[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Dear Saints,
On this day, 3,466 years ago, the Lord appointed a feast. He came to Moses and instructed him that he should go to the people of Israel and have them kill a lamb and take the blood and put it on the doorpost and live. You will eat this meal every year, the Lord said, the lamb and the unleavened bread and the bitter herbs and the spices. You will keep the Passover and you will remember that the Lord delivered you and rescued you from Egypt. And the next day, 3,466 years ago tomorrow, the Lord rescued the people from Egypt.
One thousand nine hundred and eighty-eight years ago, on this day, our Lord Jesus Christ told his disciples that they would find a large upper room prepared in Jerusalem where they could eat the Passover meal. All the people ate the first Passover with Moses and Jesus, with Moses in Egypt, but now Jesus with his disciples eats the last Passover meal. The Old Covenant is ended. And Jesus, on this night, will institute the New Testament.
After the Passover meal is finished, Jesus stood up. He wrapped Himself with a towel. He went and knelt down and washed His disciples’ feet. And then he sat back down at the table, he took some bread, and he gave thanks to God, and he broke it, and he gave it to them. He took wine, and he gave it to them, and he said to them, this is the New Testament in my blood, poured out for you, for the forgiveness of sins. Do this, says Jesus, do this often in remembrance of me.
And just like the first Passover, when there was the meal, and then the next day the rescue, so it was those 1,478 years afterwards. Jesus gives the memorial meal before he gives the thing that’s being remembered. But in a few short hours, on Good Friday, Jesus goes to rescue and deliver us by his suffering and by his death, by his crucifixion. And ever since that day, 1988 years ago, ever since that day, the Lord’s people have gathered around these most precious gifts, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, every year, every week, in fact, every day since he instituted this supper.
129 years ago, a few families gathered together here in Austin, Texas, with a hunger for the Lord’s Word and for his sacrament. They established this church, St. Paul Lutheran Church. They called a pastor to come and serve them the Lord’s Word and His body, His blood. And 71 years ago our fathers in the faith built this building. They put up these beams and these rocks and stones and the glass and the wood, and they built all of this. But why? They wanted a place to hear the Lord’s Word and most especially they wanted a place to go and to taste the Lord’s body and blood, to take and eat and drink this gift that the Lord has given us.
I think it’s one of the advantages of this time of crisis that it reminds us of the important things, of the essential things in our life, in our homes and in the church. It reminds us why there is a church of the New Testament. So that the death and the resurrection of Jesus can be preached and believed and so that we can take and eat and drink the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that this place, and this stone, and this brick, and this glass, and this marble, and this wood, and this brass, and this roof is simply a covering that stands over the Bible, that stands over the pulpit, and that stands over the altar.
And the beauty of this place is our own best attempt to try to indicate the true wonder and the true glory and the true beauty of what the Lord Jesus gives to us here in this, His place, His mercy, His promises, His forgiveness, His body, His blood. But look at how it is tonight. On the 1988th anniversary of the institution of the Lord’s Supper, the altar is empty. The church is empty. There’s no supper. There’s no meal. The Lord’s body and the Lord’s blood is not here for you for your forgiveness. Now what do we make of this?
First, I want to ask this question. Who is to blame? I know how you’ve reflected on this by yourself or with your family or friends. Who’s to blame for this trouble? Who should we be angry at? The government for acting too severely or not acting quickly enough? Should we be mad at the coronavirus itself for this affliction and this fast? Should we shake our fist at the devil, who no doubt delights to keep the Lord’s people away from the Lord’s gifts? Who do we blame for this?
