to go, to Nineveh, a wicked city. It was an absolute miracle that Jonah was alive – just as if he had been resurrected from the dead. And, in contrast to the Pharisees and teachers of the law, in response to just a few words from Jonah, the entire place, all of Nineveh, repented. 

And so we see here a second purpose of the resurrection – it should drive people to repent of their sins and turn to Christ to save them. 

In both accounts, Jesus is telling all His listeners, disciples and enemies alike, that He will die and rise from the grave. But He also repeatedly told His disciples this when He was alone with them. We see this, for example, in Matt. 16. This conversation takes place immediately after Jesus commends Peter for realizing that Jesus is in fact the Messiah prophesied throughout Scripture.  

From that time on Jesus began to explain to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to You!” Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” – Matt. 16:21-23

I have sympathy for Peter in this conversation, as I think I would have expressed a similar sentiment at that time. Nobody wants to face the fact that someone that they love will be leaving them. How much more so the Messiah! But Jesus’ seemingly harsh response to Peter is justified, in that Peter is tempting Jesus to change the outcome – the exact same thing that Satan did when talking with Jesus after His 40-day fast in the desert.

Staying with Matthew, Jesus tells His disciples again, a chapter later:

When they came together in Galilee, He said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill Him, and on the third day He will be raised to life.” And the disciples were filled with grief. – Matt. 17:22-23

And Matthew records a third time this happens:

Now Jesus was going up to Jerusalem. On the way, He took the Twelve aside and said to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day He will be raised to life!” – Matt. 20:17-19

This time, Jesus is even more specific – He says everything – He will be mocked. He will be flogged. And He will be crucified. 

How do the disciples respond? Well, the very next verses record the disciples arguing with one another over who will get to sit at Jesus’ right and left hands in His kingdom. That had to be somewhat disappointing. In response, Jesus turned traditional honor-shame dynamics upside down and told them that if they want to be great, they must be like a servant or slave. And He finished by saying, that they must do this “just like the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

And there is even a fourth time in Matthew that Jesus predicts His resurrection. This time it is immediately before the events themselves take place:

Then Jesus told them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of Me, for it is written: “‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’ But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” – Matt. 26:31-32

Jesus did not doubt that He would arise 3 days after His crucifixion. But that did not make facing what was about to happen easy. Continuing in Matt. 26:

Then Jesus went with His disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and He said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with Him, and He began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then He said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with Me.” Going a little farther, He fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” – Matt. 26:36-39

And He prayed two more times. In between these, He went to check on His disciples, and they were sleeping. As far as I can tell, Jesus had never before asked His disciples for emotional or spiritual help and support – and in this time of greatest trial, they utterly failed Him.

And we know that on the cross, Jesus cried out, “My, God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” Jesus certainly intellectually knew the answer to this, as it says in Isaiah 53:

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, and though the Lord makes His life an offering for sin, He will see His offspring and prolong His days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand. – Is. 53:10 

And indeed, the Lord did “crush” Him. Not just physically, but emotionally, and I believe literally spiritually – in that God separated Himself from Jesus, removed His presence from Him. And it was in this that Jesus felt utterly forsaken. This was necessary – for our sake. He had to bear the full weight of our sin in order to be a sacrifice for us, in order to take away our sin.

With all these truths about the resurrection and crucifixion in mind, I want to turn to the time when Jesus said, as per our title, “I am the resurrection and the life.” What a provocative statement!

This passage occurs in John 11. The context is Lazarus, a man from Bethany and the brother of Martha and Mary, the Mary who poured perfume on Jesus feet and wiped His feet with her hair. Lazarus fell ill and died, and Jesus did not make it to Bethany with His disciples until Lazarus had been dead and in the tomb for four days. This was not because Jesus was unable to be there sooner; indeed, Jesus could do anything – He could blink and be there, if He wanted to. But He delayed coming, He says, for His disciples’ sake. This was to build their faith.

Upon arrival, Jesus had this conversation with Martha:   

“Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give You whatever You ask.” – John 11:21-22 

It is easy to gloss over this verse – but I think this verse shows that Martha has tremendous faith! It would have been easy to doubt in Jesus, to question whether He was who He said He was, after the seeming failure to save Lazarus. 

