Grace,
mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
The sermon
text for today was inspired by the Holy Spirit through the apostle St Paul, whom
Jesus converted and called on the road to Damascus, in his First Letter to the
Corinthians, chapter 11, which was our second reading tonight. And I’ll read a
couple of verses:
For I
received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the
night 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.” In
the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new
covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
Prayer: Lord
Jesus Christ, send to all of us your Holy Spirit, to me that I may preach well,
and to all of us that we may hear well. May the words of my mouth and the
meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our
Redeemer. Amen.
At the end
of the book of Genesis, we read about where the old man, Jacob, goes down to
Egypt. He has been reunited with his long lost son, Joseph, who was sold by his
brothers as a slave, and now became a prince in Egypt. But then comes to time
for Jacob to die—and in Genesis 49, we read about how he gathers all his sons
together, and blesses them one by one. And not long after this wonderful
blessing, we read: When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his
feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.
And as we
come to celebrate Maundy Thursday tonight, we also see a similar thing – Jesus
knows he’s about to die, and so just like Jacob gathering his twelve sons, he
gathers his twelve disciples and he blesses them. But Jesus’ blessing is quite
a different kind of blessing—Jacob gives all his sons individual blessings
which are suitable to each one, but Jesus gives them the same blessing. Jesus
blesses each of the disciples with the words: Take and eat, this is my body
given for you. This is my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Do
this in remembrance of me. And instead of resting his hands on each
of the disciples, like we might imagine Jacob doing with each of his sons,
Jesus by means of simple bread puts his body in their mouths, and by means of
simple wine puts his blood upon their lips. What a wonderful blessing Jesus
gives them! This reminds me of those wonderful words of John, who often called
himself the disciple whom Jesus loved, who was actually there at the
Last Supper: Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed
and in truth.
We come to
church to hear the words of Jesus, and each word he speaks to us is such a
wonderful, loving word. And what Jesus says is not just talk, but it does
things: Jesus loves us in deed and in truth. And at the Last Supper, he says:
This is my body, and he actually gives the disciples his body to eat. He
says: This is my blood, and he actually gives the disciples his blood to
drink. It’s just like when Jesus, together with his Father and the Holy Spirit,
said at the beginning of creation: Let there be light, and there was
light. And just as we still have light in the world today because of those
words, so also in the church, we still have Christ’s body and blood to eat and
drink, because his words and still powerful. And so Jesus fulfils those words: Let
us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
Let us love.
At the beginning of our Gospel reading tonight we read the words: Now
before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to
depart out of the world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the
world, he loved them to the end. Do you see how Maundy Thursday is a night
that is stamped with love? Not just some lovey-dovey soppy love, like in some
Hollywood movie. This is pure love, divine love, love which we can’t begin to
comprehend, and we will never completely understand in our lifetime. But Jesus
shows us this love, and demonstrates it to us in his words and actions. This is
what Maundy Thursday is about. And so Jesus washes his disciples’ feet to show
them what sort of a love he has for them.
Peter
doesn’t fully understand. He says: You will never wash my feet. Jesus
says: What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will
understand. We can never fully understand the depth and the power of the
love which Jesus is showing to us at any given time. So often we look back on
our lives and realise that Jesus was with us powerfully in times when we
thought he might have given up on us. But what a wonderful love it is that
Jesus shows us! We read in Romans: I am sure that neither death nor life,
nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, not
height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And so Jesus
washes his disciples’ feet. And he says: For I have given you an example,
that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you,
a servant is not greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things,
blessed are you if you do them.
Jesus is not
giving his disciples a sacrament of foot-washing. We will have a foot-washing
ceremony later in our service, but this is a re-enactment, not a sacrament. But
through this foot-washing, Jesus wants to teach the disciples: I’m going to
send you out into the world to bring the gospel to all nations. And you need to
know that you are not to go out and get people to serve and wait on you, and to
rub oil on your bunions, and pour you refreshments. You are to go and wait on
those I have called out of the world, you are to serve them, to wash their feet
just like a household slave. This is the kind of love that Jesus teaches the
disciples on Maundy Thursday night.
And so he
says to them: 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.
Jesus says: I
am going to be with you always until the end of the age. I’m going to walk
with you, and work with you, and I’m going to breathe my Holy Spirit on you to
comfort you. But that’s not to say that Jesus will work through us whatever we
do. I read recently where someone said that Jesus does his mission in us and
sends the Holy Spirit through us wherever we go and whatever we do. That’s not
true – when we sin, when we hurt people, when we hate people, when we let our
temper get the better of us, when we curse them instead of blessing them,
no—Jesus is not working through us in whatever we do. It’s not in doing
whatever we like that people will know that we are his disciples, but it’s by
this [that] people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love
for one another.
