Full Sermon Transcript
WELCOME
Pastor Chris Paavola:
We’ve been wrapping up this season of Lent by going through this series called Empty, where we’re looking at the empty objects and the story of Jesus leading up to his resurrection. And we’ve been, we’ve looked at an empty perfume jar. We’ve looked at an empty fig tree, and tonight we continue to look at some different empty objects that we find on this Monday, Thursday. And also in this series, we’re just really trying our best to let the story breathe and just sit in the story because it’s the story that changed people’s lives. So it would stand to reason that if we just speak the story and let the story speak for itself, it’ll impact you in significant ways as well. Our story for Monday, Thursday, this festival celebrated at Jewish tables all throughout Israel. Well, it really begins with the Passover that you just heard about from Pastor Jack, that reading from Exodus and this meal that was done in haste, don’t even cut the lamb open.
HISTORY OF PASSOVER
Just start roasting it and tuck your belts and don’t even put lemon in the bread, just eat it quick hurry. But as the centuries went by, they started hastening less and less and the meal got longer and longer, and little traditions kind of crept in and none of them are bad per se. They all kind of had different meanings, but little traditions kind of crept into the Passover meal following this feast of unleavened bread. And by the time Jesus steps on the scene and celebrates the Passover, there’s, it’s quite an ordeal. It’s quite an ordeal. It is all the way from selecting a lamb to how you eat and then what you do during the meal. It started to get all of these added traditions, much like our holidays today.
But Jesus and his disciples are in Jerusalem all week long interacting with the religious leaders and performing miracles in the temple, having open heated public debates. And every day it seems that the tension and the temperature in Jerusalem keeps on climbing. He nearly incites a riot when he rides into town on Sunday. He nearly incites a riot again when he goes into the temple and flips over the money changer tables, right? He has open debates and arguments with key religious leaders, and every time they plot further and further of how going to arrest him, there’s talk that he is the new king of Israel. This upsets King Herod and this upsets King Caesar. And there’s just this feeling in the air that something the levy could break at any moment. It’s just, it’s a tinderbox. And so to celebrate the Passover, it would be a very good time to arrest Jesus if they knew where Jesus was. And so it kind of presented a problem. Where do we celebrate the Passover? And by this time, people knew that Jesus and his disciples were staying at the house of Simon, the leper, but that was a little bit out of their jurisdiction.
PREPARING FOR PASSOVER
And Jesus was adamant they were going to celebrate the Passover in Jerusalem. It’s fitting as the Lamb of God that all these lamb sacrificed for thousands of years. Foreshadowed Jesus is the Lamb of God. He needs to be in Jerusalem. But the problem is, if his location is known, they could be arrested. And if you read between the lines, when you read Matthew, mark, Luke, and John at this Passover account, there’s this secrecy with where they’re going to celebrate the Passover. And I can’t prove it, and there’s scholars who can’t prove it, but it seems to be there’s this clandestine operation, this espionage level kind of stuff going on. Because remember, Jesus knew Judas had already betrayed him for 30 pieces of silver. Jesus knew there was a mole, a leak in their midst. And so if the location got out, they would be arrested before he could institute the Lord’s supper.
MARK 14
This is a problem. And so he had to keep this veil of secrecy of where are we going to celebrate this meal, even from the disciples? And it seems like now it could be just his grand foreknowledge and he puts people under a trance and they just agree all of a sudden to give their house. But it seems like Jesus arranges this meeting ahead of time. He talks to people ahead, the owner of this house, and he arranges with the owner of this house because look at the mission impossible level secrecy going on in this account. It starts in, I think the best captures it is either it’s Mark 14, Jesus tells his disciples, they’re like Master, where are we going to celebrate this meal? Where are we going to celebrate the Passover? And he says, go into the city and a man carrying a jar of water. Now, is this Jesus with divine foreknowledge maybe, or is this man the signal for the disciples? And so when this man carrying a jar of water sees his disciples, he turns and walks to the secret location and you will meet him, follow him, and then say to the owner of the house, he enters the password.
It’s like a passcode. Open the house. We’ve selected your house to be the place for the Passover. Did he have multiple locations? We don’t know, but this is the location he chose. So here’s the password. The teacher asks, where’s my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? When he hears that, it’s like open sesame and he will show you a large room upstairs furnished and ready, make preparations for us. There isn’t that fascinating? It’s like in the story, and you could see it when it’s pointed out, but it’s not overtly obvious. So the disciples do is Jesus instructs them and the man opens their house and they make preparations. And then the rest of the disciples go into the city to celebrate the Passover. And as they sit down, it’s not like the Lord’s supper that you see, Michelangelo like the painting. Everyone’s sitting on one side of the table conveniently for the camera.
It’s like any other table. Now, there’s some debate about whether they were just lounging on pillows around the table that’s a little lower to the floor where they actually sitting at chairs. I don’t know. But for our sake tonight, let’s just say there were chairs, but they’re all seated around this table. And like I said, the tradition kind of grows. This Passover meal has now at this point, like what you heard, bitter herbs and lemon bread and a lamb. But also over time it’s grown. And now there’s four wine cups of blessing. So they drink four cups of wine.
