Sermon for
Maundy Thursday, April 2, 2026
Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you in Christ
Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Matthew 26:26-29 26While
they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the
disciples. He said, “Take, eat, this is
my body.” 27Then he took the
cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it all of you, 28for
this is my blood of the new testament, which is poured out for many for the
forgiveness of sins. 29I tell
you that I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now until that day
when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom. (EHV)
Christ
gives His body and blood for you.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ
Jesus,
We
have been preparing for this night for the past six weeks, but what have we
been doing to prepare? To be honest,
perhaps not much. Some may have given up
some treat or activity for Lent. Many of
us have attended midweek services in which we heard about the last few days and
hours of Jesus’ passion. On the other
hand, I pray that you have spent these six weeks of Lenten preparation
considering your guilt and need for a Savior, and therefore, have spent these
six weeks, as we should always, in repentance so that you are ready to receive
the forgiveness of our Lord.
For about three years, Jesus
had been preparing His disciples for this night, preaching the Good News of the
Messiah entering our world, healing the sick, performing miracle after miracle
that showed His divine power, calling sinners to repentance, and announcing in
advance what He was prepared to do as Christ gives His body and blood for
you.
As part of our ongoing review
of our catechism, this evening we look at the list of questions Luther recommended
before partaking of the body and blood of God’s Son. I encourage you to open your hymnal now to
that list on pages 38-39. Luther gave us
20 questions to consider as we prepare for the Lord’s Supper. Most likely, when you were in confirmation
class, your pastor encouraged you to use this list every time you were coming
to the altar of our Lord for this meal.
If you are like me, however, you’ve likely grown a bit lackadaisical
about doing that review. This evening,
permit me to review with you just the first nine questions, all very short, and
I pray these are your answers:
1.
Do
you believe you are a sinner? Yes, I
believe it; I am a sinner.
2.
How
do you know this? From the Ten
Commandments, which I have not kept.
3.
Are
you sorry for your sins? Yes, I am
sorry that I have sinned against God.
4.
What
have you deserved from God by your sins?
His wrath and displeasure, temporal death and eternal damnation. (Romans
6:21 & 23)
5.
Do
you also hope to be saved? Yes, such
is my hope.
6.
In
whom, then, do you trust? In my dear
Lord Jesus Christ.
7.
Who
is Christ? The Son of God, true God
and man.
8.
How
many Gods are there? Only one; but
there are three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
9.
What,
then, has Christ done for you that you trust in Him? He died for me and shed His blood for me on
the cross for the forgiveness of sins.
The questions that follow
on Luther’s list are not less important, and I encourage you to give them your
attention going forward, but for tonight, this is the highlight I want to focus
on, that Christ gives His body and blood for you.
As we reviewed these
questions, what did we offer to God to induce Him to sacrifice His Son so that
we might have forgiveness and life? The
true answer is that we did nothing, except the sin that Jesus died to pay for. From the very beginning, God rightly
commanded our obedience, and almost from the very beginning mankind has been
sinning against our Creator and God. You
and I were no different. King David
recognized that from the moment of conception we are inclined to sin. In fact, David understood that because our
first parents rebelled against God, their sin-infected nature has been passed
down to each and every one of us, with the result that as we are formed in our
mothers’ wombs, we have no trust in God or what He has done for us.
In the confession of sin inserted
in this list of questions, we said we are sorry for our sins, but being sorry
doesn’t pay the price our guilt required.
The law demands perfection, and justice demands death for sin. As sinners, we deserved God’s wrath and
everlasting exile in the punishment of hell.
At the same time, what kind of God would subject His children to such a
fate? Well, the answer to that question
is a God who is both perfectly holy and perfectly just. His holiness demands that we must be righteous
and without any sin to be in a relationship with Him. God’s justice requires that the consequence
of breaking the law must be carried out.
There can be no exceptions, or God would be neither holy nor just.
Sometimes, people ask, why
does God allow so much death in our world?
In truth, it is because of sin that death comes to all people, and
whether that is when they are young or old, it is not because God is indifferent. Rather, God wants to save us from the curse
of sin. Now, you and I couldn’t purchase
release from the death sentence we deserve.
We owed that debt to God for our guilt.
Yet, the only way we could pay the debt would be to spend eternity in
hell’s prison.
Still, our God desired a
relationship with mankind. This was
God’s whole purpose in creating this world.
