Sermon Series: Lord's Supper, Part 4 (22-Mar-2015)

This sermon was preached at St Mark's Lutheran Church, Mt Barker, 8.30am, 10.30am.

Click here for a PDF file of this sermon series with pictures and footnotes.

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

I’d like to begin today with the words from Isaiah 6:

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;

The whole earth is full of his glory!

Prayer: Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

As we begin the final sermon of this four part series on the Lord’s Supper, I must say that doing this has been something that has filled me with such tremendous joy. It has been such a privilege for me to speak about the Lord’s Supper! And I also pray that it has been a joy for you to hear and learn some more about this wonderful sacrament that we celebrate so often and which is so much at the centre of our Christian life.

We have such a wonderful Saviour, Jesus Christ, who has done so much more for us than we will ever do for him. He has given his body into death for our sins. He has sacrificed his very life for us sinners. He has shed his blood as the price which pays for and atones for every single corruption and sin and failure and weakness in us that we could ever imagine.

We are so undeserving of his mercy, and yet he shows this mercy continually to us. We are all like sheep who constantly turn away and go astray to our own ways, and yet Jesus, like a faithful shepherd, is always searching for us, always bringing us back to his Father with us on his shoulders. We are so weak, and yet Jesus is always making his power perfect in our weakness. He is always coming to our help and binding up our wounds.

The Lord’s Supper shows us the very character and the very heart of Jesus—that he wants to leave us in no doubt that we are his, that he has died for us, that he will raise us. But he doesn’t want us to find our strength in our own hearts—he gives his body for us to eat and his blood for us to drink to show us that he wants to enter in, and even allow us to see him entering in, so that there can be no doubt in our minds that we are members of his body, and branches on this vine. He wants to show to us that he is in us and we are in him. On the night when Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper, Jesus prayed to his Father: The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you love me. Can you imagine that? Jesus says that he loves his disciples in the same way that his Father loves him. And Jesus says this right after he has given his disciples his body to eat and his blood to drink.

There is so much to be said about the Lord’s Supper—if I only I could say more about it. When I am dead, I won’t have preached a drop of what could be said, and even if I thought I had said everything there was to say, I would still be doing nothing but selling Jesus short. This is the Lord’s Supper, this is the Supper that our Lord Jesus invented, and that our Lord has given to us, and that shows us the character and the heart of our Lord Jesus.

This is why St Paul says: As often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. This Lord’s Supper will continue to the end of the world, and it will continue together with the proclaiming of his death. Where the Lord’s Supper ceases, the church dies. Where the Lord’s Supper continues, the church lives. We can so easily go through the book of Acts and see all those many occasions where Christians gathered together and broke the bread, as it says. What a wonderful miracle that Jesus gives us his body to eat and blood to drink, to pour into our bodies and souls his forgiveness, his life, his salvation! His body is given for you, and his blood is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

Now in 2 Corinthians 4, St Paul says: He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

Last week, we spoke about the action of the Lord’s Supper: the consecration of the bread and wine with Christ’s words so that his body and blood are then present, the distribution of his body and blood with the bread and wine, and then the reception of his body and blood with our mouths and with our hearts.

Today we are going to meditate on what we call the “Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper.” Part of our service, when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper is to consecrate it, to distribute it and to receive it. But as I just said before, St Paul says: As grace extends to more and more people it may increase in thanksgiving to the glory of God. Thanksgiving! Do you hear that? We come here to church to receive this wonderful supper! How else can we receive him than by giving thanks to him? We read: When Jesus took bread, he gave thanks. When he took the cup, he gave thanks.

An older pastor once said to me that in his retirement he was able to visit a lot of different congregations. He said that thanksgiving was often the sign of a healthy congregation. If people didn’t give thanks, he said, they often hadn’t understood the gospel yet.

And so, when we begin the Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper, we say: The Lord be with you. (And also with you.) Lift up your hearts. (We lift them up the Lord). Let us give thanks to the Lord. (For that is fitting and right.)

