Maundy
Thursday
April 9,
2020
Text: Matt. 26:17-30 (ESV): 17 Now on the first day of
Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Where will you have us
prepare for you to eat the Passover?” 18 He said, “Go into the
city to a certain man and say to him, ‘The Teacher says, My time is at hand. I
will keep the Passover at your house with my disciples.’” 19 And
the disciples did as Jesus had directed them, and they prepared the Passover. 20When
it was evening, he reclined at table with the twelve. 21 And as
they were eating, he said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” 22 And
they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, “Is it I,
Lord?” 23 He answered, “He who has dipped his hand in the dish
with me will betray me. 24 The Son of Man goes as it is written
of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have
been better for that man if he had not been born.” 25 Judas,
who would betray him, answered, “Is it I, Rabbi?” He said to him, “You have
said so.” 26 Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after
blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this
is my body.” 27 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks
he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28 for
this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the
forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you I will not drink again of
this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my
Father's kingdom.” 30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount
of Olives.
I think
this is probably the saddest Maundy Thursday of my life. We’re all shut-ins today, which I suppose
gives us more empathy for our homebound brothers and sisters who, as a matter
of course, cannot join us for corporate worship. We all want the Sacrament, especially
tonight, but we are prevented by circumstances beyond our control. It’s enough to make a grown man weep. We pray, we beg the Lord to restore the
gathering of the Body of Christ and the Divine Services of His House. In the meantime, we certainly rejoice in the
technology that allows us to gather virtually, with one caveat: As is
especially evident on a night like this, virtual gatherings cannot take the
place of corporate gatherings in the congregation of God (and no, we absolutely
should not put bread and wine in front of our screens for some sort of virtual
consecration… Virtual Communion is no Communion!). I say this because, while it is wonderful
that we can hold our services online, we dare not allow the evil one to dupe us
into thinking this replaces going to Church!
When we can get together, let’s get together. Let’s congregate and enjoy the Lord’s
gifts in all their fulness.
But we
can’t tonight. What we can do,
though, is hear again the Words of our Lord’s institution of this marvelous
gift and meditate on what exactly He here gives us. In fact, this may be just the opportunity,
while we’re here hungering and thirsting for the Sacrament, to be renewed in
our appreciation of it, so that when we can receive it again, we do so with
rejoicing and great thanksgiving. Among
other things, we’ve learned in this pandemic that we cannot take our Lord’s
means of grace, the Word and the Sacraments, for granted, as we so often do. We repent of that. Forgive us, O Lord. Restore us, O Lord. Heal us, O Lord. Have mercy upon us.
“What
is the Sacrament of the Altar? It is
the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine,
instituted by Christ Himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.”[1] This teaching is not a peculiarity of Luther
or Lutheranism. Dr. Luther, as he always
does, takes us right back to the Words of Holy Scripture, the Words of our
Lord. What does Jesus say? He takes the bread and says of it, “this
is my body” (Matt. 26:26). He takes
the wine and says of it, “this is my blood” (v. 28). He doesn’t say, “This bread represents
my body,” or “this wine represents my blood.” He says nothing about symbolism here. Nor does He say that in eating this bread or
drinking this wine your faith stretches up to heaven to feed upon Him
spiritually. I love our Reformed
brothers and sisters and I love their zeal for faith, but the fact is, that
theology gets the direction all wrong.
We don’t stretch up to heaven at all in the Sacrament. That would be to make our faith a good work
instead of Jesus’ gift to us. No, Jesus
comes to us in the Sacrament. Jesus
brings heaven to us in the gracious gift of His body and blood. Just stick to the Words. Stick to what Jesus says. You shouldn’t have to twist and mold the Words
of Jesus to fit with your own understanding.
These Words aren’t given you to understand rationally. They are given you to believe. They are given you to receive. The very body crucified for you on
Calvary. The very blood shed for you on
the cross.
