Pentecost Monday - Devotion in Exile


Lection for Monday after Pentecost
Numbers22:1-20      Luke 22:1-23

Yesterday we celebrated the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples and drove them out of their self-imposed imprisonment to boldly proclaim Jesus as God’s Christ – and all that goes with it. After that event, three thousand souls were added to those who, having grown up in the teachings of the Scriptures and were waiting for the fulfillment of them, came to faith in Jesus as God’s Christ – the One to whom those Scriptures were pointing.

In this lesson from Luke’s Gospel we find Jesus celebrating the Passover with His disciples and pointing to the coming events of His crucifixion as the greater fulfillment of that Feast – for Jesus is the spotless (sinless) Lamb of God, whose blood is shed that death (the wages of sin) might pass over us. In the first Passover, eating the flesh of the Lamb whose blood marked the doorpost and lintels that night, the people of Israel were freed from their slavery to the Egyptians that they might enter the promised land.

On the night of our text, the disciples are present as Jesus institutes the greater meal, the meal which fulfills the Passover meal. He institutes the “Breaking of the Bread” (as it was first called), The Lord’s Supper, Eucharist, yes, what we know as the Sacrament of the Altar. From Peter’s first sermon on Pentecost, this is the meal which would be the center of the weekly gathering of those of “The Way,” those who trust in Jesus as God’s Christ.

It is on Pentecost that the disciples are endowed with the Holy Spirit and emboldened to begin their works as minsters of the Gospel. From that day, the – and those who came to faith in Christ – “were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching (reading of Scripture and exposition of the same) and to the fellowship (they gathered together as one body, a congregation), to the breaking of bread (the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer (do I need to explain that one?). (Acts 2:42)

So today, when we gather together, we also do as Christ instituted that night, eat His body which is given for us, and drink of the cup which is pour out for us, the new covenant in His blood. And why? For the forgiveness of sins!

Let us pray:      Heavenly Father, we ask your blessings upon all those who partake of the Holy Supper of Christ’s body and blood, that when they gather together to receive this blessed Sacrament they might receive it in repentance and faith, unto life everlasting. Amen.

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