Now, the word “liturgy” is sometimes a dirty word, and sometimes we often think of a particular order of service. Sometimes we think liturgy is a style of worship—but it’s not. Every church has a liturgy, every church has patterns that it follows in worship. The word “liturgy” means some kind of public service that is performed on people’s behalf. For example, members of the police force perform their duties on behalf of the people of our country to maintain law and order. That’s a policeman’s “liturgy”. But liturgy in the church is something that is carried out not simply for law and order, but in order for you to receive the Gospel and the holy things of God. So the liturgy is a pastor’s public ministry to bring to you God’s life-giving word and the wonderful miracles of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. And the whole church doesn’t simply sit there, staring like cows in a paddock, but we all join together particularly in giving thanks to God for his gifts. So in the service (or the liturgy) of the Lord’s Supper, God gives us his gifts, and we respond to him by giving thanks.

God’s Word and the Lord’s Supper are such wonderful things that our own hearts just simply can’t contain the thanks and the praise and the joy and the magnificence of what is going on. Sometimes we come to church and we’re feeling a bit tired, and we can day-dream and not pay too much attention. This is because our hearts are completely incapable of comprehending the wonder of God’s almighty presence and his holiness.

So, if we’re really going to thank God sufficiently, we’re going to need some help. The word “liturgy” is not used very often in the bible, but it is used in some very significant places. One place is in Hebrews chapter 1, where it talks about the angels. It says: Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation? Here the angels are called: ministering spirits. In Greek, it says: liturgising spirits, spirits who perform a liturgy. You might remember the wonderful passage in the Old Testament where Jacob has a dream and sees God’s angels going up and down on a ladder from earth up to heaven and from heaven down to earth. And he says: How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. This is a bit like our humble little church: and not just St Mark’s in Mt Barker, but in every little church where God’s word is taught in its truth and purity and where the Sacraments are rightly administered. How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. A pastor simply preaches God’s word. But it is God’s angels who bring it to your ears and bring it into your heart. It’s the angels who administer and distribute to you Christ’s body and blood. This is their heavenly service that they perform for you. They come down God’s ladder from heaven to you bringing you God’s wonderful gifts.

But then they also help us to bring our thanksgiving and our praise back up to God. We say: Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord. We can’t even begin to thank God sufficiently without our hearts being lifted up to join in with all of God’s angels. Our praises are so weak and insufficient, and so the angels have to join in and help us with all of their forces and with all of their strength. They have to fill out our ranks and strengthen our voices. And so when we sing praises to God, we say: Therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we adore and magnify your holy name, evermore praising you.

Do you hear those words? Adore, magnify, praise. In Canada, the Inuits (or Eskimos) are said to have over 50 words for snow, because their whole culture is so saturated in snow! In South Sudan, they have many different words to describe the different colours of cows, because their whole culture is saturated in cattle! In the bible, there are so many words for thanks and praise, because the bible is so saturated in God’s holiness: adore, magnify, thanks, bless—the list goes on. And it goes on and on into eternity.

I’d like to read now from Isaiah 6. This is a wonderful passage, and it is sometimes read on Holy Trinity Sunday. But it is also a passage from where we get one of our songs that we sing when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. This passage is where God calls the prophet Isaiah, and he sees a wonderful vision.

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory! And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

After this, we read about Isaiah being called to be a prophet. But there’s a couple of things, I’d like to point out. First, Isaiah says that he saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up. In John’s Gospel, we read: Isaiah said these things because he saw the glory [of Jesus] and spoke [of Jesus]. This is Jesus here in the vision—but before he took on a human body in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Isaiah sees something that is just completely indescribable, someone so amazing that he can’t be uttered in words. Only the hem of his robes fills the temple. In the Gospels, we read about this same wonderful Lord of ours, but now, he has taken a human body. Now we can describe him, now we can tell people what he looks like. Even now in the church, we receive this same Jesus in the Lord’s Supper.

