In this video, Clint Loveall and Michael Gewecke discuss Luke 22:13-23, focusing on the significance of the Last Supper and the themes of remembrance and betrayal. They explore the layers of meaning behind Jesus’ words and the implications for the early disciples and the broader Christian community. The conversation delves into the spiritual and theological significance of the New Covenant, the connection between suffering and discipleship, and the timeless nature of this sacred moment. Join them as they unpack the profound teachings embedded in this passage and reflect on its relevance to our lives today.
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Transcript
00:00:00:27 – 00:00:26:13
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us. And if you were with us, pretty study. Thanks for tolerating us. We are continuing our way through the gospel today. Luke 20 to what we call the Lord’s Supper. We had a significant discussion yesterday about the fact that that is the Passover dinner. If if you’ve weren’t able to be with us yesterday, and if you haven’t seen that, I do think it’s worth setting the context.
00:00:26:13 – 00:00:58:45
Clint Loveall
I think there’s it’s important to remember that that is a religious event that Jesus and the disciples are doing today. We get the overview, the story of that last supper, probably familiar if you if you’ve been in church, if you’ve been through Communion services, you’ve heard these words. Luke Luke’s is probably not that the typical formula that is used in those occasions, but it, you know where it’s going.
00:00:58:46 – 00:01:17:35
Clint Loveall
So let me read it for you then we’ll come back and talk through it. When the hour came, he took his place at the table and the apostles with him. He said to them, I’ve eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.
00:01:17:40 – 00:01:36:43
Clint Loveall
Then he took a cup and after giving thanks, he said, Take this and divided among yourselves. For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God comes. Then he took a loaf of bread. When he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is my body which is given for you.
00:01:36:48 – 00:01:57:21
Clint Loveall
Do this in remembrance of me. And he did the same with the cup after supper saying this cup, the cup that is poured out for you is a new covenant in my blood. But see, the one who betrays me is with me and his hand is on the table for the son. A man is going to, as it has been determined.
00:01:57:21 – 00:02:26:11
Clint Loveall
But woe to the one by whom he’s betrayed. Then they began to ask one another Which one of them? It could be. Who would do this? So I think Michael and again, maybe this passage suffers from being overly familiar. I don’t know what we can add that people would not know about this, this idea. Jesus says at the Last Supper, this is a spiritual moment.
00:02:26:11 – 00:02:59:10
Clint Loveall
This is a culmination for me. I’m not going to be at banquet table with you again until the kingdom. This kind of apocalyptic language of the next time this happens with Jesus, you have the blessing of bread, the breaking it. I think for me, what’s most significant about this is the seed that it plants. If you could have talked to the disciples immediately following this, they might have said, Well, well, that was interesting.
00:02:59:15 – 00:03:26:56
Clint Loveall
It would that was a little different. We took a little spin on the Passover supper, not the normal thing that we’ve done. I think probably if you ask them about what they heard, the thing they would most remember is where the passage ends, that Jesus has predicted the betrayal. We’ll talk more about that in a moment. But but what I appreciate about this, looking back on it historically, is that this is one of those passages that for Christians unfolds on them.
00:03:26:56 – 00:04:15:05
Clint Loveall
The disciples have experienced something that they won’t yet understand for it. They’ll arguably week probably more likely months and years, they will live into these words in a way that we don’t have written in the text. And I think what is profound about that is this idea that sometimes these experiences with Jesus bear fruit that you don’t expect when you first hear them, there’s no way the disciples know at that moment that this is going to establish what we will come to call a sacred moment, a sacrament, and a practice that would be repeated in the church in perpetuity.
00:04:15:05 – 00:04:17:45
Clint Loveall
As long as there are Christians gathering in Jesus name.
00:04:17:49 – 00:04:54:28
Michael Gewecke
Well, yeah, let’s look at that and put that in context here. Looking right at the beginning of this text verse 15 before I suffer. And I just remind you, just days ago, Jesus was welcomed to Jerusalem by crowds. He was absolutely pressed upon by people singing and shouting and dancing. And it was a triumphal entry into the city of David to Jerusalem and what’s striking is when you consider what the disciples must have thought when they heard this before, I suffer.
