Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks he gave it to his disciples and said, “Take and eat, this is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way he took the cup after the supper and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them and said, “Take and drink, this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.”
Prayer: Lord God, our heavenly Father, enlighten our darkness with the light of your Holy Spirit, so that I may preach well and we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
A German seminary professor in the 20th century called Hermann Sasse once said: “If we desire to understand Luther’s concern and the concern of the old Evangelical Lutheran Church to maintain the Sacrament of the Altar and keep it pure, then we must realise a fact which the majority of people in our church no longer understand: the fact, namely, that there would be no church at all without the Holy Supper. Where the church is, there the Supper is celebrated; where the Supper is celebrated, there is the church. Where it is no longer celebrated, there the church dies… Can we conceive of the church at the time of the apostles without the breaking of the bread of the early congregations of Jerusalem, without the Lord’s Supper of the congregations of St Paul? Anyone who is familiar with the NT must answer no! A Sunday without the Supper, a Lord’s Day without the Lord’s Supper is inconceivable in the church of the NT. For the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is the heartbeat of the church.” (Lonely Way, vol 1: 480, CPH, St Louis.)
In our Gospel reading today, we read: “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
Listen to those words again: Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
He loved them to end – he loved them right up to the end of his life – it was this love that propelled him towards the cross, it was this love that compelled him forward, it was this love that caused him to “lay down his life for his friends”. And not just for his friends, but for his enemies too. St Paul says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He loved them to the end.
But he also loved them to the end in a different way. Since Jesus died and rose again, surely we need him to love us not just to end of his life, when he died on the cross, but we need him to love us when he rose from the dead, ascended into heaven and continually until the end of the world.
Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
This is what the Lord’s Supper is. Christ continues to give himself to us, and he wants us to come and eat his body and drink his blood, and in this way, he continues to love us until the end of the world. He feeds his church with his own words, the same words which he spoke while he walked around during the days of his flesh, but also he feeds his church with his own body and blood, the same body of Christ that touched people and healed them, the same body of Christ that eventually would be nailed to the cross, and the same blood that eventually would be poured out upon the earth.
Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
Before Jesus is about to go and die for the sins of the world, he leaves us a will. It is his testament, it is his covenant, it is his will. And when a person dies, and the will is read, then everyone knows who will get this house, and who will get this amount of money, and all that sort of thing. With Jesus, we open his will every Sunday, not in his absence but in his presence, every time we meet together as Christians to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. And he distributes not houses and money and land, and whatever else. But he gives us his own body and blood to strengthen and preserve us in body and soul until life eternal. We come together to eat his body and drink his blood in remembrance of him.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks he gave it to his disciples and said, “Take and eat, this is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way he took the cup after the supper and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them and said, “Take and drink, this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.”
This Last Supper, this Supper of our Lord, first happened on the night he was betrayed. It is such an important night! It is the night on which the salvation of the whole world begins. It is the night when the nations begin furiously to rage together against the Lord, and against his Messiah! All the anger of the world is poured out on Jesus Christ on this night, it begins on this night, and continues long into the afternoon of Good Friday.
As it says in the Gospel: Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
Jesus knew that his hour had come. Jesus knew what Judas was planning. Judas was about to betray his Lord, but his thoughts were already betrayed to Jesus. Judas, thinking that Jesus did not know what he was about to do, was going to deceive Jesus, but Jesus already knew, and so Judas himself was already deceived.
We see such majesty of Christ on this day. We see his power and his glory. But also we see his utter humility and his total love for the world, his total obedience and submission. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
So at this time, on the night he was betrayed, he took bread and when he had given thanks, he gave it to his disciples and said, “Take and eat, this is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
Christianity without the Lord’s Supper is a weak and dying Christianity. It is an unfaithful Christianity. Without the body of Christ eaten and the blood of Christ drunk in the church, there is no Church, which is the body of Christ.
The Lord’s Supper is no side issue in the church. It is the heart and centre of the church – it is the lifeblood of the church. It is the church’s own life, it is the church’s own energy, its strength in the midst of weakness, its truth in the midst of lies, and its rock when everything else is sinking sand.
If you want to plunge yourself into depths of Christianity, come to the Lord’s Suppper, and come often. Jesus Christ himself is so friendly and so inviting and so considerate when he deals with us, that he says “as often as you drink it”. He doesn’t tell us how often we should receive the Lord’s Supper, but he says that it should at least be often. He doesn’t make a law and a rule about it, but who would not want to coming running as often as we could, and take, eat and drink these precious gifts?
There is so much of an attack about the Lord’s Supper today, and there always has been. There are whole churches who never celebrate the Lord’s Supper at all – they will crumble and die. There are whole churches who believe that Jesus’ words, “This is my body, this is my blood” are in fact simply not true, and that instead, we are simply coming to eat a piece of bread, and drink a bit of wine, to “remember Jesus” in the same way that they remember Jesus all the time. There are whole churches who think they know better than Jesus, and think that it can’t possibly be his body and it can’t possibly be his blood. There are whole churches that change the things that Jesus commands us to use, and think they know better that Jesus Christ himself, and substitute unfermented grape juice or even soft drink for the wine, biscuits and chips for the bread.
