Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (1 Corinthians 11:23-32)
The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Maundy Thursday is such a wonderful day in the life of Jesus. Often if we think about the events of Holy Week and Easter, our minds are drawn naturally to what happened on Good Friday and Easter morning: our Lord Jesus made his sacrifice in our place on the cross, his atonement for the sins of the human race, and then conquered death and rose victoriously from the tomb on Easter Sunday.
But Maundy Thursday is one of those days which is often overlooked. People think that a Maundy Thursday service is a little entrée course before we get our meat and three veg on Good Friday—a little delicate pastry with some dipping sauce that we can so easy pass by and wait for the real food to come past.
But there is so much written about Maundy Thursday. There is so much that happens. 5 ½ chapters of the Gospel of John are dedicated to the events which happened on this day—that’s more than any book in the bible dedicates to any one day, as far as I can tell. So what happens? Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper, he washes the disciples’ feet, he preaches a great sermon to his disciples, he prays his great prayer, he goes out to the Mount Olives, he agonises in the garden of Gethsemane over what is about to happen to him, he is betrayed, arrested, taken to the high priest’s house—and then we continue all through the night until dawn on Good Friday morning, beginning like any morning with the crow of the rooster, but on this morning instead of waking Peter up from bed, it wakes him up to his sin as he looks into the eyes of Jesus standing on the other side of the room, comes to realise the great depth of sin and goes out and weeps bitterly.
There is so much that happens on this day.
Every Sunday this night is mentioned: “Our Lord Jesus Christ—on the night he was betrayed…” You see? There it is! Every Sunday—or at least every Sunday when the Lord’s Supper is celebrated—Maundy Thursday is mentioned.
One thing that we simply must understand as Christians today in our confused and divided world is this: The Lord’s Supper is not a side issue for Christians—it is the heart and centre of the Christian faith.
Remember, Jesus did this on the night he was betrayed. Do you think if you knew you were going to die the very next day, do you think you’d occupy yourself with trivial things? Look at Jacob before he died, how he gathered together his family and gave them each an individual blessing. Jesus is gathering his apostles together and giving them the heart and centre of the church.
When we say as Christians that we are the body of Christ, this is not something up the clouds and make believe. It’s not simply Christ’s Spirit that is with us that makes us the body of Christ, it’s not a spiritual sort of thing—we are called the body of Christ, because we eat his body and because we drink his blood in the Lord’s Supper.
If there is one thing that is characteristic of the modern church today is that there is no respect for the Lord’s Supper. Anybody from pretty much any previous century who would be pretty shocked at the way in which the Lord’s Supper is treated. There needs to be a renewal of reverence for the Lord’s Supper—a fear of God in the presence of the resurrected Christ.
There are so many churches that are springing up all over the place where it’s looks like Maundy Thursday never even happened. It’s almost as if there’s no such thing as the Lord’s Supper. And sometimes these are big and intimidating looking churches—much bigger and powerful than other churches. So people can be fooled into thinking that if we want the church to grow we should ditch the Lord’s Supper and do what they are doing.
A church without the proper teaching and practice of the Lord’s Supper will ultimately die and not last until the second coming of Christ, because simply put they won’t last the distance. They are simply unprepared, and ill-equipped to prepare people to meet their Lord Christ. How many things does Jesus talk about by saying “Do this in remembrance of me?” Only one thing: the Lord’s Supper. How can the Lord’s Supper be a side issue in the church?
Right at the heart and centre of the Lutheran teaching of the Lord’s Supper is the words of Jesus himself. And this teaching of the Lord’s Supper is the Lutheran rock of offence to pretty much every other protestant church—that the bread of the Lord’s Supper is the body of Christ and the wine in the Lord’s Supper is the blood of Christ.
On what basis do we say this? Jesus says: “This is my body.” “This is my blood.”
If a person doesn’t believe these words as they are, they are not arguing with Lutherans—they are arguing with Jesus. That’s so important for us to understand. There is not such thing as a Lutheran, a Catholic, an Anglican, a Uniting Church understanding of the Lord’s Supper. There is one true teaching on the Lord’s Supper—and that is the teaching of Jesus. We are Lutherans because we believe that our church’s confession of the Lord’s Supper is the same as our Lord’s. Either we are right or we are wrong. And that is the question that every church has to ask itself. I once had a discussion with a pastor from another church who thought that the Lutheran church was mean to require everyone to believe our opinion on the Lord’s Supper—but you see, we simply believe that we are requiring everyone to believe what Jesus says about the Lord’s Supper. If you don’t believe that, then be honest, and go join another church before it’s to late, and let us die our own quiet death, if you think that’s what’s going to happen.
People often say: But doesn’t Jesus say “do this in remembrance of me”? Doesn’t this mean that it’s a remembrance meal, and that’s he’s not really here, but that we just remember him through eating and drinking?
No—that is completely and totally wrong. For us in modern times, we think “remembering” means “thinking”. But in the bible, “remembering” means “doing something”. So think about Joseph in prison: he says to Pharaoh’s cup-bearer, “remember me when you speak to Pharaoh.” Joseph doesn’t want him to simply think about him when he’s talking to Pharaoh—what use would that be! He wants him to put in a word for him, and something for him!
Or what about the thief on the cross who says: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He doesn’t want Jesus to think about him in his kingdom while he’s writhing away down in hell! He wants him to save him and do something for him. And so Jesus says: “Today, you will be with me in Paradise!” Yes! I’ll do something for you.
So how do we remember Jesus in the Lord’s Supper? Does Jesus mean that we should think about him? Of course. But we remember Jesus not in the past, but present here in the bread and wine, and remember him by eating his body and drinking his blood.
