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“Our Lenten Journey: The Upper Room” Mark 14:15 *Click for Audio* Pastor Kevin Vogts Trinity Lutheran Church Paola, Kansas Ash Wednesday—March 2, 2022 In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. For our Wednesday services during Lent this year we are having a sermon series called “Our Lenten Journey,” focusing on the locations in which Christ’s final suffering and death took place, as listed in the bulletin. We begin “Our Lenten Journey” this evening with “The Upper Room.” Every year hundreds of thousands of Jews made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. The Passover meal had to be eaten indoors, in groups of not less than ten but not more than 20. It could be eaten in one of the nearby suburbs, such as Bethany, where Jesus was staying during Passover week at the home of his friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus. But it was preferable to eat the Passover within the city of Jerusalem itself. So, Jesus needed a place in Jerusalem that could accommodate him and his 12 disciples for the Passover meal. St. Mark writes: “On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, ‘Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?’ “So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, ‘Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Say to the owner of the house he enters, “The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.’ “The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.” In the architectural sense, the Greek word for “upper room” means simply a room above ground level. But, for us it also has a deeper, richer, symbolic meaning. St. John records that at the Last Supper in the Upper Room, Jesus said to his disciples: “In my Father’s house are many rooms . . . I am going there to prepare a place for you.” Because of the enormous crowds, any room in which to celebrate the Passover within the city of Jerusalem was very hard to come by, let alone “a large upper room, furnished and ready.” It must have still been going through the disciples’ minds that night the wondrous way in which this Upper Room had been provided for them earlier that day. Always the consummate teacher, Jesus uses the very Upper Room in which they are celebrating the Last Supper as a way to illustrate and assure his disciples that he also is preparing for them another “upper room”: “In my Father’s house are many rooms . . . I am going there to prepare a place for you.” There are three ways the earthly Upper Room of the Last Supper is like the heavenly “upper room” awaiting YOU in eternal life. Point #1) The Upper Room Is Prepared in Advance It was already Maundy Thursday morning when the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?” The Jewish Passover meal was, and still is today, a very beautiful and elaborate ceremony involving many special customs, and requiring special foods and utensils. To symbolize relief from slavery in Egypt and the leisure of the Promised Land, tradition dictated that the Passover be eaten while reclining on pillows around a low table. Bitter herbs represented the bitterness of slavery in Egypt. A thick paste of nuts, raisins, almonds, and apples symbolized the clay without straw the Israelites were forced to make bricks out of in Egypt. Unleavened bread symbolized the haste with which the Israelites left Egypt, so that they did not have time to let the bread rise. And four special, ceremonial cups and wine needed to be on hand. Christ used this unleavened bread and wine to institute the Sacrament of Holy Communion. There also needed to be basins, water and towels for ceremonial washings that were part of the ritual, which Christ used to wash the disciples feet. And, of course, like the traditional Thanksgiving turkey, the most important part of Passover meal was the Passover Lamb itself. To accommodate all the pilgrims, tens of thousands of Passover Lambs would be sacrificed that Maundy Thursday afternoon by the priests in the Temple courts. So, when the disciples asked on Maundy Thursday morning, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?” there is a note of urgency and even skepticism. “Master, don’t you realize there is SO MUCH to be done before sundown today if we are going to eat the Passover properly this evening? Two men should really be leaving right now if we are even going to get a Passover Lamb!” “So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, ‘Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Say to the owner of the house he enters, “The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.’ The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them.” Jesus had everything all taken care of. Waiting for them in Jerusalem was a “large upper room, furnished and ready.” The only thing left was for Peter and John to procure the Passover Lamb at the Temple that afternoon. It seems all the other preparations and supplies were already taken care of by Jesus, either miraculously or by an advance arrangement with “the owner of the house.” The dining couches and table; the special cups and wine; the water, basins and towels; the bitter herbs, unleavened bread and other special foods; it was all there, waiting for them in “a large upper room, furnished and ready.” Now think about what it meant to the disciples at the Last Supper as they looked around the Upper Room and all these things which had been prepared in advance by Jesus, when he said to them: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” Just as Jesus prepared the upper room for the Last Supper, he has also prepared an upper room for you, a heavenly upper room. John the Baptizer said of him, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” He is the true sacrifice for the sins of the world, the true sacrifice to which the Passover Lamb pointed forward as a sign and symbol. By his suffering, by his death on the cross, by his resurrection, he has earned for you forgiveness of sins and a place in heaven. “I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me that where I am you also may be.” Point #2) Jesus Shows the Way to the Upper Room It was in a very mysterious manner Jesus sent the disciples off to find the upper room: “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’” Maybe Jesus did it this mysterious way so that Judas, the betrayer, would not overhear the location and interrupt the Last Supper, and the sacred institution of Holy Communion, by bringing the soldiers there. Just as Jesus showed the disciples the way to the earthly Upper Room, he also shows you the way to the upper room of heaven: “You know the way to the place where I am going. . . I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Unlike the mysterious, cryptic directions Jesus gave the disciples to the earthly Upper Room, he tells us plainly and clearly the way, the only way, to the upper room of heaven: “Trust in God; trust also in me. . . I am going there to prepare a place for you. . . I will take you to be with me. . . I am the way, the truth and the life.” Point #3) In the Upper Room We Celebrate the Sacrifice of the Lamb The ancient Passover Meal was a celebration commemorating the original sacrifice of the Passover lambs at the time of the Exodus. The blood of those lambs on the Israelites’ doorposts caused the angel of death to “pass over” the Israelites. Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed for us.” In the “upper room” of heaven we will celebrate the sacrifice of our Passover Lamb, whose blood causes God to “pass over” — to forgive — our sin. In Revelation, John sees a vision of the heavenly celebration: “Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain . . . In a loud voice they sang: ‘Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!’ Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’ . . . After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ Then one of the elders asked me, ‘These in white robes — who are they, and where did they come from?’ I answered, ‘Sir, you know.’ And he said, ‘These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’” Those are three ways the earthly Upper Room of the Last Supper is like the heavenly “upper room” awaiting YOU in eternal life. Jesus prepared in advance for the Last Supper “a large upper room, furnished and ready.” In the same way, Jesus has prepared a heavenly Upper Room for you. “In my Father’s house are many rooms . . . I am going there to prepare a place for you.” Jesus gave the disciples directions on how to find the Upper Room. In the same way, Jesus tells you how to get to the heavenly Upper Room he has prepared for you: “Trust in God; trust also in me. . . I am the way.” And just as Jesus and his disciples celebrated in the Upper Room the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb, in heaven we will celebrate the sacrifice of Christ, our Passover Lamb, who takes away the sins of the world. “Worthy is Christ, the Lamb who was slain, whose blood set us free . . . This is the feast of victory for our God.” Amen. Return to Top \| Return to Sermons \| Home \| Email Church Office