These are
given you to eat and to drink. Not to
store on the altar for adoration. Not to
parade around the town. Again, what does
Jesus say? “Take, eat… Drink of it,
all of you” (vv. 26-27). That is the
purpose, to place into your mouth, to pour into your body, Jesus and the
forgiveness of sins He won for you, His life, His salvation. Remember the Old Testament teaching that the
life is in the blood (Lev. 17:11). When
you drink the blood of Christ, His resurrection life is in you! That is why He gives this gift! You should always receive both kinds, the
bread and the wine, our Lord’s body and His blood. Jesus is very specific when it comes to the
cup, that all of you should drink it, almost like He knew abuses would
spring up where only the clergy would be allowed to drink, as was the case for
so many centuries in Rome. Thank God,
they’ve now restored the cup to the laity.
These
gifts are given under the bread and wine. Of course the bread and wine are still
there. And if you were to put them under
the microscope after consecration, after the Words of the Lord are said over
them, no, you wouldn’t find bits of first century middle eastern DNA. You’d find bread and wine. It tastes like bread and wine, looks like
bread and wine… it is bread and wine.
But it is not only bread and wine. It is bread that is Jesus’ body, because
He says so. It is wine that is
Jesus’ blood, because He says so.
These are, after all, the Words of our Lord, and the Word of our Lord
does what it says. It is powerful. It is performative. Let there be light, He says, and there is
light. This is my body, this is my
blood, He says, and bread and wine are His body and His blood. This is supernatural, which doesn’t
mean it is any less real. Supernatural
simply means "above nature.” In
other words, it’s a miracle! A miracle
we see every time we gather. In eating
this bread, we eat Jesus’ true body. In
drinking this wine, we drink Jesus’ true blood.
Because that is what He says.
It is all about the Words.
So why do
it? Why receive the Lord’s Supper? Or, as Luther asks, “What is the benefit
of this eating and drinking?” Again,
Dr. Luther takes us to the Words of Jesus.
My body, my blood, are, as Jesus says, “Given and shed for you for
the forgiveness of sins.” You
receive the Lord’s Supper because in the Lord’s Supper, Jesus forgives your
sins!
Now, don’t
misunderstand. Your sins are not
forgiven because going to the Lord’s Supper is some work you do for God. Again, that would be to get the direction
wrong. The Supper is most certainly not
your work for God. You are doing Him no
favors, as though you earn merit simply by walking up to the altar and eating a
bite and taking a sip. And no, the
priest is not offering up again an unbloody sacrifice of Jesus to the Father
every time he performs a mass. That gets
the direction wrong again. I love our
Roman brothers and sisters, and I love their zeal for the Sacrament, but this
is so important. Jesus was offered once
and for all as the all-sufficient sacrifice of atonement for our sins on the
cross. In the Lord’s Supper, He brings
that once and for all sacrifice to us.
The direction is not us to Him, it is Him to us. The sacrifice is not ours to Him, it is His
to God once for all time, and then His bringing it to us sacramentally
on the altar. We are not ascending into
heaven, He is coming down with His gifts.
The Lord’s Supper is not our work for God, it is God’s work for us. By grace.
Grace alone. God is delivering up
the forgiveness of sins in the body and blood of Christ. And along with that forgiveness, eternal life
and salvation, which is to say, heaven and the resurrection of the body on the
Last Day. For where there is forgiveness
of sins, there is also life and salvation.
Here, have it, Jesus says.
Take it. Eat it. Drink of it, all of you. I am pouring myself into you, really and
truly, bodily, and we are one. It is
a true Communion. And by virtue
of this union with Christ, we are united with one another, all those who
commune with us on these gifts, the Church, the Body of Christ. Amazing!
Well, Dr.
Luther already anticipates your next question: “How can bodily eating and
drinking do such great things?”
Look, as has been said already so often, it is certainly not just the
eating and drinking that do these things.
This is not a work you do.
It is the Word of Jesus Christ.
The Words are the active ingredient.
The Words make the Sacrament what it is, and the Words do in the
Sacrament what they say. The
power of the Sacrament is in the Words.
That is, again, to say, the bread is Jesus’ body and the wine is
Jesus’ blood, because He says so.
