The Lord’s Supper According to John

"Hey Wesley, where have you been?"
I'm glad you asked, in order for me to focus on my next book the blog had to take a temporary back seat for a while but the good news I can tell you is that I have just completed the first draft of that book. So I have good intentions of posting more frequently here again. And as luck would have it, one of my friends who is part of our little house church, asked me if he could write a guest post on my blog. So the below is not from me but from my good friend Tim Sheasby, sharing some personal insights into the Lords Supper. Enjoy.

Well, everyone knows that John does not describe the establishment of the Lord’s supper. That is left up to the other gospel writers but there are still a few lessons to be learned from John. We know about how Jesus washed his disciples feet in the face of their personal opposition. You might recall how Jesus gave a new commandment – that we love one another. How did he put it? “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.” (John 15:12–14).

But the lesson I want to share here is about the fruit of the vine. In the short period between the upper room, where Jesus had just shared the supper with his disciples, and Gethsemane, we find Jesus’ discourse about the vine and the branches. An in-depth study of this discourse in the first part of John 15 can teach us many lessons about our relationship with Jesus but there is one special thing I want to focus on here. That is the simple fact that Jesus identifies himself as the vine. And this identity of Christ as the vine relates directly to the communion he had just shared with his disciples (though not discussed directly in John’s gospel). Remember, in the other gospels, we read that Jesus took a cup of wine – the fruit of the vine – and declares “this is my blood”.

You see the fruit of the vine is important, not because of what it is, whether grape juice or wine, but because of where it comes from! In the same way Jesus' blood is not important because it is blood but because of where it comes from! It is because it is Jesus’ blood. It is the fruit of the vine – and He is the vine. To have access to the life giving blood of Jesus we have to be attached to the vine. We have to be “in Christ”
(2 Corinthians 5:17). But then as branches of the vine we produce fruit – the fruit of the vine. It becomes our job to share the blood of Christ with the lost around us or we become like the branches that need to be pruned and ultimately cut off and burned. We need to be proclaiming the Lord’s death until He comes (1 Corinthians 11:26).

We are His body, signified by the bread of His supper and His lifeblood, the fruit of the vine sustains and cleanses us. Praise God for this most wonderful of gifts – the promise of our eternal life.