Soul-Searching during Supper, Part 1

Few things are better than gathering around a huge table to indulge in a meal with friends and family. In that warm setting, we tend to satisfy our hunger and our hearts at the same time.

Well, today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll will describe a mealtime scene unlike any other in history. It occurred the night before Jesus' crucifixion, when He gathered with His best friends for what is commonly known as the Last Supper. We'll begin by reading the passage together, and then we'll hear the message Chuck titled, Soul Searching During Supper. We're working our way through Matthew's Gospel and we've come toward the end at the 26th chapter. I'll be reading for you verses 17 through 30, which take place in an unusual setting where you and I have never been.

And with a body of people you and I have never met, so we will have to engage our imagination. We will do that during the reading and we will certainly do that as I get underway in my message so that we might picture in our minds what it must have been like. And after doing that, realize how directly it speaks to every one of us. For God has given us His Word, not to satisfy idle curiosity, but to transform our lives. And even in a passage like this, where there is a shocking statement made by one in the midst of these disciples. Matthew 26, I'll be reading from the New Living Translation. Your Bible may read a little differently, but you can follow along. And Matthew 26, 17 begins, On the first day of the festival of unleavened bread, the disciples came to Jesus and asked, Where do you want us to prepare the Passover meal for you?

As you go into the city, he told them, you will see a certain man. Tell him, the teacher says, My time has come and I will eat the Passover meal with my disciples at your house. The disciples did as Jesus told them and prepared the Passover meal there. When it was evening, Jesus sat down at the table with the 12 disciples.

It should read, Jesus reclined at the table with the 12 disciples. While they were eating, he said, I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me. Greatly distressed, each one asked in turn, Am I the one, Lord? He replied, One of you who has just eaten from this bowl with me will betray me. For the Son of Man must die, as the Scriptures declared long ago. But how terrible it will be for the one who betrays him.

It would be far better for that man if he had never been born. Judas, the one who would betray him, also asked, Rabbi, Am I the one? And Jesus told him, You have said it. As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, Take this and eat it, for this is my body. And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many.

Mark my words. I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my father's kingdom. Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives. You're listening to Insight for Living.

To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now the message from Chuck, titled Soul Searching During Supper. We have kind of a funny saying in our home when we talk about an imaginary desire. We refer to, we'd like to have been a bug on the wall when that particular thing happened.

Maybe you have the same saying that you grew up with. It has to do with being an unseen and uninvited observer in a setting that is significant. For example, when a surprising discovery was made, it would have been great to have been a bug on the wall and to hear what was said or to see how people acted. For example, when Columbus and his crew first sighted land after all those days of nothing but water, what a great moment to have seen and heard what was said. Or maybe when some scientist makes a discovery or some explorer comes across that moment he's been waiting for.

Lewis and Clark, when they first got their glimpse of the blue Pacific as it spread out before them. In that moment, how fabulous it would have been to have been there. Sometimes we have in mind those moments when something significant is announced. When Dwight Eisenhower gave the go ahead for the invasion of Normandy against the council of a number of his fellow officers and even those who told him of the weather on that June day in 1944. To have been there and to have heard what was said and to have seen how he felt. Or how about being in the capsule when it first touched down on the moon's surface.

I don't know how a bug would get into the capsule but it would be nice to have gotten in there and to have been a bug on the wall of that capsule and heard what was said. Or when that first step was taken on the lunar surface. How fabulous it would have been to have been right there and to have heard and seen that event. Go back far, far back in time and on the post of the stable it would have been wonderful to have been a bug that watched Mary and Joseph when they first looked at God in the flesh.

We don't have a record of those words. Surely very significant words were shared between the two of these godly Jewish teenagers. As they realized the, now it fits, the awesome moment when that sacred head emerged from the womb. How great to have been there. Fast forward 33 years and we're on the wall of a second story flat we would call it.

An upper room. The 12 disciples along with their master have eaten a very special meal and then out of the blue Jesus shocks them with one of you will betray me. Unfortunately those of us who have grown up in the church and heard sermons and teaching around the Last Supper, we're no longer shocked by that because we're familiar with the setting. But trust me, had I been a bug on the wall I would have looked at Judas but I would have been the only one. Because no one else suspected Judas.

Are you kidding? He's the treasurer of the group. He's the trusted member of the 12. He, quite frankly, may have been the brightest of the bunch. The only one not a Galilean. Judas Iscariot, traitor incognito, and like a terrorist today he had kept all of the evil in himself. Shared it with none of his close friends until ultimately in the Garden of Gethsemane he plants that fateful kiss and then everybody knew. But not now.