And in eating and drinking these, you receive forgiveness of sins,
eternal life, and salvation, and every other gift He here imparts, because
He says so.
This also
means the Sacrament doesn’t depend on your faith to be what it is. Whoever comes to the Sacrament eats the body
of Jesus and drinks His blood, whether they believe it or not. Faith doesn’t make the Sacrament. The Word of Jesus Christ makes the
Sacrament. Faith does, however,
receive the benefits of the Sacrament, even as unbelief eats and drinks
judgment on itself. “Whoever believes
these words,” “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,” “has
exactly what they say: ‘forgiveness of sins.’”
Whoever does not believe the Words has the opposite of that, as St. Paul
points out in our Epistle: “anyone who eats and drinks without discerning
the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.
That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died” (1
Cor. 11:29-30). This is why we practice
what is called “closed Communion,” not because we’re mean and want to exclude
people from our fellowship. Quite the
opposite. Whoever you are, we want you
to commune with us. But we love you, and
we don’t want you to eat and drink judgment on yourself or suffer any adverse
consequences. The true body and blood of
Jesus Christ is powerful stuff. It is
not something to play around with. So we
ask and insist that even our own children refrain from receiving the Sacrament
until they have been thoroughly instructed in Christian doctrine and in what it
is they are receiving here. And that is
why we have Catechism classes for all ages leading to participation in the
Supper, and why we have catechetical sermons like this one, so that the pastor
can know that you know and believe what it is you are receiving, and receive it
to your benefit rather than to your harm.
This is really an issue of pastoral care, as well as Christian love. We absolutely want you to receive Communion
at our Church. There is a process for
that. We invite you to jump in.
Faith
receives the benefit. Faith is the hand
that receives what the Lord here gives.
Or maybe better, in this instance, the mouth that receives it,
the mouth opened wide. That is
why, while fasting and bodily preparation, like some of us are doing in Lent,
is certainly fine outward training, that person is truly worthy and
well-prepared who has faith in the Words of Jesus, who believes
what they say: His true body, His true blood, given and shed for you for the
forgiveness of sins. So many people
think they have to make themselves worthy for the Sacrament… by not
sinning so much, being more holy, being more devoted to spiritual things. You can probably predict what I’m about to
say about that. You have the direction
wrong! You don’t make yourself
worthy for God by anything you do.
God makes you worthy by what Christ has done. And here is the great paradox when it comes
to worthiness. Only those who know their
own unworthiness, their sins, are worthy to come. If you really think that you’re worthy to
come to the Supper because you are a pretty good Christian, a pretty good
person, you haven’t committed very many sins, you’re more or less holy (and
besides that, it’s your right as an American!)… don’t come. This Supper is not for you. Oh, I want you to come, but not while
you think there is any vestige of worthiness in you. Repent.
Repent of every shred of self-righteousness. Your own righteousness does you no good. It’s a myth.
It doesn’t exist. You need Christ’s
righteousness. And that is what He gives
you in the Supper. Righteousness. Justification. From outside of you. His own, for you. His saving work. Himself.
Jesus came for sinners. He comes
in the Supper for sinners. The Lord’s
Supper is for sinners who hunger and thirst for the forgiveness of their sins. That is what Jesus gives you when He feeds
you with Himself.
We can’t
have this gift together tonight. But we
do have Jesus, who, thanks be to God, gives Himself and His gifts, not only in
the Supper, but in manifold ways: In Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, the Holy
Scriptures, preaching, the mutual conversation and consolation of
brethren. We’ll join together for the
Sacrament again soon, as soon as we can.
In fact, soon we’ll receive this gift in all its fulness when Jesus
delivers us from this vale of tears and brings us into the marriage Supper of
the Lamb that has no end. In the
meantime, rejoice that your sins are forgiven.
Jesus died for you. Jesus is
risen and lives for you. He loves
you. And He is with you, and with us
all, always, to the very end of the age (Matt. 28:20). That is His Promise. You can always trust Jesus’ Words. His Words don’t lie. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son
(+), and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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