Dave Baxter | The Lord of the Supper

Sunday Evening, July 19, 2026

Given by Dave Baxter | Pastor of Disability Ministry, Christ Covenant Church

The Lord of the Supper
Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Day 29

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Transcript

Let's pray again. 

Lord, as we come now to these next few minutes to your Word, we want to come to you, so we pray that you would meet us here now and show us yourself in this sermon. We pray that you would meet us as well in a few moments as we come to your supper. We don't want to receive anything tonight that isn't from you and through you and to you. And so, we ask now for your help in Jesus’ name. Amen. 

Well, I had a good friend in middle school. We will call him Joe for tonight's purposes. I assure you Joe was not his actual name if you try to look him up. Joe once had a book report that he had to give, and when the appointed day for the book report arrived, the one thing it seems Joe had forgotten to do was to actually read that book. Fortunately, Joe was a very clever young man, and so when he was asked to share about his book, he just picked up his copy of the book, walked to the front of the classroom, and proceeded to give a very moving rendition of the summary that was on the back cover. The teacher, perhaps onto the fact that just maybe Joe didn't actually read the book, proceeded to ask Joe a very piercing question. It was clearly not her first rodeo. She said, "Thank you, Joe. I appreciate your report. Perhaps would you mind just telling us a little bit more about the setting of your book?" Joe, seeming to be a little taken off guard by this question, thought for a second and then said, "You know, that was the most interesting thing about this book is it actually didn’t ever really give a setting,” to which the teacher said, "Joe, would you just turn to the first page and just begin reading to the class from the first paragraph there,” which unfortunately for Joe did contain a fair amount of detail regarding the setting of the book. Moral of the story is that the setting is really important both for giving book reports but also for understanding and answering and appreciating important theological questions – questions like we come to tonight in Lord's Day 29 of the Heidelberg Catechism. 

We're looking tonight at the second set of questions related to the Lord's Supper. Zach started us last week in what's sort of a three-week miniseries in the catechism related to the Lord's Supper. And so, as we come to it again, I want to start tonight by looking at the setting where Jesus first instituted that supper. I hope that will help us both to further understand what the Lord’s Supper is and what it isn't, but also to deepen in our appreciation of the Lord of the supper and what it is that he wants with it. So, go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Mark 14 if you would, because we'll want to start there before we look at our first question, question 78 tonight, which asks, "Do the bread and the wine become the real body and blood of Christ?" Setting will help us some. It's a touching setting, and it actually helps to inform how we answer that question. Then we'll look at question 79 and see how the Lord also means through the supper to provide us both a teaching tool and a tangible assurance. So that's really our outline for tonight. A touching setting, a technical question, a teaching tool, and a tangible assurance. But look with me now again at this touching setting we find in Mark 14. We'll begin in verse 16 reading through 25. 

“And the disciples set out and went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover. And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. 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.’ They begin to be sorrowful and say to him one after another, ‘Is it I?’ He said to them, ‘It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me. For the Son of Man goes as it was 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.’” 

And then to the institution of the supper, verse 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.’ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. 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.’” 

So, this scene here in Mark, which is repeated in the other Synoptic Gospels with just some slight variations, gives us again the institution of this supper. Jesus has come to Jerusalem with his disciples, knowing that the cross is waiting there for him. It's not waiting for him like it's going to catch him if he just happens to get too close to it. We know that Jesus has been moving purposefully, intentionally, willfully, undistractedly towards the cross. His betrayal is already underway. He says, "One of you, one of this inner circle will be the one to hand me over." Not long after this moment, he'll be out in the Garden of Gethsemane, so troubled and burdened by the events that are to come that Luke tells us in his account that as he poured out his prayers to the Father, his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground. And yet, when he rose from there, he found his disciples – these same disciples that he's feeding the supper to now – he found them asleep. They would leave him, deny him. In fact, Luke tells us right after this account of the institution that their next move was to squabble in front of Jesus over who was the greatest of them. It's almost unbelievable if it weren't that we are also so much like them at times. And yet, how much does this highlight for us tonight Christ? The love of Christ for his disciples – for these particular disciples here, but also for each one of us. Because with all that is before him, all that he knows of their ignorance and even their failures that are yet to come, you see, he is thinking of them. He's providing for them. He's shepherding them. He's caring for them. He's feeding them. And so, if you don't see anything else as we move on tonight, I do want you to see this. I want you to see the Lord. I want you to see the Lord as the host of this supper and how it reveals his heart for his disciples and that it's not different for us. It's not different for you, that when we come to this table, it's the Lord's table, and he is here setting it for you. He's here looking to serve you, looking to feed you with the same eagerness and the same earnestness as he did when he was physically present at that first supper. 