And, as the apostle declared, “God is love.” (1 John 4:16) Therefore, because our Lord Jesus is the
embodiment of God’s love, He put Himself in our place on that cross. God sent His Son to be the atoning sacrifice
that allows Him to punish our guilt at the same time that He declares us justly
innocent of all charges.
Now, since the time God
rescued Israel out of Egypt, He had commanded the sacrifice of a lamb in remembrance
of His plan of salvation. The night of
the last plague on Egypt, God commanded that the blood of the lamb be painted
on the doorposts and lintels of Israel so that as He was wreaking vengeance on
Egypt for rejecting Him, the Lord would pass over those houses, and the people
inside were spared from death. God
commanded that Passover sacrifice be repeated annually until the final
sacrifice it foreshadowed would be accomplished. God wanted all people to know and remember
that the sacrifice of His Lamb would finally set them free from slavery and
death.
Therefore, it is in this His
last Passover celebration that Jesus gives us a new covenant. The old covenant painted a picture of what
Jesus was doing for us, but now, the real event was at hand. Thus, “While they were eating, Jesus took
bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples. He said, ‘Take, eat, this is my body.’ Then he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave
it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it all of you, for this is my blood of the new
testament, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’” Just as those sacrificial lambs fed the
people of Israel repeatedly for all those many years, so now, as the Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the world, Jesus gives us His own body and blood:
His body to nourish our souls for eternity; His blood to paint the doorposts of
our hearts marking us as His own chosen people.
In the corrupted reasoning
of natural man, the argument is often made that Jesus couldn’t really give us
His body and blood for all these years.
Many various reasons are imagined.
Yet, being true God as well as true Man, our Lord does exactly as He
promised. His very blood is in, with,
and under the wine; His true flesh is in, with, and under the bread Jesus hands
to us at His table. How can this
be? That we must leave up to our Lord
through whom God created the heavens and the earth. We don’t need to know the how, only what
Jesus does, and what Jesus does is promise that in this eating and drinking, we
receive again the forgiveness of all our sins.
He promises that as we partake of this holy meal, we again receive peace
with His Father in heaven.
So we now know the benefit
that is ours through the amazing gift of Jesus’ body and blood given and shed
for our sins. Yet, for whom is it
given? Just those twelve disciples? Just the Jews descended from Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob? Not hardly, for Jesus boldly
proclaimed, “This is my blood of the new testament, which is poured out for
many for the forgiveness of sins.” Therefore,
we can be confident that if we are sinners, Jesus offers His blood for us. If we believe in Jesus as Savior and
Redeemed, this body and blood is intended for you and me. If we repent our sins, this is the remedy for
our guilt. If we are under the curse of
sin, but God has brought us into His kingdom of grace through Baptism, and if
we have been properly instructed in the Christian faith, this holy meal is
medicine and food for eternal salvation.
There is one other
question in Luther’s list that I want to mention. There are times when people don’t think they
need the Lord’s Supper. Sometimes, they
feel little or no guilt. Others
occasionally feel so guilty they assume they are unworthy of God’s grace (which,
of course, is always true for all people).
Therefore, Luther gives an answer for anyone who doesn’t feel the need
or desire to partake of this forgiveness and life. Question 20 asks, “But what shall a person do
if he is not aware of such trouble and feels no hunger and thirst for the
Sacrament?”
To
such a person no better advice can be given than that, in the first place, he
put his hand into his bosom, and feel whether he still have flesh and blood,
and that he by all means believe what the Scriptures say of it in Galatians 5
and Romans 7. Secondly, that he look
around to see whether he is still in the world, and keep in mind that there
will be no lack of sin and trouble, as the Scriptures say in John 15 and 16; 1
John 2 and 5. Thirdly, he will certainly
have the devil also about him, who with his lying and murdering day and night
will let him have no peace within or without, as the Scriptures picture him in
John 8 and 16; 1 Peter 5; Ephesians 6; 2 Timothy 2.
In other words, dear
friends, if you are still living in the flesh and blood and believe the truths
and promises of the Holy Scriptures, Jesus has the cure for all your sins and
guilt, and He offers it to you freely without cost or any service required on
your part. The Son of God, your Savior,
has loved you so much that He willingly carried your sins into suffering,
shame, death, and hell, so that you can be set free from all guilt and
condemnation, so that you might enjoy forgiveness of all sin and life everlasting
in heaven. Now, may all those who walk
in fellowship with Jesus and this congregation come forward to receive this
great gift of forgiveness and peace as Christ gives His body and blood to
you. Amen.
Now
may the God of hope fill you with complete joy and peace as you continue to
believe, so that you overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
