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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. On this night, almost 2,000 years ago, our Lord Jesus Christ gave His Church the sacrament of His Holy Supper. This gift that the Lord wants us to receive in faith believing in the words that he said to his disciples the very night. And about this gift, there was to be no debate or mistake as to its importance. And it was and is to be, along with the proclamation of the Word, the center of God’s service, of Christian worship. And so it was, and it is. The Lutheran theologian Herman Zosses stressed its importance when he said, “The heart of the church beats in the Lord’s Supper.”
The supper instituted by Christ himself and meant for us to celebrate in remembrance of him so that when we do this, we proclaim his death until he comes. The supper instituted as the new covenant in the blood of Christ. What does Christ mean when he says that this is the new covenant in my blood? Well, first, this implies that there was an old covenant. And as we do hear from the prophet Jeremiah tonight, there certainly was one. Hear it again: “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant they broke, though I was their husband,” declares the Lord.
So what was this covenant that was broken? It was the covenant of God made with the people of Israel when he gave the Ten Commandments and the law to them as a way that they may be set apart from the other nations. The covenant made them his people, and it was to instruct them in how they should live as his people. And though they really could do no other, they didn’t have much say in the matter; they proclaimed in unison all the words that the Lord has spoken, “We will do.” To seal this covenant and promise, then Moses takes half of the blood of the sacrifice and he throws it against the altar. And then he reads from the book of the covenant to the people and they again cry out, “All the words that the Lord has spoken, we will do.”
So he takes the other half of the blood and he throws it against the people, saying, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with these words.” And all of this was done in keeping with the Lord’s decree that blood must be shed for atonement. Something has to give up its life blood for the sins of the people. And so the covenant was sealed in blood, and it was entered into solemnly and reverently. And then the scripture tells us, Moses and the elders went up on Mount Sinai, and to confirm the covenant and the sacrifice, they ate and drank.
But the Lord knew that this covenant wouldn’t stand for long. The people almost immediately began to stray from his word. They began to look to other gods, and the warnings of the prophets and captivity, the destruction of the temple, really didn’t do much to bring them to repentance. But these same prophets such as Jeremiah had already spoken of this new covenant in God’s words. And we didn’t have all this background in our readings tonight, but it’s important to recall this so that we have an unmistakable understanding of what Jesus’ words mean, of the sincerity of them, and how they are bound up to his very death on the cross.
So Jesus wasn’t simply a participant in this supper, someone there to be served. For as true God, He was, in fact, the initiator of this new covenant that had been prepared before the foundation of the world. And here in this final Passover meal, he actively and deliberately directed all the things, from selecting the room in which it occurred to his very specific instructions to Peter and John about how they would find it, to the words that of course were spoken over the meal.
And it’s interesting that it doesn’t seem that the disciples ever once questioned his motives or asked him what he meant, what he was thinking, especially when he said something new in the words, in the consecration of the bread and the wine. They simply trusted what he said. They believed his words. They believed him. And this is what we must do also. The Lord gave very specific instructions for that Passover meal, and we also have very specific instructions for our supper as well, for the promise is there also. Jesus is proclaiming his death in the institution of His Holy Supper just as we do when we eat and drink of it.
This was, as they call it, the last supper. The last Passover to be observed, for Jesus has established this New Testament in his own blood. And it isn’t merely like some type of gentleman’s agreement, a contract, something that we can kind of come into and go out of as we feel like. It’s a true testament enacted upon Christ’s death. It is irrevocable. It is written in blood. And as a will, as a testament, it is Jesus’ will that we do receive it, that we do receive the benefits of his death. And all he asks of us is that we believe what he says.
But that even seems hard to do at times. For we doubt what his words mean. Our sinful hearts and our brains lead us to think things and think too much. When Jesus tells us, “This is my body and this is my blood,” do we ask what the meaning of the words are? And people parse it out. What does he mean by this? “This is my body.” What is his body? What does he mean by blood? Maybe Jesus really meant this bread. It’s a representation of my body. In this cup, it’s a symbol of my blood. Maybe it’s all just imagery.
We doubt because we don’t really understand how that is even physically possible, how Jesus can simultaneously be with the Father in heaven and be on that altar behind us, as if the creator of the universe and what we refer to as the laws of physics can’t be transcended by the very one who created them. Or maybe we hear these words, “Do this in remembrance of me,” and we think that’s all we have to do, just remember the supper that it happened. But these words don’t relegate the Lord’s Supper to some mere memorial meal.