“Our Lenten Journey: The Upper Room”
Mark 14:15

Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Ash Wednesday—March 2, 2022

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

For our Wednesday services during Lent this year we are having a sermon series called “Our Lenten Journey,” focusing on the locations in which Christ’s final suffering and death took place, as listed in the bulletin. We begin “Our Lenten Journey” this evening with “The Upper Room.”

Every year hundreds of thousands of Jews made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. The Passover meal had to be eaten indoors, in groups of not less than ten but not more than 20. It could be eaten in one of the nearby suburbs, such as Bethany, where Jesus was staying during Passover week at the home of his friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus. But it was preferable to eat the Passover within the city of Jerusalem itself. So, Jesus needed a place in Jerusalem that could accommodate him and his 12 disciples for the Passover meal.

St. Mark writes: “On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus’ disciples asked him, ‘Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?’

“So he sent two of his disciples, telling them, ‘Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Say to the owner of the house he enters, “The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” He will show you a large upper room, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.’

“The disciples left, went into the city and found things just as Jesus had told them. So they prepared the Passover.”

In the architectural sense, the Greek word for “upper room” means simply a room above ground level. But, for us it also has a deeper, richer, symbolic meaning. St. John records that at the Last Supper in the Upper Room, Jesus said to his disciples: “In my Father’s house are many rooms . . . I am going there to prepare a place for you.”

Because of the enormous crowds, any room in which to celebrate the Passover within the city of Jerusalem was very hard to come by, let alone “a large upper room, furnished and ready.” It must have still been going through the disciples’ minds that night the wondrous way in which this Upper Room had been provided for them earlier that day.

Always the consummate teacher, Jesus uses the very Upper Room in which they are celebrating the Last Supper as a way to illustrate and assure his disciples that he also is preparing for them another “upper room”: “In my Father’s house are many rooms . . . I am going there to prepare a place for you.”

There are three ways the earthly Upper Room of the Last Supper is like the heavenly “upper room” awaiting YOU in eternal life.

Point #1) The Upper Room Is Prepared in Advance

It was already Maundy Thursday morning when the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?” The Jewish Passover meal was, and still is today, a very beautiful and elaborate ceremony involving many special customs, and requiring special foods and utensils.

