Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday (B)

March 28, 2024

Text: 1 Cor. 10:16-17 (my translation): “The cup of blessing, which we bless… is it not a koinonia of the blood of Christ?  The bread, which we break… is it not a koinonia of the body of Christ?  Because there is one bread, the many are one body, for we all partake from the one bread.”  

            Koinonia.  I’ve left the word untranslated for a reason.  “Participation,” as our ESV has it, is an excellent translation.  But it is only one facet of this many splendored jewel of a word.  Is it not a koinonia… Is it not a sharing, a being united together with, a fellowship in, a communion by means of… the blood, the body, of Christ?

            That is, a koinonia with Christ Himself.  Union with Him.  Reception of His blood, and of His crucified and risen body.  The Lord Jesus, invading you bodily, taking possession of you, becoming one with you.  His blood, coursing through your veins.  His body, nourishing and enlivening your body.  And, of course, your soul.  You in Him, and He in you.  One body.  One Lord.

            And what is the result, then, between you and those with whom you kneel at the altar?  Koinonia… a sharing together in Christ, united together as one, in fellowship, in Communion (thus the name of this Sacrament)… “Now you are the body of Christ,” Paul will say a little later in this Epistle, “and individually members of it” (1 Cor. 12:27; ESV).  It is not that you lose your individuality.  But you are now, individually, members of the body, united as one.

            And see… The sacramental presence of Christ’s body and blood under bread and wine creates the mystical body of Christ that is the Church.  Mere bread and wine cannot do this.  Nor can our faith (this is not a miracle we can do for ourselves).  It is the Lord who does it, and He does it here and now, in the flesh.

            The cup of blessing, which we bless… That is, the consecrated cup, that over which the Lord has spoken in His Words of Institution: “This is my blood of the covenant” (Mark 14:24)… It is a koinonia, a participation in, a reception of the very blood of Christ, shed on the cross, for the forgiveness of your sins.  The bread, which we break… That is, the consecrated bread, that over which the Lord has spoken His performative and creating Word: “this is my body” (v. 22)… It is a koinonia, a participation in, a reception of the very body of Christ, given into death on the cross, that you may have eternal life.

            And we all receive from the one loaf, the one cup.  There is one bread.  It is the body of the Lord Jesus.  When we partake in the one bread of Jesus’ body, we ourselves are united as one.  And there is one chalice.  When we drink of the one cup, it is a covenant of blood with our Lord, and with one another.  And so, the very life of our congregation… the very life of the holy Christian Church (the Church catholic… all believers, of all times and places)…  that life flows from the altar.  It flows from Christ.

            This sheds light, by the way, on another passage where Paul speaks of the body of Christ in the Sacrament, namely, 1 Corinthians 11:29: “For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.”  What is the meaning of the word “body,” in this case?  Is it the body of Christ sacramentally present under the bread?  Or is it the mystical body of Christ, which is to say the Church?

            Yes.  It is first the sacramental presence of Christ’s body under the bread.  That is demanded by the context of this verse, following, as it does, upon the heels of Paul’s own recitation of the Words of Institution, wherein Christ has just said of the bread, “This is my body” (v. 24).  And, as we are reminded in our text this evening, such eating is a koinonia in the body of Christ, and that must be the sacramental presence of His body, because he also says, in the same place, that drinking of the cup is a koinonia in Jesus’ blood, and the Church is never spoken of as “the mystical blood of Christ.”  Therefore, He is not using the word “body” in this passage to speak of the mystical body of Christ.

            But this sacramental presence of Christ is what gives birth to the mystical body of Christ, what brings it about.  So, when one eats and drinks without discerning (believing, confessing) the sacramental body of Christ under bread and wine, he also fails to discern the mystical body of Christ, the Church, in communion around the sacramental body of her Lord.     

            In any case, think what this means.  Imagine, if you will, that this very night, quite suddenly, and apart from any open door, or window ajar, our Lord Jesus Christ, turns up right here, in the very center of things.  Visible.  Audible.  Tangible.  Very much alive, but showing us the mortal, crucifixion wounds.  Speaking with us.  Announcing His peace.  Breathing on us (“Receive the Holy Spirit” [John 20:22]).  …. Eating with us! …

            And we can tell Him anything, all that is on our minds and hearts.  Our sorrows, our fears… our sins.  The sad divisions within Christendom that prevent us from communing together.  The sad divisions that may afflict us in our own congregation, or in our families, or even in our own hearts.  Our guilt.  Our shame.  Our failures.  Our griefs.  Our broken bodies.  Our broken souls.  Others for whom we are concerned, those we love, those who bear their own afflictions, or who walk in danger, and especially those who, perhaps, are not in Christ.

            And here He is, Christ our Lord, front and center, and we come to Him, and kneel before Him, and lay all of this out for Him, together as His Church, and one by one as members of His body.  And He reaches out to each one of us and touches the brokenness, wherever death infects us, wherever sin has held sway.  He touches us with the same body that healed the sick and cast out demons, cleansed lepers and raised the dead.  The same body that gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf, that set the lame on their own two feet.  With a touch that goes right to the heart of us, to the very core of our being.  Cleansing.  Enlivening.  Healing.  Making whole.  Uniting us with Himself, and so, with the Father, and the Spirit.  Uniting us with one another, as one body… His body… to be His hands and feet in the world.  Imagine it.  Imagine it.

            But, of course, you know… you don’t have to imagine it.  Because it is, as a matter of fact, the case tonight.  And every time we gather.  “This is my body… This is my blood.”  Eat it.  Drink it.  It is a koinonia in God’s own flesh.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son X, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.