This sermon was preached at St Matthew's Lutheran Church, 8.15am, and Grace Lutheran Church, Childers, 10.30am.
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and
from our Lord Jesus Christ.
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.” (1 Cor 11:23-24)
Prayer:
May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in
your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Today’s sermon is the second of a
three-part series on the teachings of the Reformation. This year, 2017, we are
commemorating the 500th anniversary since Martin Luther nailed his
95 Theses on the church doors in Wittenberg. Next week, we are going to
celebrate this anniversary. In last week’s sermon, we were looking at the Doctrine
of Justification by faith alone. This is the teaching that we are saved
by faith in what Jesus Christ did on the cross and in his resurrection for us.
We cannot earn salvation by anything that we do. This teaching is so foundation
for us as Christians, and as Lutherans, because it answers the most important
question anybody on this earth can ask: What must I do to be saved? We spoke
particularly last week about the fact that God’s law exposes our sin, and the
Gospel teaches sinners what their Saviour has done for them.
In our sermon this week, we are going
to talk about Lord’s Supper. This is also such an important topic
because the Lord’s Supper is right at the very centre of the church, and who we
are as Christians. The Lord’s Supper is the wonderful food that Jesus prepares
for us which continually strengthens us as we walk on our journey through life:
it is our weekly banquet where Jesus gives us his own body and blood to eat and
to drink.
So let’s first of all read the
Scripture which most clearly speaks about the Lord’s Supper, and that is, the
words of institution. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, we read there
the history of when Jesus instituted his special supper. Also, we read these
words in St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, which read like this: For
I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that 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.” 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.”
In the church, we have all kinds of
different names for the Lord’s Supper. In the Small Catechism, Luther calls it
“The Sacrament of the Altar.” We don’t often use this name anymore, but it is a
useful name to flesh out. A Sacrament is something which God himself has
instituted—this means, it was his idea, he came up with it, he invented it, he
started it off. And through this event, God brings us the forgiveness of sins
through earthly elements, which are attached to his word. So in baptism, the
earthly element is water, and in the Lord’s Supper, the elements are bread and
wine.
Luther calls it the “Sacrament of the
Altar” because the Lord’s Supper normally takes place at the altar. In the Old
Testament, the altar was the place where the people offered their sacrifices to
God, but for us in the church today, the altar is the place where God places
the sacrifice of his own Son for our benefit. Already two-thousand years ago,
Christ died on the cross and offered his body and blood as a sacrifice. Today,
that same body and blood is placed by God himself on our own altar, so that we
may come and partake of these gifts, and receive them into your mouths.
Sometimes, the Lord’s Supper is called
the “Lord’s Supper”. This name actually comes from the bible itself, where Paul
is rebuking the Corinthians for making a right mess of everything. He says: When
you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper that you eat. It’s as if to
say, it’s just your own supper. But then, Paul goes on to teach them
about the Lord’s Supper and what it is. It’s called a supper, because Jesus
first held it with his disciples in the evening.
We sometimes also call it “Holy
Communion”, which comes from St Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 10, where he
says: The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the
blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body
of Christ? That word, “participation”, can also be translated, a
“communion”. This means we share in something—Jesus shares his body and blood
with us in the bread and wine, so that we have this communion with him.
Also, sometimes, people call it the Eucharist, which means “a thanksgiving”. It
comes from the Greek word, “thank you”. It is a word that means something like
the “thanksgiving dinners” which happen every year in America.
In Luther’s Small Catechism, we have a
very clear statement about what our church believes about the Lord’s Supper. He
says: The Sacrament of the Altar 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.
The most important thing to discuss
when it comes to the Lord’s Supper is what it is. Our church believes and
teaches that it is the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Actually,
Luther has a very significant word which he puts there in the catechism. He
says: it is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now why
does he put in this word “true”? Because there are many people who don’t
believe that it really is the body and blood of Christ, and that it is only a
symbol. Actually, if we take the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox
Church (that means, the Greek church and the Russian church), the Oriental
Orthodox Church (which is the Coptic Orthodox from Egypt and Ethiopia), and the
Lutherans, this is the most widely held belief about the Lord’s Supper by
Christians all around the world today, and the most widely held belief throughout
Christian history.
However, many Christians today don’t
believe it, and these are the churches which follow the Reformed opinion.
