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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
I’m not entirely sure how long this has been going on, but in recent years it seems like there’s been this fascination among certain groups of Christians with the observance of a Passover meal. And maybe you’ve got friends who do this, and maybe you’ve heard specifically about having this Seder meal. Well, the Seder is the traditional meal that begins at the seven-day observance of Passover, and there’s a very specific way about how it is to be done. It includes certain things to eat, prepared a certain way, eaten in a certain order, certain things to be spoken, and most certainly that it would contain this retelling of the story of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, how Yahweh delivered his people and then instituted this Passover remembrance.
God’s command was that the Passover observance would be kept as a statute forever, and that fathers would be sure to tell their sons that they keep the Passover because of what the Lord did for them when they came out of Egypt. Now unless you have some kind of Jewish ancestor, you probably have no experience with how to do a Seder. If you’re curious, there are plenty of videos on the internet. It also means that you don’t have really probably any ancestral ties to the Exodus, and the main reason now really for these Passover meals is to commemorate that deliverance.
The true Passover meal which God gave to the people of Israel had some pretty hard and fast rules. If you’re really curious about that, you can go look at Exodus 12. Let’s just say that there were some especially stringent requirements for the men. And I doubt that any Christian who is observing a Passover meal today is really too concerned with paying too much attention to all those rules. Honestly, the purpose of a Christian celebrating this meal isn’t really all that clear. Now we maybe suppose some do it for some kind of nostalgic reason that in doing so they are connecting with, perhaps even in their mind communing with the people of Israel.
Perhaps it’s more about some kind of desire to have a ceremony that means something. A rite or observance that pleases them, maybe even pleases God. Maybe to feel like somehow they are now a part of this old covenant. Well, for Moses tonight, we hear about this covenant. The covenant that God made with the people of Israel after he did lead him out of Egypt. Yahweh had given them the Ten Commandments, he had given him all the other laws, the ceremonial laws, the civil laws. He told them how he was gonna run their enemies out of the land of Canaan and prepare it for them, and just every which way that he would bless them.
And then all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” This covenant was then sealed in blood, as we heard Moses took this basin, he threw half of it against the altar, he threw half of it against the people. So again they said, “All the Lord has spoken we will do and we will be obedient.” Except they didn’t, and they weren’t. And within a period of probably about 40 to 50 days, they were already fashioning themselves a golden calf to be the God of their own choosing. Their disobedience would go on and on and on. They would break the covenant and reject this covenant given them by the one true God time and time again.
But the Lord would bring a new covenant, in fact, a New Testament, one in which he had prepared before the foundation of the world. It would be a cure for sin, and it would be the death of death itself. As with other covenants, it would be sealed in blood, for without the shedding of blood there can be no real forgiveness. In the Garden of Eden, the Lord shed blood the first time when he killed the animals, skinned them, and then took it and covered Adam and Eve in their nakedness and their shame and their sin. He established the blood covenant of circumcision with Abram, and of course, he saved the firstborn of Israel by the blood of the Passover lamb.
And so now, almost 1,500 years after that Passover in Egypt, our Lord Jesus Christ, well, he was eager to eat this Passover meal with his disciples, for he knows his hour is coming, his hour of betrayal is near. And so Jesus is outside Jerusalem down in Bethany with his disciples, and he sends two, Peter and John. He sends them into the city to make sure everything is ready. He gives them some very specific instructions because he has special plans for this Passover, and he knows, Judas knows, this is probably a familiar place that they’ve been. Judas knows, and Jesus doesn’t want this betrayal to be premature.
So Peter and John, they carry out Jesus’ instructions. They then go to the temple to have the Passover lamb sacrificed. They join with Jesus and the others, and they go to the upper room that has been prepared for them. And so the Passover meal begins. The first cup, the bitter herbs, the unleavened bread, the Passover roasted lamb. Everything is in order, but something is different tonight.
Suddenly, Jesus announces this coming betrayal. It will be one who is eating with me, someone who is sharing this most intimate of meals with him. Yeah, the disciples were obviously stunned, and in this moment each questioned himself, could it be me? For surely in their simple hearts, they knew every one of them, each one of them, was capable of deceit. But Jesus doesn’t divulge the traitor. Not yet. Instead, Jesus continues with the meal, but once it starts to reach its conclusion, he does something completely new.
He takes the bread, he speaks a blessing over it, he breaks it, he gives it to them saying, “Take this, this is my body.” He takes the cup, most likely the third and final cup of the Passover, he blesses it also, he passes it to them and he says, “This is my blood of the Testament which is poured out for many.” Then signaling that this Passover meal is the last that he will share with them, Jesus says, “I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”
Jesus here is proclaiming his own death in the institution of this supper. We don’t know the exact words of blessing that he spoke, and to be sure, Mark’s account omits many of the words that we hear in the Gospels of Matthew and in Luke, but we can be sure that the disciples understood what was happening, what was happening in the supper. It is the Last Supper. It is the last Passover to be observed. For Jesus establishes this New Testament in His very blood.