Strange, strange isn't it? Clarence McCartney for a number of years, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, has written a number of biographical works and I pulled one from my shelf just this last week and checked what he had written on Judas. He calls him a great mystery.

I think that fits. I mean how could he? Why would he turn on Christ? He has seen everything Peter saw and Andrew saw and Matthew saw. He's been around along with the other disciples, Peter and John and Judas. He's right there.

He was there when the storm was stilled and the wind stopped howling and they're in the boat with the master. There's no question that he is of God and when the lame are healed and the blind are given sight and he turns on him for 30 pieces of silver. Best we can estimate probably about $19 worth of our money.

19 bucks. Why? As best I can figure and if McCartney thinks he's a mystery I don't disagree with that. I would say so also. But if I try to probe the mystery and get into that cryptic reasoning in that motive I have to say the man is disillusioned. I believe Judas expected Jesus to overthrow Rome and I believe when he heard teachings regarding the kingdom, now's his chance. I think he was a zealot. I think he was among those described by some writers as those who carried daggers and were given to assassinations. He was the type who was just waiting for the moment for Jesus to give the Romans the thumb down and to take over.

But he didn't. Even when the kingdom was offered and Judas saw this also and Jesus slipped away into the crowd turning away the offer. Judas was there thinking game over.

Where's he going? The crowd's ready to crown him. And then it isn't long before Jesus dialogued with them and his discourses drip with words regarding his death. His death. Doesn't sound like a conquering king to me, thinks Judas.

Exactly what Satan would want in one who would carry his message. But before we get there, we're at a scene in this Last Supper that we think we're familiar with because we've all seen the picture. Where they're all sitting in chairs on one side of the table posing for the artist. It's not the way it was.

We covered that before. It wasn't a table like our table. It wasn't chairs like our chairs. Meals were eaten low near the floor.

The table is a wooden block like a very low coffee table. And often it is in a U shape. A U shape where those who are eating at the table recline. They recline on a pillow. Hand or elbow on the pillow. They are using the right hand to manage the food and they're leaning, which means their feet are out to the side. As you would be in a reclining position trying to imagine.

I thought about doing it and I thought, no, I'm not going to go there. You can get it. You're leaning on a pillow and get this, the one who is leaning or reclining, I should say, the one who is reclining to your right is in your chest area. His head is.

Right? He's reclining and he's right here. Your head is in the chest area of the one on your left.

Got it? And the host of the meal was usually in the crook of the U, right in the center. So we're able to place who was reclining where when we arranged the table as it may very well have been. But first, the meal itself. Because you and I are Gentiles, we're not familiar with Passover meals.

Oh, you may have attended one where it was set for you, but you've not prepared it and chances are good you've not even been where it was served. But if you were Jewish, it would be an every year experience, as familiar as a Thanksgiving meal is to Americans. A Passover meal consisted of a roasted lamb. Every part of the lamb, legs, hoofs, head, tail, every part of it is roasted and every part of it is to be eaten. None of it left because it is a commemoration of deliverance that goes all the way back to Egyptian slavery. In the days of Moses, when it was first inaugurated, all of the things that are served at the meal symbolically reflect on something related to the Egyptian slavery.

The one who would ultimately come and deliver them would be the Messiah, represented by the lamb. And then there was the dip called the Harosheth. It was a paste like our dip, mixture of apples and dates and pomegranates and nuts mixed all together, we would call blending together, and that would be like a dip, that consistency. That represented the clay from which the bricks were made in ancient days by the Hebrews, while slaves of Egypt. As they ate from that bowl, they would remember and would talk about the slavery and what they had gone through their forefathers had endured under Egyptian slavery. And then there were those loaves called unleavened bread, simply means bread made without yeast, so they're flat and they're brittle.

And you didn't cut them or slice them, you snapped them. When you broke, you would break the bread and it would snap and it would make little flat pieces, not unlike our chips today that are often in a shape like that, and they snap when you break them. And then there would be the bitter herbs. The unleavened bread would refer to that need for them to cleanse the house from all leaven, which is a picture of sin, get rid of all of that so that none of that would be in the house.

And the bread would be made, as I've just described it, and then forth would be the bitter herbs composed of such ingredients as endive and horseradish and lettuce and similar foods. That represented the bitterness of slavery. Everything had a meaning, had a symbol, and if you're Jewish, all of that is significant. When we have our Thanksgiving meal, we often refer back to the pilgrims.

