The New Creation Tasted at the Lord's Supper

Morning we're going to be celebrating the Lord's Supper, and so we are going to reflect a little bit about that. We often do this as a tradition of our church to have this regularly. We're going to just pause a little bit today to think about what it actually means when we do this. On 15 January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 departed LaGuardia Airport in New York. Shortly after takeoff, it flew into a flock of geese, and both engines lost power. There was every chance that that plane would crash.

Amazingly, Captain Chesley Sullenberger, known affectionately as Sully, managed to land that plane on the Hudson River in the middle of New York City. Everyone on the plane was saved. When he was asked what contributed to this dramatic rescue, Sully simply said that his training had kicked in. His years of experience and the habits that he had formed over those years meant the saving of many lives. Today, we're going to be participating in something that our other elder Tony called remembering last week.

He said that we were going to be involved in a memory, sharing a memory together, and that is the Lord's Supper, or some churches, some people call communion. If you've been a Christian for a while, you know that Christians do this regularly. In our church, we do it every eight weeks. It's a habit for us. It's a tradition for Christians.

But why? Why do we do this? Well, it's the same reason that Captain Sully went through all those practices and trainings. What we do when we share in this is we're forming a habit whereby each time we become active participants in the story of God and His plan for the world, a plan that He started at the beginning of human history. And so this morning, I want us to capture a summary of that, and we're going to do that by turning to Romans chapter 8.

And it's not normally a passage we go to at the Lord's Supper celebration, but we will look at the summary in it of the story that we are part of, that we're remembering as we take the Lord's Supper. Romans chapter 8, and we're going to read from verse 18 through to verse 24. Romans 8:18. The apostle Paul writes, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, we were saved." So far, our reading.

This morning, I want to highlight three memories. Three memories that we remember as we come to this time in the Lord's Supper. Three parts of the drama that has unfolded or will unfold as we share in this holy, sanctifying meal. The first is the pain that we all experience here and now. In the first verse of the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis, we hear this:

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." A little bit later in that same chapter, chapter 1, God creates mankind as both male and female. He creates them in His own image, and then He says, "It is very good." Later, however, this man and woman, Adam and Eve, reject God. They turn from Him, sin enters the world, and because of this, rejecting God as their Creator and their King, they themselves experience God's rejection, the punishment of a life without Him.

As He declares that to them, He makes this statement. He says, "Cursed is the ground because of you. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain, you shall eat of the soil all the days of your life." There's a curse spoken over man and woman. And yet, at the same time, in Genesis 3:15, God also holds out a glimmer of hope that this curse will not have the last word.

God also curses the creation-destroying serpent, who gave this idea to man and woman at first. He says to the serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. This offspring shall bruise your head, crush your head, and you shall bruise or strike His heel." The Bible says that this offspring is Jesus. And when Jesus comes, He is the prophesied descendant who crushes the head of Satan, crushes the power of Satan over this world.

And this is what the apostle Paul is beginning to sum up in the passage we just read in Romans 8. Paul sums up what this means for us who are now still living under this curse. Have a look again at Romans 8:20-21. Paul says, "Creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him, God, who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from that bondage to corruption."

In the earlier verses, verses 18 and 19, Paul has started saying that Christians don't need to feel hopeless, despite the suffering that we endure, despite the hardship that will happen to us. He says in verses 18 and 19 that none of these hardships hold a candle to the glory that will be soon revealed in God's children. But what is this futility and corruption that he's also talking about? Well, it's the deep longing and the frustration that we all, whether Christian or non-Christian, experience. It's the deep longing that we all experience.

On the one hand, the Bible says that eternity has been placed in the heart of every person. Every human being has eternity in their hearts. We know, therefore, what perfection feels like. We know what eternity means. But on the other hand, we know what reality feels like.

We see with our eyes, we feel with our flesh that the world is broken. It is decaying. It is sick. And the tension that it creates is this futility that we feel. This is why Paul uses that word: it is futile.