It's also important to remember the setting when we come to the question of what Jesus meant or what he didn't mean when he said this is my body. So, it's a touching context and then it's a technical question. Do the bread and wine become the real body and blood of Christ? That's question 78. It's the first question of Day 29 in the catechism, and it's hard not to read there an implicit reference to the Roman Catholic teaching on the meaning of these words. That's something that will become more explicit next week in Lord's Day 30. But as we come to that question, maybe understandably you might be thinking, well that's not my question tonight, which of course doesn't make it a bad question. It's actually quite an important question, one that's given rise to no small amount of debate within the church over the centuries. But it's actually notable, and it's not insignificant, to think for a moment in light of the context that we just read that, to be fair, it probably wasn't those disciples’ question either. For those who were with him, it would have simply defied natural logic and really all natural assumptions about how language works to think that when Jesus said those words, he meant to suggest to the disciples that the broken bread he was holding had now become his physical body or that the wine within the cup had somehow transformed to hold his actual, physical blood, because Jesus was still sitting right there with them in his physical person. And it would have been an unnatural understanding to believe that he was trying to tell them that his physical person, his physical body had somehow mystically infused itself into the substance of the bread and wine. Kevin illustrates that point well in his book Daily Doctrine when he says that if you were to hold up a picture of yourself – you're holding the picture – and you said, "This is me," no one thinks that the picture has been transformed. Everyone understands that you mean this picture is a representation of me. Not only that, but as many have noted, if the disciples had just heard, which they likely had, the traditional Passover liturgy referring to the unleavened bread, “This is the bread of affliction, which our ancestors ate when they came from the land of Egypt,” no one was likely confused about the age of the bread in Jesus's hands. No one was quietly wondering, now wait a second. Is that actually a piece broken off of that loaf our ancestors ate? 

So, look again then at question 78. You can look in your bulletin. They're printed in the back there. To the question of whether the bread and wine become the real body and blood of Christ in administration of the Lord's Supper, the catechism gives this answer. No. Just as the water of baptism is not changed into Christ's blood and does not itself wash away sins but is simply a divine sign and assurance of these things, so too the holy bread of the Lord's Supper does not become the body of Christ itself even though it is called the body of Christ in keeping with the nature and language of the sacraments. Now of course that contrasts directly with the Roman Catholic understanding, and Tom may choose to dive into that a little bit more next week, but we can briefly note this evening the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation which, in line with Aristotelian philosophical categories, holds that while the accidents – that is, the external appearances or the tastes or the consistencies – remain the same, that the substance or the internal essence is changed into the actual body and blood of Christ. Contrary to that, the Reformed understanding following Calvin has been that Christ is present in the supper. He is present, really and truly so, but spiritually rather than physically – that is, the bread and the wine remain truly and fully bread and wine. There's no change to those, and yet, while there's no change to the elements themselves, Christ does communicate himself. He shares himself, feeds us from his risen body and blood spiritually through the Lord's Supper. So, there's a real but spiritual presence of Christ in the supper to feed his people. Differs as well from the Lutheran tradition, according to which the bread and wine remain physically bread and wine – there is no change there – but in which the physical presence of Christ is said to also be there in, with, and under the elements. Or as we noticed last week as well, Zach mentioning this, it differs from a mere memorialist view, which says that the point of the supper is only or purely to remember, to recall and meditate and think on the sufferings and the death of our Lord on our behalf. Of course, in Luke's account of the scene that we read earlier, Jesus himself says, "Do this in remembrance of me," so, we know that remembering the sufferings of Christ is indeed a significant part of what the Lord's Supper is meant to be for us. But as Zach shared last week, and we'll see again tonight, there is for us much more. 