We go back to those early days when they endured the bitter winters having just come to the New England area of our country and so on. So the Jews reclined at the table and they knew how to prepare the meal, and they did, and these disciples, all Jewish, with Jesus, are around the table and words are shared among different ones. While they're eating the meal and, no doubt, discussing the things of recent days, Jesus breaks in with this shocking statement, there's a traitor among us. It was the among us part that was so shocking. I think it would be helpful if we left Matthew 26 and went to John 13, because in John 13, more details are given than Matthew includes.

So turn there, will you? John 13, and beginning of verse 21, we'll take up right where we were in Matthew 26. John writes, who was at the table, he's writing 60 years later. Matthew wrote rather soon after Jesus had died, risen from the dead, and ascended. Matthew wrote, but not before Mark, who is the first one to write, but John waited a long time before he wrote, and having thought on it all, he writes this. John 13, 21, Jesus is deeply troubled, and he exclaimed, I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me. The disciples looked at each other, wondering whom he could mean. Now look closely. The disciple Jesus loved was reclining next to Jesus at the table, okay?

Remember what I described? I take it that John is on Jesus' immediate right. His head is right here. He can look up into the face of Jesus as he reclines at the table. So Simon Peter motioned to him to ask, who is he talking about? You know how we do that when we don't want anybody to hear us? We go... We shape the words, who is it, with our lips. Peter does this to John. So John gets the signal from Peter, and of course Jesus sees it, and he knows all things. So Jesus says, verse 26, it is the one to whom I give the bread I dip in the bowl. Well what's that about? All right, listen carefully. It wasn't uncommon to have a guest of honor at the Passover meal, who would be at the left of the host.

And one of the traditions was that the host would prepare a little tidbit, breaking off a couple of the pieces of the unleavened bread, and putting some of the bitter herb in between, make a little sandwich, and then dipping that into the kerushath, the dip, and would give that to the guest of honor. I'm suggesting it's Judas. Why would I suggest that? It's his last appeal. It's Jesus' way of saying, it isn't too late. I know what you've been doing, I know what you're up to, but Judas, listen! This is all without words.

This is my last offer. For you to repent, don't go there. And we read that he took that little sandwich, if you will, and he gave it to Judas, Simon Iscariot. When Judas had eaten the bread, look closely, don't miss this, Satan entered into him, and Jesus told him, he realized it's over.

There's no more appealing. When Satan enters a life, he's an embodiment of the enemy himself. So Jesus says, hurry and do what you're going to do. Now notice carefully, none of the others at the table knew what Jesus meant.

Keep reading. Since Judas was their treasurer, some thought Jesus was telling him to go and pay for the food, or to give some money to the poor. Judas left at once, and it was night. And when he slips out into the night, they thought he was running an errand.

Not even then did it dawn on them. For the benefit of those who came our way late in the program, you're listening to a message from pastor and Bible teacher Chuck Swindoll. We're in Matthew chapter 26, and Chuck titled his message, Soul Searching During Supper. Now please keep listening to Insight for Living because there's much more we need to learn about this emotion-filled evening when Jesus gathered his disciples around the table.

And to discover a variety of resources available on this topic, please visit us online at insightworld.org. Now just before our time is entirely gone for today, I'm eager to remind you that Chuck Swindoll writes a daily devotional that's sent by email, and there's no cost to receive it. His practical writings cover a variety of issues that will help you merge biblical truth with the realities of your busy life. To receive this devotional email from Insight for Living, just follow the simple instructions at insight.org slash devotional. To receive a physical devotional book, one you can hold in your hands, we'll direct you to another resource from Chuck, a devotional called God's Word for You. About this book, Chuck said it's easy to spend our days seeking to be entertained, but there's something that satisfies the soul much more fully when we think deeply and nourish our souls with spiritual truth. Well, to purchase a copy of this 30-day devotional that's bound in a soft leather-like cover, go to insight.org slash offer. And let me add, when you give a donation to Insight for Living, your gift enables us to provide Chuck's Bible teaching and to provide the free resources we send out as well. I just saw a note that said, Chuck, you have no idea how much I needed to read your devotional today.

It was as if you wrote it straight to me. Thank you, thank you. Well, to support Insight for Living Ministries with a gift, here's the number to call. If you're listening in the United States, just dial 1-800-772-8888. Or give a donation online today by visiting insight.org. Join us next time when Chuck Swindoll continues a message he calls Soul Searching During Supper, right here on Insight for Living. .