Because we try and try in so many different ways to fix it. We think a government with the right laws will fix it. We think that the right education will educate us out of evil. Somehow, we just need a bit more training. If we can call people on a phone, we will not be depressed anymore.

We have so many options, and yet they always turn out the same. They are futile, futile to stop this curse that Paul says is a decaying curse, corruption itself. Paul says, we live in a world of rust. Once, however, the Bible says, there was no suffering.

There was no pain, there was no death. But now, we realise every human dies. Every human suffers. Animals suffer. Rivers break their banks and sweep away entire villages.

Avalanches bury skiers. Tsunamis kill two hundred and fifty thousand people in one night. Storms sink boats. COVID, malaria, cancer kill millions of people, young and old. Droughts bring millions to the brink of starvation. Babies are born with lifelong illnesses.

And if we could see, and if we could experience just one millionth of all the pain that is experienced in this world, we would collapse under the sheer horror of it all. Only God is so powerful that He sees and knows all of it happening, and He can still go on with His plan. But the question we ask, I'm sure as thinking individuals, is why? Why would God allow us to experience this futility? Why would God allow His creation to experience that futility?

Why not simply crush sinful mankind for their rejection of God? Why did God say, "Cursed is the ground itself, because of you"? Well, because the Bible will tell us that the physical pain and the physical suffering we see points us to the realities of sin itself. In other words, natural evil that we see and feel is a signpost pointing to the horror of moral evil.

John Piper writes this. He says, "God disordered the natural world because of the disorder of the moral and spiritual world. In our present fallen condition with our hearts so blinded to the exceeding wickedness of sin, we cannot see or feel just how repugnant it is. Hardly anyone in the world feels the abhorrent evil that our sin is. Almost no one is incensed or nauseated at the way we belittle the glory of God.

But let their bodies be touched with pain, and God is called to give an account for Himself. We are not upset at the way that we injure His glory, but let Him injure our little pinky finger, and all our moral outrage is aroused." Piper says, it just shows how self-exalting and God-dethroning we really are. So the frustration, the futility that we sense is not therefore some sort of small injustice that we can kind of ignore. You know, this is life and we just move on.

We feel it because it is true frustration. But it can also, therefore, not be just simply educated out of us. We won't ever be told how to live morally well, apart from the grace of God that changes hearts. We can therefore never set up some utopian empire, where the perfect government will be established, where the perfect laws will exist, where there will be institutions that will always do the right thing in every situation. This is how starkly the Bible puts it: it is futile to attempt to reach that.

So whether we vote for a Trump or a Biden, the creation that God imagined, the creation that God said initially was very good, will never be reestablished by us. We are decaying even as we are living. But this is what the Bible is also saying in Romans 8. The pain that we feel, the frustration that we feel is pointing to eternal and spiritual realities, and God is providing an eternal and spiritual solution to that problem. Which brings us to the second point.

There will be a worldwide release from this activity. Paul writes in verse 21, that creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption. In other words, the natural world, the physical world is going to be set free from this curse. The Bible uses other language in other parts where it says there will be a new heaven and a new earth that is going to be established. Isaiah 65: "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind."

Well, we all know this one from Revelation 21. Revelation 21:1, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The apostle John writes, "For the first heaven, the first earth had passed away." "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

And many people wonder what it means for God to establish a new earth and a new heaven. What does that mean? Is God going to destroy everything and then create something entirely different? Does God do this sort of factory reset? I need to do a few resets on some technology at the moment.

Is God going to do a factory reset? But the language that the Bible uses is actually very significant. Both in the Greek and the Hebrew original languages, this word "new" is better aligned with the word "to renew", to restore. In other words, when God is establishing a new heaven and a new earth, He is taking the original creation, and He is redeeming it to its former glory. This is why Paul says, all of creation will be released, will be set free, liberated.