Now you might think, why get worried about differences between churches about this sort of thing? Because, simply put, they are not doing what Jesus said. If Jesus said, “This is my body”, then it is our calling as Christians to believe that what we eat in the Lord’s Supper is in actual fact Christ’s body.
Nevertheless, we’re not chewing his bones with our teeth or anything like that, but we simply believe that we receive the body of Christ by means of the bread, and the blood of Christ by means of the wine. He says: This is my body, this is my blood. Jesus said it, I believe it, and that settles it. This is no side issue in Christianity. It is the heart and centre of the church. We might say that there are differences in beliefs and culture within churches, but we have to seriously ask whether these differences are things that have been built on the Words of Jesus or not.
It’s also a common thing for people to play off the words “This is my body” with the words “Do this in remembrance of me”. People say, “It’s not his body, it’s just a meal with which to remember Jesus.”
What we have to understand is this: today, when we say the word “remember” we often mean something we’re thinking about, like “I remembered the answer”. But in the bible when it says “remember” it means “do something”. If a husband remembered in his head his wife’s birthday, but didn’t get her a present or flowers or something, she would say, “you didn’t remember my birthday!” Now he wouldn’t then say, “Yes, I remembered it, but I didn’t do anything about it”!!
In Genesis, when Joseph is in prison, he tells a man to “remember me to Pharaoh”. He means, “Do something”, don’t just think about me in your head!
So when Jesus says “Do this in remembrance of me”, it means “remember me by eating my body and drinking my blood”. Remember me by doing something.
Some people sometimes accuse the Lutheran Church of being arrogant when it comes to the Lord’s Supper and about the Lutheran teaching. But the Lutheran Church has always been a church which is supposed to believe what the bible teaches. It’s not supposed to have any “doctrine” that’s not in the Scripture. If there’s something taught in the Lutheran church which is against the bible, then it has to go. The bible also has to be the authority, not what we think the bible means from our reason, and not what a pope says the bible should mean. The bible has to be preached in its own integrity, in its own authority. If that’s what it means to be arrogant, then we shouldn’t be worried if that’s what we’re called.
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But when we come to the Lord’s Supper, we have to know not just what it is, but also what it’s for. It’s given for you, and it’s for the forgiveness of sins.
It’s a gift – it’s not a gift that you give to God, and it’s not something that you do to earn forgiveness from God. It’s a gift which God gives to you. It’s for you, and it’s for the forgiveness of your sins.
Because sometimes Christ comes to bring judgment – many times in the gospels we read about Jesus telling people off! And we know from St Paul that it is possible to receive the Lord’s Supper unworthily, and to judgment. This happens when we don’t believe what the Lord’s Supper actually is (the body and blood of Christ), when we don’t “discern the body in the Lord’s Supper”, and if we believe that it condemns us. I know that sometimes people feel this quite deeply. I’ve met people who have said, “I can’t come the Lord’s Supper today, because I don’t feel worthy. I have a bad heart.” If you often feel like this when you come to the Lord’s Supper, then tell your pastor about it. Don’t keep it to yourself.
Jesus doesn’t give you his body and blood to give you a bad conscience. He comes to give you a good conscience. He doesn’t come in the Lord’s Supper to condemn you, but he comes to forgive you. He comes to make you clean. That’s what the Lord’s Supper is for.
So as we come to the Lord’s Supper as a church, we need to come united in our faith that these gifts are in fact the body and blood of Christ, and that they are given for you, and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. That’s what it means to do this in remembrance of Jesus.
But one last thing: the way we understand the Lord’s Supper influences the whole way in which we understand worship. Many people think that when they come to church, they are coming to do something for God, or to do something for Jesus. And there are parts of the service where we do offer ourselves to God, we give him our prayers, and our bodies and souls to him in his service. But the most important thing we come to church for is to receive Jesus Christ’s own gifts. We come to be served by Jesus. That’s why from old times, coming to church was called “the divine service”. It is called the divine service because God serves us. Jesus Christ in fact washes our feet. He bends down, gets on his hands and knees and scrubs your feet clean. He bends down to make sure his words are in our ears, and he bends down to make sure that his body and blood are in our hands, in our mouths, and strengthening and preserving our bodies and souls.
So as we remember the night on which our Lord Jesus Christ was betrayed, let’s come to have our feet washed by him in the Lord’s Supper, let’s come willingly and eagerly to eat his body and drink his blood, given for us and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins. And just as the Lord’s Supper was the heartbeat of the church in the time of the writing of the New Testament, let it also be the heartbeat of the church in our midst. No-one can take us out of the hands of our Good Shepherd: let nothing in the whole world take the body and blood of our Good Shepherd out of ours! The Lord’s Supper is the life of the church.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread! Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for the kingdom the power and the glory are yours, now and forever.
Amen.
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