And then we
go to Jesus, and we say: Look, Jesus, I’m just not as loving as I know I should
be. I’m always giving you a bad name. I get frustrated with people, and I don’t
love them. I get to that crazy intersection of Gawler Street and Hutchinson
Street, and some nincompoop turns right in front of me when he shouldn’t have,
so I honk my horn and give him the finger. And to top it off I’ve got this fish
sticker on the back of my car advertising that I’m a Christian. Well, so much
for the line: By this all people will know that you are my disciples.
So, Jesus,
what do I do? How do I learn this love? How do I get this love?
Jesus knows
very well that you need this love, that you need to study it, that you need to
receive it constantly from him.
In the Small
Catechism, Martin Luther, in his Questions and Answers for those who intend to
go to the Sacrament, writes this question:
Finally, why
do you wish to go to the sacrament, [the Lord’s Supper]?
Answer: That
I may learn to believe that Christ, out of great love, (did you hear that
word?) died for my sin, and also learn from Him to love (there it is
again!) God and my neighbour.
The Lord’s
Supper is a Supper of Christian love. Even the apostle Jude, in his letter, the
second last book in the bible, calls the Lord’s Supper, a love feast. A feast
of love. (Actually, the love feast probably also included not just the
Lord’s Supper but also a further meal together.)
But when St
Paul writes to the Corinthians, the Lord’s Supper is not one of love at all. He
says: When you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For
in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are
divisions among you. He even says: When you come together it is not the
Lord’s Supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own
meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. Shall I commend you in this? No, I
will not!
Those are
very strong words from the apostle Paul. And we can see that even the early
churches didn’t get everything right, as if this was some kind of golden era,
where all these happy smiling Christians were all sitting around in a circle,
holding hands and singing, Kumbaya.
No – they
also, just like us, had to learn how to love.
And so St
Paul says: Let me teach you how to love. I received from the Lord what I
also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night 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.” In the same way also he took
the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do
this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
So Jesus
loves his disciples by speaking his word. He says: This is my body, given
for you. This is my blood of the new covenant, the new testament in my blood, shed
for you for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus through the power of his clear
and pure word, makes the bread and wine something that it wasn’t before. Jesus
had done this kind of miracle before, where he took a sick person, spoke his
word, and made them well. So, it’s no ordinary bread and wine anymore: it’s the
body and blood of Christ. It’s still bread and it’s still wine—but the bread is
united to the body of Christ and the wine to this blood. This is what we call
the consecration. So that if someone were to ask us: what is that food
on the table there? We would say: It’s the body and blood of Christ. And Jesus
doesn’t tell lies. Every word of God proves true. St Paul says: The
blessing cup that we bless, is it not a participation of the blood of Christ?
But it’s not
enough for Jesus simply to consecrate his body and blood. He loves his
disciples by giving his body and blood to them. We read in Mark: After
blessing it, he broke it and gave it to them. He broke the bread so that
they could all have a piece. This is what we call the distribution. Even
in the New Testament, the Lord’s Supper is called the breaking of the bread.
This means, not that Jesus broke it as some great symbolic ritual, but he
broke it so that they could have some.
But it’s not
enough for Jesus simply to give it to them to do whatever they like with it. He
doesn’t want them to put his body in their pockets and take it home. Jesus
loves his disciples by telling them to eat it and drink it. This is what we
call the reception of the Lord’s Supper. He wants to put his body in
their mouths, and he wants to put his blood on their lips.
And all of
this, Jesus says: Do this in remembrance of me. Remembrance doesn’t mean
that it’s not his body, and that the Lord’s Supper is a memorial meal of bread
and wine without his body. Otherwise, Jesus didn’t mean what he said, when he
said: This is my body. No – the Lord’s Supper 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. He says: I want you to eat
my body and drink my blood in remembrance of me. That’s what I want you to do,
when I say: do this.
What
wonderful love Jesus shows to us! Not only does he die on the cross, and rise
again from the dead, but he stays with his church and feeds his own church
himself, with himself, with his body and blood, all throughout Christian history!
So this
Supper that we are going to share together, is the supper where Jesus teaches
us his great divine love. It is here, on our knees, around the altar of God, where
Jesus shapes and forms us in his character, in his mind, in his heart and works
in us that pure love, the love which he shows completely undeserved to us. It’s
especially here in the Lord’s Supper where these words are taught and begin to
come true and take shape: By this all people will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another. All this he does by giving us such
a precious gift: His body and his blood.
May God
bless you with his Holy Spirit as we come to receive this gift tonight, and to
be comforted and strengthened with his precious words!
Amen.
Lord Jesus
Christ, we can’t begin to imagine how you bring about this great miracle in the
Lord’s Supper. But we trust in your words in all their truth and purity: This
is my body given for you. This is my blood shed for your for the forgiveness of
sins. Amen, amen, it shall be so!
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