Maundy Thursday March 29, 2018
Maundy Thursday
1 Corinthians 11:23-32
March 29, 2018
“What Is This Bread?”
The Small Catechism
What is the Sacrament of the Altar?
It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under the bread and wine, instituted by Christ Himself for us Christians to eat and to drink.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
This hymn was written by a Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod pastor. He’s now retired. You can see that the tune was written by his wife, Jean. It’s a great hymn. Listen to verse 4 again in particular:
Yet is God here?
Oh, yes! By Word and promise clear,
In mouth and soul
He makes us whole—
Christ, truly present in this meal.
O taste and see—the Lord is real.
© 1991 Fred and Jean Baue. Used by permission: LSB Hymn License .NET, no. 100013569.
The last words are my favorite—the Lord is real! It sounds strange to sing that. Sounds too obvious. “Well, duh?!” But the fact is, we may often find that hard to believe. When you come into His church here, and you hear His Word, and see the Sacrament, do you believe that God is real? That He’s really here? Because He is. It’s not just me and the 50 or so of you here tonight. The Lord Jesus is here with us. We are in His house. We’re His guests. And He’s present here to talk to us, to listen to us, to forgive us, and to serve us with His body and blood. Christ truly present in this meal. Taste and see—the Lord is real.
Our problem is that we’re living after the age of Rationalism. We’ve rationalized everything. No more mystery. We don’t allow for anything supernatural now. We don’t have room for anything outside of our five senses—what I can observe and study. We’re skeptical about anything mysterious. For us, everything is cold, hard facts. Cold, hard science. There’s just wooden pews here, stained glass windows, books with paper and ink, a wood statue, a guy in a dress, and a piece of bread and a sip of wine. That’s all that’s here, right?
But the word Sacrament is Latin for mystery. God is a mystery. And Jesus coming here and being present with us in the Sacrament, under the bread and wine, is a mystery. If the only thing that you believe in is what you can rationalize with your five senses, then you don’t believe in a real God. There is something mysterious going on here—in a very good and wonderful way.
If you go back in time before the age of Rationalism, before people started trying to explain God away, then you find Christians who had a good sense of the mysterious. They understood and believed that this world is full of all kinds of things outside our natural senses. They understood the world is full of angels and demons. They understood and believed that God Himself is found in His Church and in the Sacrament. They understood…the Lord is real.
So here’s some key parts of the mystery that we believe. One, that Jesus is something more than just an ordinary man. Two, that God’s Word is something more than just ordinary words. And three, that this bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper is something more than just ordinary bread and wine.
So all of this mystery comes together on this night. Maundy Thursday. A night of wonderful mystery. It’s the night to eat the Passover meal. As believers have done for over a thousand years, Jesus and his disciples get ready to eat this meal of lamb, unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and wine. Just like we eat this meal up here to remember Jesus’ death and resurrection, they ate the Passover meal to remember when God had brought them out of slavery in Egypt crossing through the Red Sea.
So far, nothing too far out of the ordinary. They gather in the Upper Room and all the meal is prepared and ready. They say the prayers, recite the Psalms, and so forth. But now begins the great mystery. Jesus breaks tradition and does something mysterious. He picks up the unleavened bread and says, “This is my body which is for you.” And then He takes the cup and says, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
Now we have the mystery. Not a mystery like a puzzle you have to solve. But a mystery like a wonder that you get to behold and believe. The first part of the mystery is that Jesus is no ordinary man. If Jesus were an ordinary man like you or me, then when he said, “This is my body,” it would make no sense. But Jesus isn’t simply an ordinary man. Under His flesh and blood is God Himself. That’s a mystery that you’ll never rationalize with any amount of scientific investigation. Only God is able to utter such words with any sense to them. Because He is God, we know that He meant His body and blood which He would give on the cross within 24 hours for the sins of the entire world.
That brings us to the second part of the mystery. That God’s words are more than just ordinary words. If I said, ‘This is my body,” my words would be nonsense and wouldn’t do anything. But when God says words, they do what He says. When God says, “Let there be light,” there is light. When God says to Mary, “You will conceive and bear a child,” she conceives and bears a child. God’s words aren’t ordinary words.
So when Jesus says, “This is My body,” and “this cup is the new covenant in My blood,” then those words do what they say. This is part of the mystery of God. Anytime God speaks, His words do what He wants them to do. So that’s why we come together all the time to listen to God’s Word. Because His Word is a great mystery. It works in our hearts to produce faith in Jesus. We believe in that mystery.
And this brings us finally to the last part of this mystery—that this bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper is something more than just ordinary bread and wine. Once rationalism was really taking hold in Europe, Christians didn’t want to believe in anything mysterious anymore. It sounded too irrational to believe that Christ’s body and blood were truly present in the Lord’s Supper. So they did away with that. They said, “No, Jesus didn’t really mean what He said. He was using a metaphor. He was speaking figuratively. He only meant, ‘This bread symbolizes My body.” And thus they took all the mystery away from the Lord’s Supper. They also took all the meaning away and made it worthless.
So what is this bread? It’s a mystery. Not a mystery as in you’ll never ever be able to solve it—but a mystery as in we can’t fully grasp it with our minds. We believe Jesus’ words exactly as He said them. Not as a metaphor or as figurative language. We believe the mystery that in this bread and wine, Christ Himself comes to us to enter into our bodies and give us forgiveness of sins. It’s a sacramental presence—a supernatural presence—a mysterious presence. But He Himself is truly present in His body and blood.
We don’t try to explain away the mystery. We simply believe Him. Taste and see—the Lord is real. This is why St. Paul is so adamant about who is receiving the Lord’s Supper, as we heard in the second reading tonight from 1 Corinthians 11. If Jesus is truly present here under this bread and wine, then every person ought to know exactly what they’re receiving here and exactly where they stand before Christ. Paul is clear, “whoever eats or drinks in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.”
So we examine ourselves tonight, as Paul directs us. Do we believe the mystery? Do we believe in Jesus Christ, true man and true God, who gave Himself on the cross for our sins and rose again on Easter morning? Do we believe His Word, that His Word does what it says and is the very Word of God which creates faith in our hearts? And, finally, do we specifically believe the mystery of His Word in this bread and wine, that as He says, His true body and true blood are present here for our forgiveness and peace in, with, and under this bread and wine?
As I said, this isn’t a mystery as in a “scary, spooky mystery” or a “mystery that we need to solve”. This is a mystery that we simply say is awesome, we stand in holy fear before Him, and we believe and trust Him. God be praised for this wonderful mystery—the mystery of God in the flesh, our Savior Jesus Christ, who gives Himself for us in this wonderful Sacrament.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.