And this is an important lesson for us – it is easy for us to become discouraged in God when things to do go the way we had hoped or prayed. It is easy to question either God’s goodness or His power, or both. But God is always good, and He is also all-powerful. It is OK to be disappointed, and even to grieve. But it is not OK to be disappointed in Him. We need to trust in His goodness and power, that He is doing what is not only best for us, but best for everyone. And in this incident, we will see the reasons behind everything in a few verses. But in our lives, we may have situations in which we don’t see the reason for what God is doing (or not doing) until we can ask Him in heaven. But we can be sure that His answers will amaze and awe us, and we will again confirm that God is all-good, all-powerful, and the very definition of love.  

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” – John 11:23-24

Martha is misunderstanding Jesus’ answer, but this is understandable. What is about to happen goes beyond all reasonable expectations. And again, she should be commended for her faith – in believing in the resurrection at the last day. The entire organization of Sadducees did not believe this, for example. 

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” – John 11:25-26

And so we come to Jesus’ powerful if somewhat cryptic statement. What does it mean? Well, I think we gain insight by going back to John chapter 1. 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. – John 1:1-4

Jesus is the Word, and the Word is the author of life and the sustainer of life. “In Him was life.” Outside of Him there is no life. I am further reminded of this passage from Col. 1:

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. – Col. 1:15-17

It’s not like Jesus will just replace a battery in us like we are some kind of toy, and turn us back on, and then leave us alone. Jesus is the battery. And much more than that – He literally holds us together. He does it now, on a temporary basis, temporary because we die, temporary because we are sinners, and the curse of sin is in this world and has been in this world since the sin of Adam and Eve. But Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Because He has paid for our sin with His life, and because we have put our faith in Him, we will receive the gift of forgiveness, and He will raise us in Him and hold us together in Him and give us life in Him, forever. Jesus is our resurrection and our eternal life!

And to demonstrate this truth, what Jesus did next was His last public miracle. And boy was it public! Bethany is only two miles outside of Jerusalem, and the news of what Jesus did next spread not only throughout Bethany, but throughout Jerusalem, and beyond. 

Now Jesus left Martha with a question: Do you believe this? And here is her response:

“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that You are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” – John 11:27

After a very emotional meeting with Mary, Martha’s sister, we come to the climax of this wonderfully true story:

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” He said. “But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that You sent Me.” When He had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. – John 11:38-44

Lazarus was dead one day longer than Jesus. But that means nothing. It is no harder for Jesus to resurrect someone who has been dead for 2000 years than it is to resurrect someone who has been dead for an hour. Notice that Jesus did nothing “to” Lazarus. No medicine, no touching, nothing. The Word spoke, and Lazarus returned to life. 

And Lazarus’ resurrection created such a huge stir in Jerusalem that it set into play the plot to kill Jesus once and for all. And likely no more than a month later, it was Jesus in a tomb, not Lazarus. The Messiah, the Word, was, shockingly, dead.

Because this is Easter, let’s read about the greatest resurrection of all, the resurrection of Jesus. From John 19, picking up the account immediately after Jesus has died on the cross:

Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,” and, as another scripture says, “They will look on the one they have pierced.” – John 19:31-37

Breaking the legs of a crucified person who has not yet died causes them to die quickly, because they cannot raise themselves up to get breaths of air. Jesus had already died, so there was no reason to do this, and piercing Jesus’ side was done to be sure Jesus was already dead. 

Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there. – John 19:38-42

The “day of preparation” refers to being the day before the Sabbath, Friday. It was a “special” day of preparation because it also took place during the Passover week. No work was to be done once the day was over, so everything had to be done quickly. Now it is Jesus being wrapped in strips of linen instead of Lazarus. Matthew tells us that Joseph of Arimathea was rich. He had to be rich to be able to afford a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. The tomb was in the same general location as where the crucifixion occurred. 

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put Him!” – John 20:1-2

John is the other disciple. Matt. 28 gives additional details including the fact that an angel had rolled away the stone. Despite experiencing the resurrection of Lazarus, Mary does not consider the possibility that Jesus has risen from the dead. This is understandable, because even the miracle that someone raises someone else from the dead is unbelievably rare, but the idea that someone dead could raise Himself from the dead, or that God the Father could do it without working through a person, was unprecedented and therefore unthinkable, just as, after 3 days, it was still unbelievable that Jesus was actually dead. 