00:04:54:41 – 00:05:18:32
Michael Gewecke
It would be unimaginable to them at that moment what Jesus could be talking about. What is this suffering that you’re describing? You’re at the height of your career. This is the apex of your influence. There’s never been a moment in your entire life, Jesus, where you have more people listening and people in power more captivating, gripped by your message, even if they are turned off by it.
00:05:18:32 – 00:05:44:07
Michael Gewecke
And and yet we know and I think you wisely point us towards when the Christian reads this text later, certainly as the disciples saw it later, we can see Jesus speaking about this thing that will happen to him. We know of the great suffering that is to come in the story. But I don’t think that we should miss that.
00:05:44:07 – 00:06:08:07
Michael Gewecke
This supper which is being given is the very supper that Luke is going to continue going on in the Book of Acts. Part two of Luke. He’s going to continue the story of how this supper broadens and broadens and broadens the Church’s understanding of what it means to be a disciple. And in addition to that, how suffering becomes a part of their experience.
00:06:08:07 – 00:06:31:21
Michael Gewecke
So I think that there’s many layers here. There’s the looking back and seeing the Passover connection. There’s the looking back and seeing Jesus teaching his disciples who don’t understand. There’s the looking forward to the suffering that Jesus is going to have. The disciples will one day understand, and then there’s the suffering that the Christians themselves will experience as those who are bearers of the message of this table.
00:06:31:35 – 00:06:45:51
Michael Gewecke
All of that is happening in this at one time. Luke doesn’t need paragraphs upon paragraphs to tease that out. It’s all been embedded in this, and if we have the eyes to see it, there’s layer upon layer ahead of us.
00:06:45:55 – 00:07:38:38
Clint Loveall
And I think one of the great examples of this is just the simple phrase here the cup poured out for you is the New Covenant. And again, none of the disciples, this is not a moment of clarity for them. None of the disciples would understand. And that when Jesus says the word New covenant, we end up with this idea of a covenant of law and now replaced by or completed by might be a better way to say a covenant of grace, that the idea that their scriptures become the old covenant, the word covenant means testament, that their scriptures, the scriptures they know and grew up with, become the first telling of the first covenant, and
00:07:38:38 – 00:08:11:24
Clint Loveall
that this very event that they’re living through becomes recorded as a symbol and a significant sign of what the second covenant means. And so I think the beauty of a text like this is that it is so big, it is such an amazing, incredible spiritual moment that the church will continue and in fact does continue to unpack it and try to plumb the depths of of what it means for us and what Jesus has in mind.
00:08:11:24 – 00:08:37:22
Clint Loveall
And so I think, you know, yesterday we made a significant case that you have to understand the Passover in a particular context and in a particular moment today, we see in the Last Supper almost the opposite of that. We see this moment that is timeless. And just as we don’t fully understand it, certainly those first disciples didn’t either.
00:08:37:22 – 00:08:43:25
Clint Loveall
And I think, you know, it’s worth slowing down there for a minute to kind of let that sink in.
00:08:43:30 – 00:09:19:40
Michael Gewecke
It is really, really important in a text like this that continues to guide the practicing life of millions of Christians around the world today, billions of people throughout time. It’s important that we look closely at some of these words. I’m looking specifically verse 19 here, Do this in remembrance of me. And what Jesus means by remembrance here has been the topic of theological conversation, reflection argument for as long as these words have existed in the world.
00:09:19:40 – 00:09:43:03
Michael Gewecke
I think And one thing worth saying is I think in our common understanding in the world that we live, Clint Remembrance, I think, is at least as I hear it in common use is a very sort of simple thing. Either you remember or you forget, right? Either you can recall in your mind a situation that happened or you can’t recall it.
00:09:43:03 – 00:10:14:31
Michael Gewecke
And that’s either a good thing or a bad thing, depending upon your circumstance. But here, the idea of remembrance is not just don’t forget this. It is recognize that when you participate in this, you’re reenacting your you’re participating in it. There’s a remember means to remember to reconnect again. And I think there’s a much more substantial sense intended here that when we come to this table, this body is done in remembrance.