Many—in fact, most—protestant churches hold this opinion. This is the opinion
which says that the bread and wine only represent or symbolise the
body and blood of Jesus. Lutherans don’t believe this—our church teaches that
the Lord’s Supper is the body and blood of Christ. Why do we hold to this so
strongly? The reason is, because on the night Jesus was betrayed, he said: This
is my body. This is my blood. He didn’t say that it represented his
body, and he didn’t say that it symbolised his body. He said: This is
my body.
Now, there are three reasons why people
often disagree with this. Firstly, people say: There are other passages in
Scripture where Jesus talks in a figurative way about himself. For example, he
says: I am the vine. Or: I am the door for the sheep. Now, yes,
that is true. But this is a different context. In those passages, Jesus is
using a picture of himself to teach his disciples something. With respect to
the vine, he is not saying he represents a vine. Jesus is not some
insignificant person who represents a cosmic, alien vine in outer-space
somewhere. What he saying is that just as a vine has branches, so also we
Christians and disciples of Jesus are members of Jesus, we are made part of his
body, just like branches on a vine. And just as a vine sends the juice and sap
out to all the branches and fruit, so also Jesus fills us with all the gifts of
his Holy Spirit, and every gift that we need as we live in his kingdom.
But the Lord’s Supper is a very
different thing. Firstly, this happened on the night when he was betrayed. This
was his final meal with his disciples. Just as when Jacob was about to die and
gathered his sons to give them a blessing, so also Jesus shares this supper
with his disciples just as he is about to die. And what do you know about
writing a will? You don’t mess around with language. You don’t talk in such a
way that can be taken in two ways. Now, this is not just anyone’s will—this is
Jesus’ will, and he is the Lord of heaven and earth. He is speaking straight
here. He is not messing around with his words. When he says: This is my body,
he means that it is his body.
Also, sometimes people say that the
answer to the problem lies in the words: Do this in remembrance of me. Some
people say: It can’t really be his body, because he says that it is for
remembering him. So they say: The Lord’s Supper is simply nothing more than
bread and wine, and when we eat and drink it, we remember Jesus. Now, recently,
in another sermon, I was talking about this point. In English, when we say
“remember” we often mean something that goes on in our heads. But in Hebrew,
“remembering” is something that people do. A very clear example of this is when
the thief on the cross says to Jesus: Remember me, when you come into your
kingdom. He is not simply asking Jesus to think about him, when Jesus is in
heaven and the thief has gone to hell. He is not saying, “Remember the good
times we had when we on the cross together.” The thief is saying, “When you
come into your kingdom, I want you to bring me with you.” I don’t want you
simply to think about me, and remember who I was, but I want you to do
something for me, and to take me with you. And this is exactly what Jesus does.
He says: Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise. That’s
how Jesus remembers him. He brings him to heaven with him.
And so, in the Lord’s Supper, we do
remember Jesus. We remember the wonderful things that Jesus for us and for our
salvation. But we don’t remember him, while he is far away and we are all the
way down here. He actually comes to meet us, and we remember him in his
presence. We remember the fact that he is here! And when Jesus says: Do this
in remembrance of me, what is the thing that we actually do? Is it just
eating bread and wine? No… The thing that we do in remembrance of Jesus is to
eat his body and to drink his blood. Just as Jesus remembered the thief on the
cross and brought him with him into heaven, so also Jesus comes and meets us on
earth, giving us his body and blood to eat and drink in remembrance of him.
The third thing that people often say
is that it is simply not possible. They say: Jesus is sitting at the right hand
of God, so he can’t be here on earth in the Lord’s Supper. Yes, it’s true:
Jesus ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God. But the
thing we need to come back to is the fact that Jesus said: This is my body,
this is my blood. If that’s what Jesus said, then we need to leave it up to
him to work out how this is possible. But not only that, remember that Jesus
actually went and met Paul and converted him on the road to Damascus. Later
when Paul was in prison, Jesus went and met him and encouraged him and said: Take
courage, for as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you
must testify also in Rome. Even though Jesus ascended into heaven, he could
still come and encourage his people. Also, when Jesus gave his disciples the
command to baptise, he said: I am with you always to the end of the age. He
also said: Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the
midst of them. Also, remember that Jesus is both true man and true God. We
can’t make our body and blood present in churches all throughout the world,
because we are not gods. But Jesus has all the power in heaven and earth in his
hands, and he knows how to bring about what he promises in his own words.