We have a cup of wine pretty regularly at our house before bed, but four cups, man. Oh man, I’d be filling ’em just a couple fingers full. That’s a lot of wine. And so they fill up the cups and with every cup there’s a blessing or a prayer. And then after they do that, they would read a section of the psalms, the halal psalms, and then they would have different portions of the meal, the lamb, the bread, the herbs. It’s a Seder meal. One of the other traditions then at the meal is you would leave an empty chair. You would leave an empty chair at the table because there was this reading from Malachi four that said that Elijah would return to announce the Messiah. Jesus would later teach that. This was John the Baptist who came in the spirit of Elijah, this prophet breaking the hearts of people.
But one of the traditions that Jewish tables all throughout Israel is to leave an open chair for Elijah. You can see parents having fun with their kids, and you leave an open chair and maybe Elijah’s going to come and don’t sit in Elijah’s chair. And just like our Christmas holiday gets all of these trappings, and now we have a tree in our living room. Like what? But originally it wasn’t there, but just traditions grow. And so there’s this empty chair for Elijah at the Passover table just in case Elijah comes and shows up to celebrate the Passover. It’s kind of neat.
JUDAS
And so there’s 13 chairs, at least for Jesus and his 12 disciples and one empty chair assumedly for Elijah. And they’re having the meal. And obviously it’s a very long table for 13 people. And it’s not like only Jesus speaks and everyone listens. They’ve been together for three years. They’re doing life together. These guys are all having side conversations, these two guys talking, these three people talking, and maybe there’s more people there. Maybe some of the women are with them. These four people are talking, these two. So it’s just a room full of people drinking wine and having conversation. I assume there’s laughter.
And while this is all going on, it seems like Jesus is having kind of a side conversation with a man who’s both figuratively and literally close to Jesus. At that moment, a man named John and Peter as well are sitting close to Jesus as he talks. And he mentions that one of the people at this table that’s going to betray me, he quotes the psalm about David being betrayed. And he says, one of these people here dining with me is going to betray me. And John tells us what happens next? Peter tells John, Hey, ask him who it is. So John kind of leans close to him and goes, who is it Lord who’s betraying you?
JOHN 13
And Jesus says, it’s the one to whom I will give this piece of bread when I’ve dipped it into the dish. So Jesus takes the unleavened bread from the meal, dips it in the dish, and he hands it to Judas, who it seems like was not privy to the conversation with Peter and John because next we read, Jesus told him What you are about to do, do quickly. And there’s a tone in his voice that doesn’t match the rest of this room, like the festival celebration. There’s just this somberness what you’re about to do, do quickly.
I don’t know what that moment was like when Judas hears that from Jesus and that look in his eyes, that knowing, look, I imagine just the blood rushed from his face. His eyes got wide, and John says, no one at the meal understood why Jesus said to this to him, since Judas was in charge of the money, we’ve talked about that some thought Jesus was telling to buy what was needed for the rest of the festival were to give something to the poor. They didn’t know what was going on. And so Judas takes the bread and he went up into the darkness.
So now there wasn’t just an empty chair for Elijah. There was an empty chair where Judas once sat. And if you piece together the timeline of events from this reading, it seems like Judas received the Lord’s supper from Jesus himself before he left because Jesus loved him. And we can look at Judas and shake our heads, and we should. What Judas did was appalling, atrocious, awful. But the closer you look at Judas, the more you start to see your own characteristics. I mean, who here hasn’t used others for their own gain? Who here hasn’t pretended to be someone they aren’t?
SHARE THE CHAIR
Who among you hasn’t told a lie? And the lie grew and grew and grew until it became impossible to imagine and to manage. The older I get, the more I realize that given the right circumstances, I am capable of the most horrific sins. It gives me a compassion for people. And so I think an improper reading of this story is to hear this story and just feel really bad. For Judas. I think a proper reading and a proper listening to this story means that we should all pause and reflect on how we are more like Judas than unlike Judas. We’ve tried to use Jesus for our own gain. We’ve tried to make him into Jesus, into something he’s not. How we’ve pretended to be one person in one place and another person in another place, how we’ve told a lie that’s grown, how we’ve been a hypocrite with our actions, not matching our faith, how we’ve used people for our own advantage. And so as you look at the empty chair tonight and you consider the story of the empty chair, every week in this series, we’re asking the same question.
QUESTION
And so we ask it again tonight, how do you respond to the story of the empty chair as you hear this story tonight? How does it intersect with your story? How do you relate to and respond to the story of the empty chair? And I’m not going to ask you to turn to your neighbor and because confess your deepest, darkest secrets, because I don’t think that’s healthy. But I do want to give you a few moments for you to consider this question. For one other powerful picture from this story.
HOW DO YOU RELATE TO THE STORY OF THE EMPTY CHAIR
Is, here’s Jesus, the Lamb of God. The lamb will be sacrificed to take away the sins of the world at his celebrating the Passover. All of these lambs for thousands of years pointing forward to this moment to him, and that in this meal, Jesus offers us his body and blood knowing we’re going to fail him. That’s what he gave it to Judas, right? And not just Judas, he also gave this meal to every one of the disciples who in a couple hours will desert him, deny him. And these disciples, he gives them this meal in spite of their failures. Not the failures they’ve done, but even the failures he knows they will do. And so tonight, we stand in a long line of doubting, denying deserting, deceitful disciples, and receive the body and blood from Jesus. It’s in mercy. He takes on your death and it’s in grace. He gives you his life.