But returning then to the question of the catechism, R. Scott Clark in his commentary on the catechism says just very plainly, “Scripture never hints, let alone teaches, that in the institution of the supper when Christ said, ‘This is my body,’ that his disciples understood him to say, ‘This bread has now become by the miracle of transubstantiation my literal body.’” Or put positively, here's how the Westminster Confession, one of the standards for our denomination here in the PCA, states it – you might say this is another way of answering the same question. It says, “The outward elements in the sacrament (that's the bread and the wine) duly set apart to the uses ordained by Christ have such a relation to him crucified as that truly, yet sacramentally only, they are sometimes called by the name of the things they represent, the body and the blood of Christ, albeit in substance and nature they still remain truly and only bread and wine as they were before.” Now certainly we could add some more scriptural proofs, or we could walk through some more theological arguments in support of that position – if you would like to read up some more on those proofs and arguments, you can find some good ones in books like Kevin's Daily Doctrine or The Good News We Almost Forgot, or if you want a thicker treatment, you can go to Scott Clark's commentary on the catechism, or you can even just check out Calvin's Institutes yourself. But it's interesting that that's not actually where the catechism goes with the next question. It seems content at this point to simply assert the sacramental nature of the language Jesus used and to deny that the elements in any way become the body and blood itself. I think that we'll benefit if we follow that same line here and ask with question 9, so then, if not to suggest a transformation of the elements, then why did Christ call the bread his body and call the cup his blood? Or why does Paul say that to participate in the Lord's Supper in faith is a participation in the body and blood of Christ? Well, the catechism says that Christ has good reason for these words. We might expect as much. But his reasons are, according to the catechism, twofold: to teach us and even more importantly that he might assure us, or we might say for a teaching tool and for a tangible assurance. 

Look first at a teaching tool. Glance over again in your bulletin at question 79. Why then does Christ call the bread his body and the cup his blood? Answer: because he wants to teach us that just as bread and wine nourish the temporal life, so too his crucified body and poured out blood are the true food and drink of our souls for eternal life. Now, that's actually fairly similar to what we looked at last week in question 75, which asked, "How does the Holy Supper remind and assure you that you share in Christ's one sacrifice on the cross and in all of his benefits?" That answer included that as surely as I receive from the hand of him who serves and taste with my mouth the bread and the cup of the Lord given to me as sure signs of Christ's body and blood, so surely he nourishes and refreshes my soul for eternal life with his crucified body and his poured out blood. And you can hear the similarities there. Zach did a great job highlighting last week how this supper is a real spiritual feeding that strengthens our union with Christ in heaven and nourishes us from him for our journey there. 

So, given those similarities, I just want to focus tonight on two particular aspects of the wording of what the catechism gives us regarding what Christ wants to teach us by means of calling the bread his body and calling the cup his blood. First of all, to think for a moment on bread and wine and what it is that they communicate. What do they reveal of Christ to us in the supper? Of course, being so connected as they were in that moment with the Passover meal, it'd be hard to miss the connections here to the unleavened bread or the blood of the sacrificial lamb, these provisions to cover the Israelites’ sin and for their deliverance out of bondage in Egypt. Jesus is providing a new exodus. Jesus is inaugurating a new covenant here. This is the new covenant in my blood. Or we might think of the biblical metaphor of bread from heaven running throughout the Scriptures. Going back again to Exodus 16, we find that same group of Israelites wandering through the wilderness, God leading and providing for them on the way to the promised land and providing them bread from heaven called manna. Generations later, a man Jesus shows up and in John 6 says to those listening, "I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” Think of both of those things, but consider the catechism's wording regarding what Jesus wants to teach us, that his body and blood nourish our souls for eternal life just as bread and wine nourish our temporal life. 