Dear saints, I want to suggest to you that we receive this, the empty altar, in this time of fasting, that we receive it from the Lord’s hand. Remember, for example, Job. The devil had done all of this work to Job in two great waves of affliction. First he comes and he takes away all those things that Job treasured. He took away his possessions. He took away his livelihood. He took away his eleven children. And then in wave two, he comes and afflicts Job’s body so that Job is sitting on a pile of ashes and he’s scraping the boils on his head and his feet with a broken piece of pottery, and Job says, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Can you imagine, just think about this, imagine the devil who’s done all of this work on Job, and he’s sitting there sort of gloating over how much he’s afflicted Job, maybe with his arms crossed, proud of his great work, and he looks down at Job and Job says, the Lord gives, the Lord takes away. What about me, the devil would say? Don’t you give me any credit? And the answer is, no. The Lord gives. The Lord takes away. So that because this affliction comes from the Lord, we know something about it.
In fact, I want to suggest that we know three things about this affliction from the hand of the Lord. Number one, the Lord is using it to shape us. This is just a nice sort of pastor way of saying the Lord is teaching us to repent. Remember this happened with Jesus, there was a tower that fell over and it collapsed and it killed all these people and Jesus said, do you think that the people killed in the tower were worse than the people who weren’t killed in the tower? No, but I tell you, repent or the same thing will happen to you. In other words, whenever we see disaster we always know that the Lord’s will is our repentance and that the Lord uses troubles, that the Lord uses a crisis to expose our idols, to expose the things that we trusted in, to the things that we hoped in to expose our fears and our loves and our false confidences.
All of these are spilled out. I don’t know particularly what the Lord is having all of us repent. No doubt it’s very different things, but I think one of the things as a church and perhaps as a Christian church, one of the things that we need to repent of is how lightly we esteemed the gathering together at the Lord’s house. And that this time of fasting is teaching us to pray the Psalms, how my soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the Lord, to remember how good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity, how much joy there is when the Lord gathers us into the church, that we would treasure that.
So the Lord is shaping us. The Lord is also testing us. He’s testing our faith and our love and our hope. He tests us especially in the face of death, in the face of our own death, or in the face of the death of those that we love, in the death of our neighbors. He tests us in suffering, again not only in ourselves but also in those that we love so that this calamity becomes an opportunity to trust in the Lord and to serve and bless our neighbor.
We would love and care for them. Now there will be immediate needs and no doubt today and tomorrow and in the weeks to come there will be immediate needs and opportunities for us to love and serve and bless one another. We pray and consider especially how we can serve our neighbor’s health and how we can bless those who are working to serve their health, but there will be also no doubt long-term opportunities to bless and serve our neighbor. It looks like the community implications and the economic implications of this crisis will be long-lasting, and we don’t know how life will change after this. But we do know that we have God’s promises to believe and we will have neighbors to love.
Now this love for the neighbor, remember, takes shape according to God’s commandment, according to our own vocation, and according to our own neighbor’s needs. And what will that be in the hours and days and weeks and months and years to come? What will the neighbor’s need be? Medicine or food or financial need? But most especially for us as Christians, how will our neighbors wrestle through this crisis theologically? What questions will they have about God and life and death and how to have a good conscience? So that there will be ample opportunity to serve our neighbors with Jesus and with his life and with his death.
You have, remember dear saints, you have the wisdom of God which the world desperately needs. You know the death and resurrection of Jesus. And third, because this crisis comes from the hand of God, we know it shapes us, we know it tests us, but third, it also is a blessing for us. Saint Paul says in Romans chapter 8 that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Most often we don’t see how all things work together for good. We don’t know how all things work together for good. We don’t understand how all things work together for good. But we believe that all things work together for good.
And even this empty altar, even this empty church, we confess that Jesus sits at God’s right hand. That He, even right now, rules and reigns all things for the sake of His beloved church. And we can be confident in that.
Dear Saints, this fast will end. Lord willing, these pews and this altar will be full again and soon. Soon we will taste and see that the Lord is good. Once again we will take up the cup of the Lord. But know this without doubt, that the Lord works even in exile. He feeds us His Word even when we’re fasting from His meal and He serves us and blesses us even with an empty cup. He’s serving us His love and He’s bringing to us His gift of faith and life so that we can say with confidence tonight, with sorrow and with tears, but with confidence and with hope, that the Lord gives, the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Amen.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.