It's a release from its captivity to corruption. He doesn't say, the world is going to be killed off, destroyed, and then recreated. He says resurrected, but restored. And for us, that's a beautiful thing. That's a really, really powerful thing to remember, because it gives us a sense that God is still treasuring the things that He created originally, which is us included. He looked at humanity, He looked at the universe that He put us in, and He said it was all very good.

God is restoring that image. But look at where this release from captivity takes place. Look at that second half of verse 21. Paul says, the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption, and then he says this: "And obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." That order in the sentence is significant.

Just as creation was plunged into this curse as a result of man's evil, so now, in its redemption, creation follows redeemed man into a glorious future. The point of verse 21, it says, creation obtains the freedom of the children of God. Creation obtains the freedom of the children of God. It's not that the heavens and the earth are going to be restored to its very good state, and that God is destroying it in order to accomplish that. God is saying that the rest of creation is going to be tapping into the freedom of the elect.

The freedom of God's people. In other words, God God hasn't created us for the universe, God has created the universe for us. The universe follows us. And the success of His children is the success of creation. That's an amazing statement.

The redemption of us leads to the redemption of the entire universe. That's why when Adam and Eve, who were the kings and the queens of creation, when they sinned, the entire creation fell with them. They were its rulers. And when a ruler falls, everything falls. But now, when God's chosen people redeemed by grace, when they are restored, all of creation is taken up with them.

All of creation receives the same freedom. Creation obtains the freedom of the glory of God's children. That is an incredible thought. And so we move to the final memory of this drama that we will remember as we take the Lord's Supper. That final thought is also the question of how does this actually apply to the here and now of me.

We can say, well, this is fine for this the grand story, but how do I fit into that? Well, Paul says, there is a hope that grips our hearts with peace even now. At the end of the passage we read, Paul writes this: "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation," he says, "but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope, we are saved."

Desiree, she's maybe not going to like me using her as an example, has a little nephew called Noah. He's two and a half years old. And he's at that wonderful stage of life, where they sort of perfect blend between being able to be reasoned with as a toddler (you can talk to them and they can talk back) or young enough rather to believe the things that you are saying. They trust what you are saying is real, is true. Last week, we holidayed with Noah.

And when Noah's dad wanted Noah to finish the last bit of his dinner, to behave with a little bit more patience to finish his food, dad promised him ice cream with sprinkles. Ice cream with sprinkles. Because Noah trusted his dad and believed that dad wouldn't go back on his word, Noah not only obeys dad and waits patiently, but in his waiting, he's already experiencing the joy of ice cream with sprinkles. When Paul says to Christians, "In this hope, we've been saved," Paul is saying that through Jesus' death and resurrection, not simply have we been saved from eternal damnation, but we have been saved into a hope.

His salvation has secured hope here and now for us. We know, however, at the moment, we haven't been fully saved. We call ourselves saved, we say that we are saved, but we haven't been saved yet. We still experience the pain of this world. We still have doubts.

There's still things that affect us and affect our world. We call ourselves saved now, however, even as we groan inwardly, as Paul says, because we have an eager expectation of redemption. We consider ourselves saved because we are now experiencing future's salvation and joy. That future peace experienced now is called hope. It's in this hope that we have been saved.

And Paul says, because the Holy Spirit has been given to us, the Holy Spirit that's characterised in this passage as a foretaste, as the first fruit of this salvation, because we have Him in our lives, He guarantees that peace in our hearts. Every believer, therefore, every believer that knows Jesus Christ as saviour has access to that peace, will taste that peace in some form. When Noah's daddy promises him ice cream with sprinkles, Noah is already enjoying that ice cream with sprinkles, even when he has to take the last few bites of his broccoli. Even when he has to take the last few bites, gulp down some mushy peas, he grins and he bobs along as he's thinking about ice cream with sprinkles. God's redemption of us, God's glorious freedom to us is our hope.

