Holy (Maundy) Thursday March 24, 2016
Maundy Thursday
John 13:1-17,31-35
March 24, 2016
“Broken”
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
It’s Thursday night of Holy Week. Tonight is the night before Jesus is going to die. Tomorrow morning at 9 am He will be nailed to the cross. But tonight, Thursday night, Passover night, He meets with His disciples in the upper room for the last Passover meal He will eat with them. He teaches them, washes their feet, tells them to love others as He has loved them, and He gives them a new meal—the Lord’s Supper. Communion.
Now we have a number of names for the Lord’s Supper. We call it the Sacrament. Sacrament of the Altar. Holy Communion. The Eucharist. And there’s one more that the Bible uses—The Breaking of the Bread. Of course, that name comes from taking a loaf of bread in your hands and breaking it. Not only is that just a practical thing because you break the bread so that you can give some to each person there. But it was also a ritual thing that the host would do at the meal. You might remember when Jesus fed the 5,000 that He broke the bread and then had a prayer of thanks.
So when we have Communion here and you hear those words of institution—which you’ve probably heard hundreds or even thousands of times…”Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it….” That’s what those words are doing in there. He broke the bread. And so the early Church called Communion “The Breaking of the Bread”. (Just for your information, keep in mind that at other times they would use the term “breaking bread” together to refer to any meal. But other times it specifically referred to the Lord’s meal.)
Now for tonight we want to talk more about this word “broken”. On this night, breaking the bread means more than just tearing it apart. Because, of course, on this night this bread is more than just bread. This bread is Jesus Christ. It’s His body which He gives on the cross. And that means that this broken bread is talking about the Jesus Christ who was broken for us.
We would expect God to be “unbroken”. He’s God, right? And strong people are unbroken people. People who can’t be broke. Those are the kind of people we look up to. People who never get broken down.
But that’s not Jesus. The whole point of Jesus coming down from heaven is to be broken for you. Almighty God in heaven, the maker of heaven and earth, the Bread of all the earth—think of the largest loaf of bread you have ever seen in your life—that bread is broken up here on earth so that every single one of us sinners can have a part in that eternal life and salvation. God is broken for you tonight.
We broke Him. It’s our sin that did it. But God uses that for our salvation. On Good Friday He’s broken. He’s arrested, mocked, stripped, beaten, spit on, laughed at, and nailed to a cross bleeding. He’s broken for you. God broken for you so that you may be healed and restored. And on this Maundy Thursday night Jesus breaks the bread and says, “This is My body, given for you for the forgiveness of your sins.”
So what is this bread here tonight that you receive in the Lord’s Supper? It is the broken body of Jesus. There’s only one Jesus. Only one body. But you, a sinner who believes in Him, are given a part of Him, this one Jesus as He is broken here for you and says, “Take and eat, this is my body, given for you.”
Now let me tell you why you should care about this. Let me tell you why this broken bread is so important to you. It’s because you are broken. And you must be broken to receive this gift of Jesus.
Look at Peter in the reading tonight. In the upper room there. Jesus is showing how He is their broken Savior. He’s going around like a servant, kneeling down on His knees washing their dirty feet. And He gets to Peter. And what does Peter say? “No, no, not me. I’m not broken. I don’t need you to wash my feet.” Peter is proud. Too proud to be broken down. Too proud to have Jesus wash his feet.
Many times that’s how you and I are. We’re too proud to be broken. “Oh no,” we say, “I can handle this. My sins aren’t big sins. They’re just little ones. No big deal. Jesus, You don’t need to wash my feet. You can go take care of all those much dirtier sinners.”
But what happened to Peter the next day? He found out just how broken he was. He denied knowing Jesus three times and the rooster crowed. Peter was a broken man. A sinful man. And the only way for him to be made well was Jesus being broken for him.
You and I are broken. We can try to hide it behind foolish pride like Peter did. But it doesn’t change it. We’re broken.
I pretty much dread taking our vans to get the oil changed. You all know why. Because there’s a pretty good chance that they’re going to find something else wrong. Both our vans have over 100,000 miles, you know. Some of you have vehicles with much more than that. You know they’re bound to find this or that wrong. They might seem to be running fine, but there’s some bearing going out or pads that are too worn or tires that are balding.
That’s the way it is with us. Most of the time we seem to be running along fine. “I’m okay,” we tell ourselves. But then we go and take a look in the mirror of God’s Law. Ugh. It’s not pretty. Things are wearing out. We’ve told a lie here. Gossiped about that person there. Said those bad words over here. We’ve thought about money way too much over there. We’ve been consumed with lust here. Coveted everybody else’s stuff over there. All of a sudden the mechanic comes out and says our vehicle has got a a whole list of problems.
Or you might be broken in a number of other ways. Maybe others have sinned against you. Maybe your body is broken. You’re sick or fragile and you can’t do the things you used to do. Maybe your family is broken or relationships within your family are broken.
It’s no use acting like proud Peter and saying, “You’ll never wash me, Jesus. I’m doing just fine.” Because Jesus only comes for broken people.
Are you broken? Then this meal, this breaking of the Bread, is for you. It’s for broken people. Here the broken Jesus comes to heal your soul. He comes to give you His broken body so that you can be whole again. He puts a big cast on your whole body. Himself, that is. He covers you with His righteousness and you are made well.
Martin Luther wrote up some questions for those preparing to take the Sacrament. Some of you have probably used them before. They’re in the front of your hymnal. It’s a great way to prepare yourself before taking Communion. Anyway, the questions start with this simple thing: Are you broken? Those are my words, of course. But that’s the whole point we must start from…are we broken? Because, if we’re not, Jesus isn’t for us.
So he starts out, question 1, “Do you believe that you are a sinner? Yes, I believe it. I am a sinner.” Question 2, “How do you know this? From the Ten Commandments, which I have not kept.”
Then it gets all the way to the end and Luther asks, “But what should you do if you are not aware of this need and have no hunger and thirst for the Sacrament?” To such a person no better advice can be given than this: first, he should touch his body to see if he still has flesh and blood. Then he should believe what the Scriptures say of it in Galatians 5 and Romans 7. Second, he should look around to see whether he is still in the world, and remember that there will be no lack of sin and trouble, as the Scriptures say in John 15–16 and in 1 John 2 and 5. Third, he will certainly have the devil also around 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; and 2 Timothy 2.
So if you don’t thing you’re broken, just pinch yourself and look around you. If you’re still alive and in this world, then you’re broken. And you should run to the Sacrament as fast as you can and receive Jesus broken for you.
On this Thursday night, Jesus also then gave His disciples a commandment. He told them, and He tells you, to be broken for others. He says, “As I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” We are to love other people as Jesus has loved us. That means we are to be broken for others. You might have to break your schedule for others. You might have to break your bank for others. You might have to break your fridge open to feed others.
Pride gets in the way of loving others. Pride doesn’t want to be break ourselves to take care of others. But Jesus-He breaks us. He breaks us so that we can be broken to love others.
I hope those three little words, “He broke it”, will mean a little more to you. I hope you know tonight your Savior who is broken for you on the cross and in this meal. And receiving His great love and healing, may we all be broken for others—to love as we have been loved. In Jesus’ name. Amen.