But the other thing we need to remember
is this: Jesus body and blood is not dead flesh and dead blood. We are not
cannibals or vampires here. Jesus is risen from the dead, and his whole body is
glorified in a wonderful and amazing way because he is also true God. And so,
Jesus did not say: This is my arm, or this is my fingernail. At the same time,
he didn’t say: this is my spirit, or this is my soul. He said: This is my
body, and this is my blood. This is his miracle which he performs,
and he gives these things to us in a glorious, invisible way.
Now, if we actually believe that Jesus
comes to meet us in the church, to give us his body and blood in this way, this
completely changes the way we think about what the church is, and why we are
here. I once heard the story about an American theology professor, who visited
a Lutheran church in Latvia. Now Latvia was part of the U.S.S.R. for a long
time, under communism, and during those years it was very difficult to be a
Christian because the church was outlawed in certain ways. So this professor
went early to church and sat in the back, and saw a young woman come into the
church and she got down on her hands and knees and prostrated herself on the
floor to pray, and then got up. The American professor was quite stunned, and
said to the young woman, “Why did you do that?” The young woman said, “Why
didn’t you?” It’s as if to say: If you know whose house this is, and who it is
that comes and meets us here, wouldn’t you be completely in awe?
There’s a wonderful event in the
gospels where a blind beggar hears the sounds of a noisy crowd and asks about
it. We read: They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” This is
exactly what happens in the Lord’s Supper: Jesus of Nazareth passes by and he
comes right into this place to meet us and to feed us. If you were alive in
those days, you wouldn’t sit at home and say: “Never mind, I’ll see him some
other time”, or “I’ll pray to him later.” No—you’d go out and meet him, just
like the blind beggar did! The problem is, so many people don’t realise that
they are blind, and they don’t know that Jesus is here and comes to meet them.
But this is what Jesus promises when he says: This is my body. Do this in
remembrance of me.
There’s so much to say about the Lord’s
Supper, and we can’t say it all in our sermon today. In fact, the great gift of
the Lord’s Supper is something that we can spend our whole lifetimes learning,
and we still won’t fathom its depths! It is my prayer that the Lord’s Supper—together
with Baptism and God’s word—is the thing that is right at the centre of our
life together as Christians here in this place. And old Christian writer once
called the Lord’s Supper “a medicine of immortality, an antidote, that we may
not die but live in God through Jesus Christ, a cleansing remedy through
warding off and driving out evils.” (Ignatius
of Antioch). Or another old Christian writer
said: “If those who touched the hem of His garment were properly healed, how
much more shall we be strengthened if we have Him in us whole?” (John Chrysostom)
But before we finish, we need to
realise something very profound. If Jesus is going to come and enter into us in
this wonderful way, how is it going to happen without him completely
overpowering us with his majesty and even destroying us? How is it going to
happen that Jesus does not completely crush us with the weight of his glory, he
being so perfect, are we being so weak and sinful? It can only happen in one
way: He has to forgive us our sins. And this is exactly what Jesus does. He
says: This is my body, which is given for you. This is my blood of the new
covenant which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. The Lord’s
Supper, not only gives us Jesus’ body and blood, but he also gives us the
promise of the forgiveness of sins connected to it. And this word of Jesus
commands faith from us, it calls us to believe this and to trust in it.
And so, it is not the sinless who are
worthy to come to the Lord’s Supper, and to feast on these gifts. It is those
who know their sin, and want to change their lives, and lead a completely new
one. If we are honest, we realise that our old self is always a complete
disappointment, and we are always failing to lead the Christian life we know we
should. And so, we come to Jesus, with everything that is on our hearts and our
minds, with all our failures and all our griefs and sorrows, and we place them
all into his hands. And he gives us his body and blood to eat and to drink,
given for you, and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. This is his last
will and testament, he reads it allowed to you his family, and he gives you
your inheritance right into your mouths. If only we could understand what a
precious gift this is! As we often say in our service: May he strengthen you
with his Sacrament that your joy may be full! Amen.
Dear Lord Jesus, we thank you for the
wonderful gift of the holy supper of your body and blood, given and shed for us
for the forgiveness of sins. Help us to treasure this wonderful gift which you
have given to your church on earth, as we sing and praise your name together
with the angels, the archangels and with all the company of heaven. Amen.
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