And so perhaps then we could also ask and benefit from thinking about how is it that the Bible, the Scriptures itself, might shape our expectations regarding how bread and wine themselves nourish temporal life. Perhaps to a Jewish mind, well steeped in the Old Testament, such a question might bring to mind something like Psalm 104. We got to read Psalm 104 already in our order of worship, so it's there in your bulletin. I'd love for you to look back at it now, because I want to read it again with you. Psalm 104, beginning in verse 10, says, "You make springs gush forth in the valleys. They flow between the hills. They give drink to every beast of the field. The wild donkeys quench their thirst. Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell. They sing among the branches. From your lofty abode, you water the mountains. The earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work. You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread to strengthen man's heart.” First of all, notice there just the sheer sense of abundance and God's provision for his creation. This is not a mere providing of the Lord. Now, it's true that when we come to this supper here, no one is getting physically stuffed by the elements that we receive in this Lord's Supper, but the spiritual feast that is provided is not correlated to the size of the wafer. No, God is not a mere provider. He's an abundant provider for us, and that is nowhere more true than when we come to this supper and this table. 

But notice two more things specifically when we come to verse 15: first, that God is abundantly feeding and providing drink for all of his creation in this psalm. But notice when bread and wine are mentioned – only when we've passed the beasts of the field, only when we've passed the birds of the air, the mountains and the earth, even the livestock. Isn't it at least interesting that the bread and wine are said to be the provision God gives for the crown of his creation, for man, for those created to be in covenant relationship with him? This is something specifically that he gives to them. Now, maybe we don't want to make too much of that point, but certainly it's not saying too much to note the second, that bread is said here to be for strengthening man's heart and wine for gladdening it. You ever thought about that? Listen to what John Calvin says: “When bread is given as a symbol of Christ's body, we must at once grasp this comparison. As bread nourishes, sustains, and keeps the life of our body, so Christ's body is the only food to invigorate and enliven our soul. And when we see wine set forth as a symbol of blood, we must reflect on the benefits which wine imparts to the body and so realize that the same are spiritually imparted to us by Christ's blood. These benefits are to nourish, refresh, strengthen, and to gladden.” Believer, do you need strength? Do you need gladdening? Jesus is teaching us here in this supper, “Come to me. I am your strength. I will be your joy.” The Lord's Supper is a visible, tangible, and tastable supper of the food and drink that our souls need and of all that Christ so abundantly wants to provide and does provide for us in it. And so, here's one thought for us actually tonight, that the Lord's Supper certainly is food for those who are weak and weary, and that is any of us – really that's all of us – at some point, maybe many points, in this pilgrimage we find ourselves on, maybe many of us even here tonight. 

It's certainly food for the weak and weary, but it's also true that the Lord's Supper is meant to nourish and strengthen us that we might bear fruit. Think again of another metaphor Jesus used to describe himself. He said, “I am the true vine, and you are the branches. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me, you can do nothing.” That's not a passage about the Lord's Supper, but it is a passage that tells us something about what the Lord's Supper does. Tonight, you may be weary. You may be needing strength to press on for tomorrow. You may be hurting. You may be needing fresh assurance of your forgiveness in Christ. This meal is for you for all of those needs. But you may also be thinking of a new ministry initiative. You may be living in a sweet spot of life. You may be savoring Christ in a fresh way in this season that you're in. In all of that and for all of that, we need to feed on him, for apart from him, we can do nothing. And he gives us his supper to strengthen and to gladden, to nourish and to impart to his disciples his life. 

