Sermon Snippet – With Desire I Have Desired
INTRODUCTION – I have preached from Luke 22:13-20 before; I could say the same of any New Testament passage and quite a few Old Testament ones, because I have been preaching God’s Word for more than forty years. Verse 15 is especially memorable to me, as Jesus gathered His closest disciples together in order to transform the Passover feast into the Communion service and said, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer.” Since Jesus does not change (Hebrews 13:8), this statement extends to us today as we partake of the emblems of our Savior’s death on the Cross.
1. THE REAL DEATH OF JESUS INCLUDES REAL EMOTION
Verse 15 is the translation of a Hebrew idiom that indicates a fullness of feeling, an intensity of emotion that cannot be increased. Jesus really wanted to eat this meal with His followers, with the same people for whom He would die the next day. He was fulfilling the prophetic typology of the Passover lamb (I Corinthians 5:7b – “For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us”). However, this fulfillment was not mechanical: this meal with His disciples was prefiguring His impending lonely death. As I frequently point out, our Lord is blessedly thorough in all that He does. Thus, it is not unexpected that He would completely desire both to share this simple time of fellowship with His followers and to provide for our salvation. Still, we should be personally stirred that our Lord’s love has been lavished upon us, especially as we consider the cost to Christ.
2. JESUS IS BLESSEDLY DISTINCT FROM US
This point is obvious, of course. Let us focus on just one of these distinctions. The half-brother of Jesus, in his typically frank manner, bluntly writes, “Let no man say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted of God’: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:13-15). “Desire” and “lust” translate the same Greek word. Normally in Scripture this word is used in a negative way, consistent with man’s sin nature. In simple terms, our desires tend to move us in the wrong direction. James 4:1-3 also demonstrated the bad results of our basest desires. Clearly, Jesus is blessedly distinct from us. He has to be, for He is God.
3. JESUS IS SO DISTINCT THAT HE BEGINS THE PROCESS OF CHANGING OUR DESIRES
A number of New Testament verses indicate that our desires can be transformed and move in the right direction. One is Philippians 1:23, “For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.” Paul’s faith was such that he was ready to die, but he was also insightful enough to realize that Jesus still had necessary and important work for him to do (including helping the church at Philippi – verses 24-25). Another is I Thessalonians 2:17; Paul includes Silas and Timothy as he writes, “But we, brethren, being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face with great desire.” This “great desire” for Christian fellowship with people that Paul had previously despised (for they were Gentiles) is an exemplary example of the transformative power of Jesus. (Other verses for further study include Romans 10:1, 15:23-25; I Corinthians 7:6-7; Ephesians 3:13; Philippians 4:17; Colossians 1:9; and I Peter 2:2. There are more.)
CONCLUSION – By trusting in Jesus for salvation, we receive the eternal life that He desires with desire to give to us – and that He died to give to us. By joining in the Communion service, we are aligning our desires with His loving desire, and we can be certain that we are keeping His kind commandment to partake of these remembrances of His sacrificial atonement for us.