To symbolize relief from slavery in Egypt and the leisure of the Promised Land, tradition dictated that the Passover be eaten while reclining on pillows around a low table. Bitter herbs represented the bitterness of slavery in Egypt. A thick paste of nuts, raisins, almonds, and apples symbolized the clay without straw the Israelites were forced to make bricks out of in Egypt. Unleavened bread symbolized the haste with which the Israelites left Egypt, so that they did not have time to let the bread rise. And four special, ceremonial cups and wine needed to be on hand.

Christ used this unleavened bread and wine to institute the Sacrament of Holy Communion. There also needed to be basins, water and towels for ceremonial washings that were part of the ritual, which Christ used to wash the disciples feet.

And, of course, like the traditional Thanksgiving turkey, the most important part of Passover meal was the Passover Lamb itself. To accommodate all the pilgrims, tens of thousands of Passover Lambs would be sacrificed that Maundy Thursday afternoon by the priests in the Temple courts.

So, when the disciples asked on Maundy Thursday morning, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?” there is a note of urgency and even skepticism. “Master, don’t you realize there is SO MUCH to be done before sundown today if we are going to eat the Passover properly this evening? Two men should really be leaving right now if we are even going to get a Passover Lamb!”

Jesus had everything all taken care of. Waiting for them in Jerusalem was a “large upper room, furnished and ready.” The only thing left was for Peter and John to procure the Passover Lamb at the Temple that afternoon. It seems all the other preparations and supplies were already taken care of by Jesus, either miraculously or by an advance arrangement with “the owner of the house.” The dining couches and table; the special cups and wine; the water, basins and towels; the bitter herbs, unleavened bread and other special foods; it was all there, waiting for them in “a large upper room, furnished and ready.”

Now think about what it meant to the disciples at the Last Supper as they looked around the Upper Room and all these things which had been prepared in advance by Jesus, when he said to them: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”

Just as Jesus prepared the upper room for the Last Supper, he has also prepared an upper room for you, a heavenly upper room. John the Baptizer said of him, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” He is the true sacrifice for the sins of the world, the true sacrifice to which the Passover Lamb pointed forward as a sign and symbol. By his suffering, by his death on the cross, by his resurrection, he has earned for you forgiveness of sins and a place in heaven. “I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me that where I am you also may be.”

Point #2) Jesus Shows the Way to the Upper Room

It was in a very mysterious manner Jesus sent the disciples off to find the upper room: “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him. Say to the owner of the house he enters, ‘The Teacher asks: Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’” Maybe Jesus did it this mysterious way so that Judas, the betrayer, would not overhear the location and interrupt the Last Supper, and the sacred institution of Holy Communion, by bringing the soldiers there.

Just as Jesus showed the disciples the way to the earthly Upper Room, he also shows you the way to the upper room of heaven: “You know the way to the place where I am going. . . I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Unlike the mysterious, cryptic directions Jesus gave the disciples to the earthly Upper Room, he tells us plainly and clearly the way, the only way, to the upper room of heaven: “Trust in God; trust also in me. . . I am going there to prepare a place for you. . . I will take you to be with me. . . I am the way, the truth and the life.”

Point #3) In the Upper Room We Celebrate the Sacrifice of the Lamb

The ancient Passover Meal was a celebration commemorating the original sacrifice of the Passover lambs at the time of the Exodus. The blood of those lambs on the Israelites’ doorposts caused the angel of death to “pass over” the Israelites. Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed for us.”

In the “upper room” of heaven we will celebrate the sacrifice of our Passover Lamb, whose blood causes God to “pass over” — to forgive — our sin. In Revelation, John sees a vision of the heavenly celebration:

“Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain . . . In a loud voice they sang: ‘Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!’ Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’ . . . After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ Then one of the elders asked me, ‘These in white robes — who are they, and where did they come from?’ I answered, ‘Sir, you know.’ And he said, ‘These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’”

Those are three ways the earthly Upper Room of the Last Supper is like the heavenly “upper room” awaiting YOU in eternal life.

Jesus prepared in advance for the Last Supper “a large upper room, furnished and ready.” In the same way, Jesus has prepared a heavenly Upper Room for you. “In my Father’s house are many rooms . . . I am going there to prepare a place for you.”

Jesus gave the disciples directions on how to find the Upper Room. In the same way, Jesus tells you how to get to the heavenly Upper Room he has prepared for you: “Trust in God; trust also in me. . . I am the way.”

And just as Jesus and his disciples celebrated in the Upper Room the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb, in heaven we will celebrate the sacrifice of Christ, our Passover Lamb, who takes away the sins of the world. “Worthy is Christ, the Lamb who was slain, whose blood set us free . . . This is the feast of victory for our God.”

Amen.

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