But notice a second thing that Christ wants to teach us according to the catechism – two very important words: crucified and poured out. That is, it's not just a body, and it's not just blood. No, it's a specifically crucified body and poured out blood of Christ that are for us the means of these blessings. And so here we're reminded that it wasn't enough simply for Christ to take up a body or to take on blood, but that he also had to lay that body down. He had to allow that blood to be poured out. In the Gospels, Jesus said, "This cup is my blood." In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul calls that same cup the cup of blessing. You ever thought of that? Jesus says, "This cup is my blood." But when it's tipped towards us, it actually pours out blessing – the cup of blessing that we bless, Paul says. Is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? Blood to blessing. 

I was listening recently to a brief podcast by Sinclair Ferguson. He was suggesting that one reason perhaps that Satan went after Eve in trying to tempt that original couple is because one of his chief mechanisms is to take the best gifts of God and to try to manipulate them. It's one of the easiest ways we can be manipulated. He uses the best to try to bring about the worst, and then he quotes an old Roman proverb – I'll try to get it right here – corruptio optimi pessima est. The worst is the corruption of the best. That's true, isn't it? But here's the good news for us tonight is that it also works in reverse as well. We see that highlighted in the gospel, don't we? We see it highlighted as well here in the supper, where God uses the very worst – even the very worst, most diabolical efforts of Satan – to accomplish the very best, the cross of Christ, the crucified body, and the poured out blood of the only perfect man to ever live. But because that man is also God, and because he rose up from that death to everlasting life, and because he's able to give that life to us, this cup of his poured-out blood pours out blessing to us. It's the great reversal of the gospel in the message of this meal. 

There's one more way that we see reversal in the supper. It's not being self-deprecating of me to say that when I look in the mirror today, the results are sometimes a bit disappointing, and it does seem like things seem to be trending in the wrong direction. One thing is for sure, I am not 19 anymore. And we laugh when we make those kinds of jokes, but it can be kind of a sobering message, can't it, looking in the mirror? In some ways, I see this body is dying. Consider how I recover now from yard work or a workout or maybe don't recover so well. Think about how old my children have become. Consider how young the professional athletes are, like even the ancient ones now are younger than me. They can't believe what Messi is doing, and he's just 39. I look in the mirror, I see a man dying, but I look in this supper, and I see that I'm living, because I am connected to a body that has already gone through death, a body that's already gone through death and is eternally living in heaven already with life so abundant that it can provide eternal life for every redeemed soul throughout all the ages. And that's more sure than what I see in the mirror, and that's what Christ wants to teach us in this supper. So, he gives us bread and he gives to us wine. It's a teaching tool. 

And then it's a tangible assurance. Again, if we were to flip over to Paul's words to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10, he says of this cup and the bread, “This cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? This bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” You hear those words often when we take the Lord's Supper together, and that word translated there as “participation” may be one of the Greek words that many of us actually know. It's koinonia. It means fellowship. It means participation. It means communion. That's what the catechism is getting at when it says in question 79, “but more important he wants to assure us by this visible sign and pledge that we through the Holy Spirit's work share in his true body and blood, just as surely as our mouths receive these holy signs in his remembrance.” You know, our stomachs often assure us that we have eaten. Usually when we've eaten something, we know it. Of course, it's true that even our stomachs can at times be misleading. Sometimes we don't feel it even when we have eaten. If you have a teenage boy in your home or on your grocery bill, you might want to stand and just give an amen to that reality. But certainly spiritually speaking we may not always feel different when we have participated in the Lord's Supper as well, yet that's part of the point here, that the meal is here to tell us, “Be assured.” It is no different – feel it or not. When we have participated in this supper in faith, we have participated in Christ himself. Joined with faith, you have fed on Christ. It is a participation – not could be, not might be, not sometimes is. It is, through the Holy Spirit's work. As surely as we taste the bread, we share directly in Christ when we come in faith. 