00:10:14:31 – 00:10:36:32
Michael Gewecke
We’re connected to Jesus passion. We’re connected to this meal. We’re connected to the sustenance that he’s promising his disciples. There’s there’s a timelessness, not just as in it’s a good thing to think about for a long period of time. There’s a there’s a timelessness in the faith aspect of that. This gift is a continuing gift given by Jesus Christ to the church.
00:10:36:39 – 00:10:56:54
Michael Gewecke
We are still doing the remembering, we’re still living out the fruit and promise of that remembering. I think it’s easy to read by some of these words and say, don’t forget the supper. Don’t forget that Jesus told us to do it. No, it’s more than that. It’s live your life in such a way that this kind of self-giving can be seen in your life.
00:10:56:54 – 00:11:17:24
Michael Gewecke
So this becomes a model for the way in which you live your own life. That is the way that the table sits at the center of our Christian understanding of what it means to gather and worship, to turn to Christ for sustenance. This, the Church has made much of these few words, and I don’t think it’s just making things out of out of thin air.
00:11:17:24 – 00:11:23:18
Michael Gewecke
I think that there’s real substance here that if we slow down, will be moved by it biblically.
00:11:23:18 – 00:11:52:44
Clint Loveall
Remember, is is always more than called to mind. Think of the Ten Commandments. Remember the Sabbath. Think of the moments in the Old Testament or Jesus or excuse me, where the prophets say, Remember the Lord your God. It it doesn’t mean. Yeah, simply call to mind. It has to do with the lived remembrance of a kind of memory, a living memory that affects one’s life and one’s orientation in life.
00:11:52:44 – 00:12:19:36
Clint Loveall
And so we yeah, we’ve certainly tried to make that a deeper word as we’ve practiced it as a guide for what we now call Communion or Eucharist or the Lord’s Supper. Michael I just want to finish up here with this last bit because again, as those who know the story, it’s hard for us to connect with some of the confusion, some of the uncertainty that this text generates.
00:12:19:40 – 00:12:48:30
Clint Loveall
One who betrays me has his hand on the table for the son. A man will go as it’s determined, but woe to the one by whom he’s betrayed. And then there’s this fascinating line at the end. Then they begin to ask one another which one of them it could be. Or who would do this? That in other gospels we get some pushback on this idea, or we get a foreshadowing of Judas.
00:12:48:30 – 00:13:19:44
Clint Loveall
We get a conversation, a confrontation. But here Luke leaves it far more general. This rattles the disciples and they begin to talk to one another. Who do you think would do this? And it again. Imagine that you’re there and Jesus says, yeah, by the way, one of you is turning me in and now it’s we know the story and we’re familiar with it.
00:13:19:44 – 00:13:46:17
Clint Loveall
And so it’s hard for that to settle on us it with any kind of appreciation for how it must have hit them. But try to imagine the weight of that and the the awkwardness and the uncomfortableness and the confusion that those words that that proclamation must have created and I just think that it’s a that’s a place it’s easy to miss.
00:13:46:27 – 00:14:18:43
Michael Gewecke
I think you’re absolutely right. I, I think that this can be intensified even more. This may this may strike us as odd. But bear with me for a second. So the earliest disciples lived with, served with, worked with, walked with eight, with the man who would turn Jesus over. And arguably, we’ve said this before in this study a few days back, I don’t remember how long that may be at this point in Jesus’s life and ministry.
00:14:18:48 – 00:14:39:17
Michael Gewecke
Maybe the only way that these religious leaders could have gotten to Jesus was through one of these disciples that Jesus, they were so afraid of the crowds, they needed an inside person. So the fact that Jesus has come to this place he’s named one of you is going to turn me over. That is a a betrayal of the deepest sense.