Of course, we should think about him. The body of Christ is given for us, and the blood of Christ shed for us for the forgiveness of sins. So of course we should come to Christ with our sins—as completely corrupt sinful people—and give them to him in the Lord’s Supper just as if we were standing underneath the cross and laying them there.
Lutherans might say: hang on… is the Lord’s Supper really the heart and centre of the church? What about justification by faith?
Well—you see—justification by faith is not an idea. It’s a reality, an event, that actually happens in the church. There’s no justification by faith without the sacraments. Jesus gives you baptism, and you simply believe that through baptism Jesus saves you. That’s justification by faith. Jesus speaks his words of forgiveness to you—you trust that those words are true. That’s justification by faith. Jesus gives you his body and blood to eat and drink, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. You stick out your hand and you believe exactly what Jesus says that it is and what it’s for, and that’s justification by faith!
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But there’s one more thing that should be mentioned in relation to Maundy Thursday. On this day, Jesus unfolds for us such beautiful words that every Christian should embed deep in their flesh and imprint on their hearts. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
But here’s the great problem. We don’t know what Christian love means anymore. Love is a great gift of God that brings such unity and closeness in the church. But we don’t have unity in the church simply because we love each other. We have unity in the church on the basis of the words of Jesus Christ.
We live in a society with many clubs and many groups. The church is not one of them. Clubs are for this life—the church of God is for eternity. If there’s a problem in the church, the solution is not to keep everyone happy and sweep the problem under the carpet, as might happen in some other organisation. If there is a problem in the church, it always has to do with sin, and the answer is always the forgiveness of sins. There is such an idolatry in the church today where people openly reject the words of Jesus simply to keep people happy: and then we call it love. Jesus calls it sin.
Martin Luther said: I will have no friends at all, if it means hindering God’s word.
The Lutheran Church should never enter into fellowship with another church, or cooperate in mission with another church, if the words of Jesus surrounding the Lord’s Supper is compromised. If we do this, we would be playing a three-legged race with a corpse. There can never be any church unity without the true teaching of the Lord’s Supper. You can’t be the body of Christ if you don’t believe it’s there for you to eat. And there are plenty of churches without a united teaching on the Lord’s Supper, where people in the same church believe completely different things about the Lord’s Supper. Once again, churches like this are completely ill-equipped to prepare people to meet their Lord. They will not last until the second coming.
When Lutherans visit churches of other denominations, they shouldn’t receive the Lord’s Supper there, because to do so would weaken your confession and faithfulness to the word of God. That doesn’t mean that we don’t pray with all our might the words that Jesus also prayed in his great prayer on Maundy Thursday: “that they may all be one.” But people often forget the basis of this unity which Jesus also gives to us in the same prayer in John 17: “Sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth.”
When it comes to gathering together around Jesus and his words, and sharing a common conviction in the truth, then Jesus says: Love one another. When it comes to gathering together simply to love another, without any regard for God’s word, and without acknowledging Jesus, without the recognition of his real bodily presence in the church, then Jesus says: Behold I am sending you out as sheep into the midst of wolves. Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
In order to have a renewed reverence for the Lord’s Supper, we need to take the words of St Paul seriously too, which say: Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.
So you see, it’s possible to receive the Lord’s Supper in a good way and in a bad way. If we want to understand our Lord’s words about “loving one another”, we need to understand these words of St Paul about the Lord’s Supper. The historic practice of the Lutheran Church has always been not to admit people to the Lord’s Supper who are not part of our church fellowship. This is because we want to make sure that everyone receives the Lord’s Supper to their benefit, and not to their judgment—and this issue needs to be taken seriously. The Ausgburg Confession—the founding confession of our church—says that no-one is to be admitted to the Lord’s Supper unless they have been examined and absolved. Are we really showing Christian love if we simply allow people to eat and drink judgment on themselves?
To become a Lutheran, does not mean that you join up with a club. The Lutheran Church is not a gentlemen’s or ladies’ club for Norwegians, or Germans, Latvians, or Nuers, or even South Australians. To be a Lutheran is to join in a common witness to the purity of the word of God and to remain firm in that confession and witness until Christ returns in glory.
To work together as a church towards strong education and faithful practice and stewardship of the Lord’s Supper, both lay people and pastor together—if we really set all out efforts on that goal as a congregation—then the blessings of Christ’s new commandment to love one another will have their full effect in every arm and leg and finger, because our love for each other will be hand in hand with the words of Jesus and the reality of his Supper given for us. The words from St John’s letter will be brought to fulfilment: Little children, let us not love in word and talk but in deed and in truth.
As Jesus says in our gospel reading today: “If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”
So remember, the Lord’s Supper is a great gift—and it is there for you, and it is for the forgiveness of sins. You can have no doubt at all that Christ lives in you. In the Lord’s Supper, there have even more than Adam and Eve did in paradise: your soul is fed with the flesh of your creator who loves you. Your conscience is sprinkled clean from all guilt with Jesus’ holy and precious blood. Christ, our vine, releases all his juices into the branches—Christ feeds his members with his own body. You are even invited to feast at the same banquet that you will taste and see with your own mouth in heaven. And all the angels cover their eyes in reverence and adoration, as they see the holy flesh of Jesus intimately united in one person with the divine nature.
And in the midst of all of this, Jesus says: A new commandment I give to you, that you love another.
Amen.
Jesus Christ, you are the Bread of Life, the Living Bread that came down from heaven. You are the Light of the world. You are the Door to eternal life. You are the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. You are the Resurrection and the Life. You are the Way, the Truth and the Life. You are the true vine. Come, and be our wisdom and our righteousness, and let us increase in love for your holy supper, and therefore for each other. Amen.
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