So, he wants to assure us that we are sharing in Christ, and he wants to assure us that God is satisfied with us. The catechism says that in the supper we are reminded that as we partake of his crucified body and poured-out blood, that all of his suffering and obedience are as definitely ours as if we had personally suffered and made satisfaction for our sins, as if we were the ones to have satisfied God for our sins. When have you ever looked at your sins, just piled up, and wondered, "How could God be satisfied with me?" Maybe you're here, and you're not a Christian, and you wonder that very thing. How could God be satisfied with me? This is the incredible news of the gospel, that in Christ he not only can but he is. Galatians 5, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” Romans 6, “We know that our old self was crucified with him.” 2 Corinthians 5, “For our sake he made him who knew no sin to be sin so that in him we might become the very righteousness of God.” This is true for every individual who puts their trust and faith in Christ. His suffering was ours. His satisfaction was our satisfaction. His obedience, his righteousness – it's ours through faith. We are united to him, and it is as if we had personally suffered and made satisfaction for our sins. And so, Scott Clark again says this, "When we receive the supper in faith, we receive a visible, tangible experience of what's promised in the gospel preached. Each time we eat the supper in faith, it's a little catechism.” Now, you didn't know this. You're getting a bonus catechism tonight. Extra catechism. Here's the catechism Scott Clark says we receive. We remember when we come to the supper. Question: who receives Christ and his benefits? Answer: those who believe. Do I believe? Yes. Are you therefore receiving Christ and his benefits? Yes, through faith alone. How is this possible? Because Christ promises it in his Word. Who does this? The Holy Spirit. How does the Spirit do this? It's a mystery. Why do you believe this mystery? Because Christ promises it. It's assurance, and it's what Christ wants for us. 

And so, to circle back again to where we began, then, this assurance is not only what the Lord's Supper does, it's what the Lord of the supper wants. Do you catch that in the answer that we read? Why does he call the bread his body? And why does he call the wine his blood? Because he wants to. Because he wants to. He wants to teach us. And because he wants to assure us. Isn't that what we saw there in that upper room? Not just what the Lord's Supper is, but what the Lord of the supper wants. He was facing betrayal. The cross was looming. There was confusion and bickering and coming abandonment from even among his closest followers and friends. And yet – and yet he's gathering them. He looks at them. He thinks of them, and he says to them, "Here, this is my body, and it's for you." Because he wants to. And friends, he wants to now. This is not a begrudging act of our Lord. The Lord of the supper is the true host of this table, and do you believe that his eyes are full of love for you as you approach it? That this is what he wants to provide, to give to you, to feed you, to fill you, to assure you, to gather us, and to fellowship with us in this supper? He wants us to come, not denying our need, but declaring it. I have no hope but Christ. I have no forgiveness but Christ. I have no future but Christ. I have no life but Christ. But I have Christ, and in him I have everything. And tonight we might add, in this supper I have him. 

Believer in Christ, as truly as he gave that bread and that wine to those disciples, so he gives himself here, even tonight, to you, here in this supper until he comes again to feast with us and to fellowship with us in the marriage supper of the Lamb. I doubt that I will ever preach with a more obvious and direct application than I do on this Sunday evening. This table we've been describing, set before us. This meal that we've been meditating on, it's been prepared. Lord willing, our faith has been pricked. Our desire for it has been whet, and we know what it is that we need, that we need Christ. We need Jesus. So, are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Believer, won't you come and eat? Let's pray. 

Lord, we thank you again tonight for your love for us, your love for your disciples. Thank you that your love for us led you out of heaven and down to earth and to the cross and to the grave and to rise again and now leads you to this very table that you might feed us, that you might feast with us. O Lord, we pray that you would now strengthen and encourage us as we come to this meal together. We pray it in Jesus’ name. Amen.