00:14:39:18 – 00:15:07:42
Michael Gewecke
And by the way, historically, you’ve got literal names. The Judas goat is a goat that leads other goats to their death. I know the world has been very harsh on Judas’s ever since this particular story. That said, just a reminder, the earliest Christians who would have received Luke claimed it’s likely that many of them had heard stories of betrayal, of people of faith as well.
00:15:07:57 – 00:15:54:59
Michael Gewecke
People had been turned out. They became Christian and they were outed and that resulted in imprisonment that resulted in Mahler. Dom of the early church was a a place where betrayal and intrigue and danger was a part of a lot of the experience of those coming into the faith. And and so a story like Judas with hit the earliest generation of disciples, not just as what it is a story of shocking turn, a turn of a character, a turn of the story, not just a a fulcrum point in Jesus’s life, but they would also see it as a thing that happened to Jesus that was a present threat in their own living out of the
00:15:54:59 – 00:16:25:12
Michael Gewecke
faith as well. And I think we maybe in America, those who have been blessed to have some protections around our faith, we may be morally offended by this, but I think that there is a a flesh and blood kind of human offense at this action that Judas has done a thing which cannot be justified. It cannot be understood, though some have tried to give some explanations.
00:16:25:17 – 00:16:47:17
Michael Gewecke
And I think that experience of this is wrong. This this is this is deeply against the grain of what should be has been experienced numerous times by Christians as well. And I think that that is one of the amazing kind of ways that Luke can can write a story and tell that story to the first generation of disciples.
00:16:47:22 – 00:17:08:00
Michael Gewecke
It’s our scripture in which we can see a line like this who would do this? Which of them could it be that would do this? And and that question, you know, I think still lingers in the air. Who who could do this? Well, the answer is, if we’re honest, we can all find some of Judas in our heart.
00:17:08:00 – 00:17:27:09
Michael Gewecke
We could say, ooh, you know, I don’t want to think that those circumstances would come, but but I bet there would be circumstances where I would turn Jesus over as well. And that becomes an opportunity maybe for us to to find a deeper lesson in this story than what we might find otherwise.
00:17:27:14 – 00:17:52:55
Clint Loveall
Yeah. If you follow the Christian calendar, you know, we were a day away from Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, which is the season that leads toward Easter and Lent always asks hard questions of us, and it asks us to confess that in some way we are all betrayers. We all choose a different path, a different reward at times.
00:17:53:05 – 00:18:26:20
Clint Loveall
And we as we make those choices, we then have to face our reality of our brokenness. And so certainly we learn much from the experience that Jesus has in being betrayed. But if all we get out of that is that, you know, Judas did a bad thing or was a bad guy, we have not heard the the sum total of what the scripture asks us to get from the story.
00:18:26:22 – 00:18:52:03
Michael Gewecke
And I want to make to make your point, I’m going to just say, please join us tomorrow, because if you think that Clint is stretching that, which I don’t think he is on any level. Join us tomorrow to see how at the same time, they’re wondering who’s going to be the one to do this betraying work. They also immediately move to debates about the greatness and the pecking order of their place with Jesus.
00:18:52:03 – 00:19:16:44
Michael Gewecke
And so that makes the case, as we’ll see tomorrow. I think that there’s a lot happening in that upper room, Clint. There’s a lot of humanity doing human things there. And if you know humanity, you know that it’s broken. You know that there’s sin where there are humans. Sin is also showing up and and this is, I think, a fascinatingly honest telling of all of those forces on Jesus’s last night.
00:19:16:44 – 00:19:23:16
Michael Gewecke
And this is a series of conversations you’re not going to want to miss, because I think they tie together in a really amazing way.
00:19:23:18 – 00:19:32:44
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think we’re coming up on some very interesting material that shows us that, you know, that there’s more than one way to get off the path, that there are lots of ways to miss the point.
00:19:32:49 – 00:19:47:51
Michael Gewecke
We certainly hope that you’ll stick with us as we continue these conversations. Give this video a like if you found it as a unit helpful, I certainly would love for you to subscribe so you can stick with us as we go through the latter part of the study. And we, of course, look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
00:19:47:52 – 00:19:48:39
Clint Loveall
Thanks to everybody.