So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) Then the disciples went back to where they were staying. – John 20:3-10

I love the level of detail in this passage. John wants every recorded precisely because he is describing himself and the incredible things he felt when he saw the stone rolled away and the strips of linen but no Jesus. Jesus had told him this would happen – that He would rise after the third day, and here it was coming true before their very eyes. And then we come to the most exciting part:

Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” “They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put Him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking He was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him.” – John 20:11-15

There is much gentle humor in this scene. The angels are in on the good news – they know Jesus is risen. Jesus of course knows this too. But Mary is so sad that she is not observing carefully or thinking clearly. Normally angels instill fear when seen, but not in Mary’s case. And you would think that she would recognize Jesus, but Jesus apparently has this trick that He can appear to people and they don’t recognize Him. It will happen again later, with two of the male disciples on a road to Emmaus. 

Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned toward Him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”). Jesus said, “Do not hold on to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to My brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that He had said these things to her. – John 20:16-18

And this is what we celebrate today. Jesus is risen!

I want to leave the story at this point, and briefly talk about some evidence from archaeology that we have that the accounts of Jesus’ resurrection are true. A source I have used for this is an article entitled Jesus’ Resurrection: An Archaeological Analysis” by Matt Dawson in the Answers Research Journal, the May 2021 issue. 

Let’s start by talking about the probable location where all this took place. This is now the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, located west-northwest of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. 

What evidence is there that this is indeed the location? Let’s start from the historian Eusebius, who wrote in the early 300s AD. He explains that Constantine built a structure at the location of the Resurrection. But how did Constantine know where to put it? It was because the spot was marked by those who hated early Christianity. It is indeed a wonderful irony that we have these haters to thank for helping us stay connected to multiple key archaeological sites that date back to the time of the New Testament! Jerome, a historian from the late 300s to early 400s, explains that Hadrian had put a statue of Jupiter on the precise spot where the tomb was and the resurrection occurred, and a statue of Venus on the nearby spot where the crucifixion occurred. Hadrian died in 138 AD, only about 100 years after the death of Christ. So we are not talking about a large gap in time at all here. And Eusebius and Jerome record that when Constantine cleared the site of Hadrian’s pagan shrine, the tomb was still amazingly intact underneath the mound. And so in 330 AD, Constantine and his mother Empress Helena had built on the site a mausoleum called the Anastasis, the Greek word for resurrection, and what he called the Martyrium church (martyrium is the Greek word from which we get the word martyr), with an outdoor courtyard between the two structures. Archaeology has since uncovered some of the remains of this Constantinian complex, validating the writings of Eusebius and Jerome. 

Now within the church there today is a small structure called the Edicule, built around the remains of the burial tomb of Jesus. This structure underwent a restoration project in 2015-2017, and during this time archaeologists uncovered multiple layers including two marble plates, filling material, mortar, and bedrock. The mortar was sampled and dated to the time of Constantine. 

Other archaeological work on the site has shown that it rests on a quarry of high-quality limestone dating to 800 BC, a perfect site for later making tombs out of rock. After the highest quality stone was taken, it became a garbage dump for several centuries, and as is often the case, it then became a location for burial sites. Archaeology has also confirmed that the location in general was turned into a garden or orchard in the first century BC, based on soil analysis and dating. 

We know that the tomb that existed at the center of Constatine’s site was destroyed by a Muslim commander Calif-al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah in 1009, but remnants of the tomb remain at the Edicule. The structure has been determined to be that of an antechamber and an arcosolium, a shallow place with an arched ceiling, in contrast to a quadrosolia, which has rectangular cuts with a straight top, or kokhim, which have small openings that go deep into the rock. 

A single arcosolium in a tomb is a sign of it being the tomb of a very rich person, because having the arch is “wasteful” when you could cut multiple quadrosolia or kokhim. Note that only an arcosolium would have allowed for enough room for two angels to sit where Jesus’ head and feet had been. Additional kokhim have been found at the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (away from the Edicule), confirming that the site was indeed an established burial location used around the time of Christ. 

When one enters the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, a staircase on the immediate right goes up to a location claimed to be the location of the crucifixion. But this is a relatively recent tradition. The church has three major apses. When archaeologists transpose the current site of the church with the remnants of the Martyrium Church built by Constantine, the apse of the Martyrium and the smaller apse of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher line up perfectly. Because apses were where the exact locations where commemoration of events took place, it follows that this should be the location of Golgotha, where Christ was crucified.  

