Sermon for Maundy Thursday, March 28, 2024
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
Luke 22:7-20 7The day of Unleavened Bread
arrived, when it was necessary to sacrifice the Passover lamb. 8Jesus sent Peter and John,
saying, “Go prepare the Passover for us, so that we may eat it.” 9They said to him, “Where do you
want us to prepare it?” 10He
told them, “Just as you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet
you. Follow him into the house that he
enters. 11Tell the owner of
the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, “Where is the guest room, where I may eat
the Passover with my disciples?”’ 12He
will show you a large, furnished upper room.
Make preparations there.” 13They
went and found things just as he had told them, and they prepared the
Passover. 14When the hour had
come, Jesus reclined at the table with the twelve apostles. 15He said to them, “I have eagerly
desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, 16for I tell
you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17He took a cup, gave thanks, and
said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves, 18for I tell you,
from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God
comes.” 19He took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it
and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20In the same way, he took the cup
after the supper, saying, “This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is
being poured out for you.” (EHV)
A new covenant given
for you.
Dear friends of the Lamb,
It’s hard
to imagine anyone being more alone than Jesus.
I know that sounds silly, because Jesus had been surrounded by massive
crowds for three years, and He gathered that night with His twelve closest
disciples. Yet, consider how alone Jesus
was in His human condition. He alone was
the only perfectly righteous Man ever to live after the fall into sin. Therefore, in every aspect of life, Jesus kept
Himself separate even as He interacted with others. Where people might make crude jokes, Jesus
stood apart as perfectly innocent. When
temptations struck those around Him, Jesus remained resistant to the temptation—holy
in every thought, word, and deed.
Even more so, as Jesus carried out His
ministry, almost everyone who came to Jesus, came because they were seeking
help only He could give. They came for
healing from every kind of disease. They
came to Him when they were hungry. They
came asking Him to decide between arguing brothers. They came always with their hands out looking
for a favor, for an answer to questions.
They came expecting Jesus, alone, to build for them a world-wide kingdom
of power and dominance.
As Jesus gathered with His disciples that
night, only Jesus knew what lay ahead for Him.
Again, Jesus was all alone. He
knew that Judas had arranged to betray Him.
Jesus knew that each of those disciples would run away in His time of
trial. He knew that Peter would deny
even knowing Him. He knew the crowds
that welcomed Him into Jerusalem with great shouts of acclaim just days earlier
would, that next early morning, cry out for crucifixion of this Son of David. No one would stand with Jesus.
Perhaps that is the rub isn’t it? People came to Jesus with all kinds of
selfish expectations, but few, if any, came to Jesus because they knew Him as
their Savior from sin. Of course, that
is the way it had to be, because we all were separated from God by sin. None of us could do anything on our own to be
reconciled with God, so God came to earth in His Son to establish A new
covenant given for you.
The Passover meal was an annual event that
commemorated God’s deliverance of the people of Israel from their bondage of
slavery in Egypt. In that meal, the
people ate the flesh of the lamb whose blood saved them from the avenging angel
as he passed through Egypt striking down every first born in the land. Now, the first born of God and Mary declared,
“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I
tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.”
Was it because He was lonely that
Jesus wanted to eat this meal with His friends?
Was it because He loved the ceremony that caused Jesus to say this?
No, all of this was God’s plan from the moment
sin entered the world. God created this
world to have a peaceful, loving relationship with the people He had created in
His image. Yet, that image was soon
shattered in mankind by sin. Therefore, Jesus
eagerly desired to eat this meal, because His whole purpose in life was the
culmination of God’s plan to reconcile Himself with mankind—to reconnect
mankind with the image of God through the sacrifice of His Son to cover the
sins of all people.
As Jesus reclined for that Passover meal, He knew
full well the suffering, pain, mockery, and death He would undergo later that
night and through the next day, as we count the days. Still, He was eager to go through that to
bring back together you and me, and all who believe, in harmony with God in
heaven. The original Passover was a two-way
covenant in which God promised that those who followed His instructions would
be protected from death. God had made
several other similar two-way covenants with Israel, but Israel had broken
every covenant.