And then Isaiah says that around the Lord Jesus were the seraphim. What’s that? Seraphim are a kind of angel, and angelic creature of God. In Hebrew, the word “seraphim” comes from the word “burning”. These are angels who are like fire: pure, holy, spirits of fire, surrounding the Almighty presence of Jesus. Psalm 104 speaks about them when it says: His ministers [are] a flaming fire. And these seraphim have wings, and it says: they flew, but they also covered their feet and their faces. St Peter says that the Gospel is something so amazing, things into which angels long to look. Jesus is too holy for the angels even to look at.

And so, what do they do? They sing about Christ, they preach Christ, they adore Christ, and they say: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory! This is what we also sing in church. When we sing this, we join in with these fiery spirits, these seraphim, but not just with them, but all the other living creatures that God has created, all the heavenly hosts, all the angels and archangels, and all the company of heaven. This bread and this wine are about to be the things in which Christ is going to be present in his body and blood. And not just to be present, but which he is going to give us to eat and to drink.

And just like the crowd on Palm Sunday welcoming Jesus into the city of Jerusalem, we also sing: Hosanna in the Highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!

But then, let’s go back to Isaiah. We read in verse 4: The foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

And surely, when we come to the Lord’s Supper, we resonate with what Isaiah says. Woe is me! I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips. I am a [woman] of unclean lips. How could Jesus give his body and blood to me? To me! Is it really true? Is his resurrected body really here? Is his purifying blood really here? And he is going to let me eat and drink it? Surely this thing is too holy for a sinner like me.

And yet, Jesus gives this holy food precisely for people like you, who need comfort, who need forgiveness, who need help, who need strength, who need salvation.

And so we read in Isaiah: Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hands a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Here in the Lord’s Supper, we don’t just receive a burning coal on our lips. But we receive something very much like it. We receive the human body and blood of Christ, but just like a fiery coal, this human body of Christ is set aflame by his divinity so that there is one Jesus here, true man and true God. We don’t just receive bread and wine, but bread and wine that is caught on fire like a burning coal by the holy and life-giving flesh and blood of our Lord Jesus. And this body and blood is given to people who know their sin and realise that they are sinners. This body and blood is not given to burn them and destroy them, but is given with the gift of forgiveness. Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.

And so, together with the angels of God, we sing: Holy, holy, holy!

But then, back to earth for a moment—do you remember that man in the Gospels who ate bugs and honey for breakfast, and who lived in the wilderness, dressed is a shirt made out of camel’s hair? This offensive, smelly guy also has a word in here. He is also singing together with the angels, together with his Lord Jesus, for whom he lost his head. Even though John’s head was cut off by King Herod, the power of his preaching ministry is all in his finger. Who did John point to? He pointed to Jesus. He must increase, said John, and I must decrease. And so in the Gospels we read, where John says: Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! And so, we also point to Jesus on the altar, in the consecrated bread and wine, and we sing: Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world, have mercy on us. Grant us your peace. Have mercy on us, Jesus, because we are sinners. Grant us your peace, Jesus, because your word of forgiveness is so much more powerful than all our sin put together.

Recently, in the last year, a Danish Lutheran pastor, Børre Knudsen died. He was a particularly bright light shining the gospel in Scandinavia. He was particularly persecuted because of the stand he took in favour of unborn children in Denmark. However, I saw on a documentary, where he was nailing into some wood, and he said: I’m not much good at nailing. I’m not much good at preaching either. I wish that my words were like nails that first of all pierced my own heart before they pierce the hearts of others.

If only we understood our sin like that, when we came to the altar. Have mercy on us, Lamb of God! But also, if only the light which pours out from Jesus’ body and blood would also pierce through us like life-giving nails that we would have such confidence and boldness and joy in the wonderful forgiveness, life and salvation that is given to us in this Supper! Grant us your peace, Lamb of God!

What a wonderful Saviour we have here who comes to feed us in the Lord’s Supper! Blessed is this Lord Jesus who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest! Amen.

Dear Lord Jesus, we are not worthy that you should come under our roof, but only speak your holy and life-giving word, and we your servants shall be healed. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts! Hosanna in the Highest! Amen.