And because it is our hope, it is creation's hope. The gift of the gospel, however, is not simply the new heavens and the new earth. Even though they will experience the new heavens and the new earth, will experience it along with us, the ultimate good of the gospel is not a redeemed body, even though our sore joints and the cancer in our bodies, we just can't wait for a life without it. The ultimate good of the gospel is not even forgiveness or satisfaction and justification. All those are means to an end.

The ultimate good that makes the gospel truly good news is that we receive God Himself. God Himself who was displayed for us in Jesus Christ. God Himself who displayed His glory on the cross. The ice cream with sprinkles that we enjoy without ending is the one who is perfection personified. The highest good in the universe that was said to be very good.

If this God is the highest good of a very good universe, can you imagine the joy and the satisfaction that we will experience day by day in His presence? And this brings us to the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper is a guarantee of that promise. This is where we enjoy the work of Christ and the promise of that work forever. At the supper that Jesus instituted, this meal, He tells His disciples to drink wine, to eat bread, because He says, "I will not eat of it or drink of it until these things have been fulfilled, until my kingdom comes."

Over and over again, we know in the Bible that the great celebrations of God's victory is celebrated in a feast. Isaiah 25, for example, God says to His people through the prophecy of Isaiah that there's coming a time on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. There's coming a time where there will be a great feast. He puts it in these words, Isaiah 25: "On this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

On this mountain, He will swallow up the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces." God is saying a time is coming, when I will put an end to death, when I will put an end to this curse, and the whole world will celebrate through a magnificent feast. And Jesus says at the last supper, that feast will be a feast with Him when He finally establishes that final victory. In Luke's account of the last supper, Luke explains the setting of that supper and by explaining that it was the Passover.

He talks and mentions that word five times in that account. It is a Passover celebration. Why is this significant? Because at the Passover, the Jews were celebrating the passing over of their sin through the sacrifice of a lamb. Here at the last supper, we find a moment not simply of looking back at the covering of our sin through Jesus Christ, like the Passover was in remembering what happened for Israel's many, many hundreds of years before.

What happens here is not simply a remembrance, but a looking forward to Isaiah 25, to a great banquet, to a great feast. As we eat and we drink the Lord's Supper today, the Bible gives us two words to express what's going on. It is a remembrance and it's a proclamation. We remember what Christ has done. I would say in our reformed churches, we do that well.

We remember the body and the blood of Jesus Christ. But we cannot forget, we are proclaiming to one another, the kingdom is coming. The curse will be lifted. Everything that has been promised will happen. All creation will follow redeemed man into glorious freedom.

And so this morning, we celebrate the Lord's Supper as a feast of friends who are saying to each other, just hold on. Can you see it? Can you taste it? It's coming. Jesus has won.

And He's just waiting. He's just waiting for all His people, all the elect, all those ones who will be gathered into the kingdom for eternity. He's just waiting for them to come. Let our hearts be glad. We are participants in an incredible story, and we are eating this morning in God's presence to celebrate His generosity.

In this hope, we've been saved. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we come into this moment of incredible hope, acknowledging our need. And we think back on the pain that we feel around us, the suffering that we see and we realise it is because of us. It's because there is sin in my life.

We have plunged Your very good creation into chaos. And yet, Lord, we also hear that You have set a plan in motion where You will free this creation in the same way as You have freed mankind from a corruption that leads to decay. And so, Lord, we remember Jesus Christ. We remember His sacrifice for us. We remember His work for us on the cross.

We celebrate His life that He took up again in His resurrection. And, Lord, we remember and we celebrate that again today. But then also, we proclaim that the kingdom is coming. We proclaim that one day, all of creation will be swept up with the redemption of our bodies, the salvation of our souls. And Lord, it will be like ice cream with sprinkles, and we cannot wait.

So thank You, Lord, that we can remember and proclaim these things. And we pray, as we enter into this time, that You will move in our hearts and our minds to confirm these promises to us and to give us hope now as we celebrate. In Jesus' name. Amen.