Now, Jesus was giving a covenant of peace and
reconciliation that was a declaration of God’s love for sinners, a promise of
forgiveness and peace with God, a meal that puts in our mouths, sacramentally,
the very body and blood of the Lamb sacrificed for the sins of all sinners of
all time. There was no if for our side
to do. There is no condition mankind
must live up to in order to receive God’s promised blessing.
When Jesus took up the bread and the cup, He
knew the sins of those who were receiving the bread and wine. He knew they were being covered by His
sacrifice. He took bread, and when he
had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body,
which is given for you. Do this in
remembrance of me.” In the same way, he
took the cup after the supper, saying, “This cup is the new testament in my
blood, which is being poured out for you.”
A testament is a covenant, a promise of action
or gift. God’s gift to us is the
forgiveness of sins won for us in the suffering and death of His Son. For every time we have acted like Peter and
denied knowing Jesus because we were afraid to let people know He is our
Savior, Jesus paid the price. For every
time we felt like Judas, when the temptations of the world pulled our hearts to
grasp for something other than the love of God, Jesus paid the price. For even those times when the devil whispers
in our ears that we have sinned too greatly for God to forgive us, when that
liar tries to steal away the grace of God from our hearts and make us feel
worthless before the judgment of God, Jesus paid the price of death for you and
me.
Jesus holds out A new covenant given for
you. That is what this supper is all
about. This meal is not just a memorial
to Jesus. Certainly, He wants us to
remember what He has done for us to rescue us from certain destruction, but
this meal is about Jesus reminding us how He has reconnected us with God. It is putting Jesus’ flesh and blood in our
mouths, again sacramentally in with and under the bread and wine. With every time we celebrate the Lord’s
Supper, Jesus is there in that meal showing us that He truly gave Himself as
payment for our sins. And, each time we
eat and drink, trusting that Jesus has given us His righteousness in place of
our sins, we preach Christ crucified for sinners to those around us.
I said Jesus was so alone in this world. The reason He was in this world was to bring
us back together with Him, and with each other.
Our sins had separated us from God, but how often don’t our sins
separate us from each other as well?
With His holy life put on the line for us, and by taking all of our sins
on Himself as He went to the cross to pay for sins He didn’t commit, Jesus was
taking sin out of the picture. With this
meal, Jesus invites the repentant betrayer to partake and be healed. With His flesh and blood in the bread and
wine, Jesus is telling the repentant thief that his guilt is covered. He tells all of us, no matter how much
baggage of sin we carry, that we are welcome at the banquet feast of heaven
because of what He suffered for us all.
No, Jesus doesn’t invite us to sin freely. That would be a foolish idea. Instead, He invites forgiven sinners to enter
into His presence to be comforted and strengthened by a meal that cannot be
compared to any other. King David sang, “You
set a table for me in the presence of my foes.” (Psalm 23:5) That night, as Jesus knew Judas was betraying
Him, and He knew the Jewish leaders were scheming His immediate death, as He
knew the disciples would abandon Him in fear, Jesus set a table of peace for
them—a meal to give them hope and strength for the future. That is what Jesus gives us as well.
Through His body and blood, Jesus is refreshing
our trust in His sacrifice for our sins.
In this meal, Jesus is strengthening us to face the world which is
always hostile to Him and to His Father’s will.
As we remember Jesus and proclaim His death until He comes with our
eating and drinking, Jesus is also giving us confidence that our sins are
forgiven, and we have peace with God that will never again be broken, because
Jesus’ body broken for us brings us together again in one great fellowship in
His body, the Church.
The day is coming when Jesus will return in
glory. A day is also coming for each of
us to meet God face to face, whether as Jesus returns to judge the world on
Judgement Day, or as we are gathered home in death. Regardless of the way we are brought before
God’s judgment, Jesus has established A new covenant given for you—a
promise of peace—a surety of hope—a commitment from Jesus that we are welcome
in God’s presence because of the sacrifice He made for you and me. All sin was put on Jesus, so that the Father
would count all people forgiven for Jesus’ sake, so that we may dine forever at
the wedding banquet with our Savior and King in the everlasting glory of
heaven. Amen.
To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. Amen.
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