Now this church is within the present-day walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, but these walls are not the same as the walls at Jesus’ time. Archaeologists have determined that this location is indeed outside the walls of Jerusalem at that time. The “third wall” only had foundations laid in AD 41-44, and even then it was not completed because Caesar worried that it would encourage the Jews in Jerusalem to revolt. And the Jews did revolt in AD 67-70 and later in the early 100s, and Hadrian built the larger city wall only upon rebuilding the city after that later revolt. 

Matt. 27:39 and Mark 15:29 imply that Jesus was crucified near a road, in a visible location. John 19:20 says that Jesus was buried “near” the city. Heb. 13:12 says that Jesus was crucified outside a city gate. Ancient writers such as Quintilian (ca. AD 35-90) agree that crucifixions are made in very public places to serve as examples to the people. The location fits all these descriptions, and recent discoveries of what is likely the “Gennath” gate would place the Church of the Holy Sepulcher just outside this gate. ‘Gennath’ means “garden”, by the way. 

Another archaeological detail we should discuss is the stone “rolled” to close the tomb described in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (John does not give specific wording as to how it was removed.) Archaeology has found that round stones were rare and only used in the tombs of the very rich. The tomb is also described as cut out of the rock, and rock-cut tombs were also only for the rich. (Caves were used for the poor.)

Some have suggested that Jews were never crucified, but additional evidence of the crucifixion of Jews is found in a Jewish ossuary (burial container) inscribed as Jehohanan. This is one of several ossuaries found together, and one gives additional historical information that dates the dates of death to sometime between AD 7 and AD 70. 

What is interesting is the skeleton of Jehohanan, which clearly has been crucified. In fact, there is a nail remaining in the right heel bone, probably remaining there because it was too difficult to remove. Beneath the head of the nail there remained a 2cm piece of olive wood that was used to keep the heel pinned to the cross, preventing the nail from pulling through the foot. 

What is interesting is that here we have an example of a Jewish person crucified and then the body taken by Jews and buried, in contrast to the standard practice of leaving crucified bodies on the cross post-mortem for days to be eaten by birds and other animals and then taken down and thrown into large pits unburied. So we have here an example of a Jewish person not only being crucified, but also being buried after the crucifixion, just like the situation with Jesus. For even more evidence, there is also an ancient Roman document called the Digesta which states that, as long as the person was not convicted of treason, the bodies of those crucified were to be released for burial to any who asked. And Jesus, as the gospels clearly explain, was not found guilty of treason. In fact, Pilate and Herod found no fault in Him. And the process of asking permission is exactly what Joseph of Arimathea did. 

There is a lot more indirect evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. The last one we will talk about today is something called the Nazareth Inscription, which has been dated to the 40s AD, only a decade or so after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Basically, the inscription is a legal edict from Caesar that people are not allowed to move bodies from tombs with intent of “malicious deception”, and if they do, they will receive the death penalty. This is very strange, as it does not warn against robbing dead bodies, only moving the body itself. There is no rational reason to just move a dead body. It has no value. 

What is going on here is that the spread of Christianity had come to Caesar’s attention, hearing the claim that Jesus’ followers had stolen the body – the exact false claim it says that Jews said in Matthew. Not wanting such a ruckus to spread to other cities if someone stole another body, it makes sense that Caesar would issue such a law. And so, just like with Hadrian, we again see God using the enemies of the Kingdom of God to – despite their best intentions to do the opposite – provide evidence and support for the claims that Christ indeed rose from the dead. Hallelujah!

At this time, I would like us to take Communion as a church together. As it is Easter, we will do this a little more formally than we normally do. Go ahead and come up now and take the bread and the cup and bring it to your seat. 

Let’s turn to the Last Supper, and look at the account in Luke 20:

When the hour came, Jesus and his apostles reclined at the table. And He said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.” After taking the cup, He gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way, after the supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you. – Luke 20:14-20

Here, too, Jesus was clearly predicting His resurrection. Indeed, the resurrection is completely woven into the fabric of communion. We take the bread and the cup to remember until He comes. And so, we come together to praise Jesus for not shirking back, but going forward to the cross. We take the bread to remember that His body was given for us.

And we take the cup to remember that His blood was shed for us.

And we thank Him for the new covenant in His blood, which has been poured out for us. By faith, and not by any works of our own, we join the kingdom of God, and seek to live for Him, taking part in building His kingdom until He comes.