And yes, in remembering him, we do remember his words of institution in the supper. That is basically what he was telling the disciples: do again and again what you see in here. But also in doing so, in remembering, we remember his suffering and death on the cross. Maybe sometimes we don’t believe his words about forgiveness. How can there be forgiveness in simple bread and wine, in those elements? And yes, if we rend those two apart from each other, the elements, the words, then they certainly don’t do anything. But together, they are the means of grace in this supper.
It’s not a symbolic act. It’s a true remission of sin. And I don’t think we should doubt Jesus’ words any less than the Israelites doubted his words about the Passover. They didn’t put red paint on the doorpost and on the lintel and say, “Well, it looks like blood. That should be good enough.” They didn’t decide that they would prepare the meal the way they liked it. No, they followed the Lord’s words, and their firstborn lived.
But the devil, the father of lies, he’s always there, crouching, waiting, ready to put a little doubt in our brains. Just as he asked Eve in the garden, “Did the Lord really say? Did he actually say?” And so he sits on our shoulder. And he says, “Did Christ really mean it is his body and blood? That’s impossible.” Or we don’t think we’re worthy for the body and blood of Christ. We think our sin is too great or we are too weak to receive him, but we confess that worthiness depends on faith and not our feelings. That person is truly worthy and well prepared who has faith in these words, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”
Hear those words again, just like I pounded into the heads of our copper man. Hear those words again: “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” Thanks be to God that His mercy and His grace that He gives us in His Holy Supper is not dependent on us. It’s not dependent on our worthiness or how worthy we think we are because we’re good enough.
No brothers and sisters, do not doubt His words. As the hymn says, “Search not how this takes place.” Take his words into your heart and believe them. All of it: for you, his suffering, his death, his body and blood, his forgiveness of sins, the gift of life and salvation. We can do none other than believe in his words, for we have nothing to give him. We take the cup; we don’t offer it. It’s not a sacrifice on our part, but a cup of salvation poured out for us. Christ gives us everything, and we gladly receive it.
And although, yes, we confess that he has ascended into heaven, and he does sit at the right hand of the Father, on the throne from which he never departed, we don’t question how that happens, how he can be present with us also. We simply trust what Jesus says because they’re the words of God himself.
And in just a few minutes, you will hear those very words that he spoke to the disciples on that night, the words of institution that he has given to us. And they aren’t simply Matthew’s or Mark’s or Luke’s or Paul’s, least of all my words. And I’m certainly not just repeating something as part of some ceremony. They are Jesus’ own words, and we pastors have been given ourselves to that and given our vow to the Lord and to you that we will deliver those words to you not as we see fit, not any way that we want to alter them to our liking, but as Christ gave those words to the church. For those words in and of themselves deliver the promise of forgiveness and life.
So no, we don’t understand how plain bread and wine become or are the body and blood of Christ any more than we understand how words and water combine to give us new life or how the Holy Spirit works in us through the word and comes into our ears and puts faith in our hearts. All the scientific learning aside, we will never understand this. We will never explain it, for these things are of the kingdom of God alone. But he has given us his word, and it is his word that we place our trust and hope in, and that by the power of Holy Spirit, we are given faith to believe in him. We are also given the faith to receive these gifts which he offers us tonight, freely.
So yes, Christ is still the host. He still serves the meal. He breaks the bread. He pours out the cup. He is our Passover. Our eating and drinking are, as we confess, certainly not just eating and drinking. We aren’t just emulating Jesus’ words or repeating his actions or words as some kind of play to be reenacted. It’s not a tradition or a custom, but a divine institution in which Christ is pleased to give us his body and blood. And that means that his desire for us is to take and eat and receive for the forgiveness of sins.
So dear Christians, the Lord Jesus has given us this wondrous mystery, this new covenant, this New Testament, one that is better, for it is perfect and it cannot be broken, for it is not sealed by the blood of a beast, but by God himself. The old covenant consisted mostly of commandments and requirements of the Lord, but the new covenant extends to us his grace and forgives our iniquity, for he has promised that he will remember our sins no more. His law is written in our hearts, and he is our God, and we are His people, and it is by his blood that we indeed do have confidence to enter the holy places.
It is why we do not neglect to meet with each other. It is why we encourage one another. It is why we have this supper often. For as often as we drink of this cup, we do remember him. And we proclaim his death until he comes. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen. The peace of God which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.