In this Testament, this isn’t merely a contract, something to be entered into or gone out of as the situation or as feelings dictate. This is a testament that would be enacted upon the death of Christ. It is immutable. It is written in blood. And it is Jesus’ will that they and we receive the benefits of his death. All he asks of us is that we believe what he says.
But that often proves hard to do, for at times we doubt what his words mean. Our sinful human hearts lead our brains to think too much. Jesus tells us, “This is my body and this is my blood.” But we ask what the meaning of “is” is. Maybe Jesus really meant this bread, it represents my body and this fruit of the vine, it represents my blood. Or we doubt because we just don’t understand how this is physically possible, how Jesus can be simultaneously with the Father in heaven and yet right there on that altar.
Or maybe we hear Jesus say, “This do in remembrance of me,” and we think that’s all we have to do, just remember the supper. You don’t actually have to partake of it, but these words don’t relegate this supper to a mere memorial meal, or they don’t even make it optional. For in remembering him, we remember his suffering and death on the cross. Luther wrote, “His chief desire is that we shall not forget him, that we have the memory of his passion and not forget how he died for us upon the cross and rose again from the dead.”
The supper wasn’t instituted as a mere observance so that Christ might be honored, for he doesn’t need our praise. It is because we need his forgiveness. We need this supper so we should cherish it for its benefits. Or somehow we don’t believe his words, “shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” How can there be forgiveness in these physical elements of bread and wine?
Yes, if we separate the two from one another, the words and the elements, they certainly are not efficacious, but taken together, they are the means of grace in this supper. It is not a symbolic act, but it gives us a true remission of sin. So we shouldn’t doubt Jesus’ words, but Satan, Satan’s always there, he’s always on our shoulder waiting and ready to sow the seeds of doubt, much like he did with Eve. He’s there to say to us, “Did God actually say?” Yes, he actually said it. But Christ’s lips say and speak, “So it is.”
Perhaps, maybe for me most distressing, is we don’t think we’re worthy of the body and blood of Christ. We think our sin is too great, or we are just too weak to receive him. Well, here’s a newsflash: it is just that these times that we truly need to be fed and nourished by him. Worthiness depends on faith in the words, not our feelings. From the small catechism we hear, “That person is truly worthy and well-prepared who has faith in these words, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”
So thanks be to God that the grace he gives us in his Holy Supper is not contingent on us, it’s not dependent on our worthiness, for none of us are truly worthy based on our own merits. Or maybe last, some see the practice of examination, maybe even pastoral counsel, before the supper as exclusion rather than inclusion. But we have to remember that joining together in this supper, we are uniting with one another in a confession. Christ surely didn’t institute the supper as a means of disagreement or conflict.
Again, Luther wrote, “He gave it to us to bring about unity of faith, of doctrine, and of life.” And tonight we hear the words of Apostle Paul who said that all who do partake of the bread, they are one body, and they are all participants in the body of Christ. So we are made one by the bread. This isn’t symbolic, for Paul didn’t say it that way. We become one body with Christ, him with one another by partaking of this supper.
So dear Christians, doubt not. Take Jesus at his word, believe his words. He suffered for you. His body and blood is there given and shed for you. The forgiveness of sins is for you. The free gift of life is for you. We can do nothing other than believe his words, for we have nothing to give him. The cup that we take, it’s not one of offering, it is one of salvation. Luther said about this, “All we can render is salutary. Christ gives us everything.”
Although we confess that he ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father, we don’t question how it is that he’s present here with us also. We simply trust what Jesus says and that he means what he says. And there’s a hymn that reminds us of this: “Search not how this takes place, this wondrous mystery. God can accomplish vastly more than what we think can be.”
For these words aren’t the words of a mortal man. They are the words of God. In a few minutes, you will hear me speak the words of institution, the verba that was given to us. They’re not my words. Pastor Wolf Miller, Pastor LeBlanc and I, we’re not reading something or just repeating something printed in a book. They are Jesus’ own words, and we pastors have given our word and we’ve given a vow that we will deliver these words to you.
For those words in and of themselves deliver the promise of forgiveness and life. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we tonight have been brought to this holy mountain that we might partake in the fellowship of this feast that he has prepared before us. We don’t need a Passover meal of our own. We shouldn’t even desire one, for we have been given something much, much better. The Passover of the Old Covenant was fulfilled by the true Passover Lamb of the New Testament, Jesus Christ.
But like our forebearers, we do have an obligation to teach. We must teach about the Lord’s Supper in the same way our forefathers in faith taught about the salvation which the Lord gave them in the Passover, how he delivered them from slavery, how he now delivers us from the slavery of death and of sin. And this must be our confession about the supper, that it is the true body and blood of Christ given for the forgiveness of sins to everlasting life.
No, we don’t understand how plain bread and wine and the supper is the true body and blood of Christ. No more than we understand how plain water with the word gives us new life, or how the word comes into our ears and works faith in our hearts. No, science and men will never be able to explain these things, for they are the things of the kingdom of God. But he has given us his word, and his word is what we place our trust and our hope in. And by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are given faith to believe in him, in faith, and to receive the gifts which Christ freely gives. Amen.
Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
