To Worship the Lord Your God in the Body of Christ Jesus

To live is to worship the Lord your God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And to worship Him is your life and your salvation. It is for this Life that He created you, and to this Life He calls you.

The Lord calls you to Himself, to find your life in Him, and to worship Him by faith in Christ: by serving you, by feeding you, and by caring for your body and soul with His Word and Sacrament.

He does it all by means of this sacred Tradition and this solemn Ceremony, in which the Father hands over His Son, and the Son hands Himself over and gives Himself to you in His Holy Supper.

The Life by which you live is in the Blood of this Lamb, just as life is in the blood of both man and beast. For blood brings oxygen and nutrition to the body; it cleanses the body of infection, disease, and death. So has this Lamb been sacrificed for you, and His lifeblood has been shed for your life, that you should not die but live with God and worship Him in peace. Sacrificed once for all upon the Cross, His Flesh and His Blood are now given and poured out for you, in order to feed you, to quench your thirst, to forgive your sins, and to cleanse you of all that poisons you and kills you.

In this way, the beloved Son — who is the Lamb of God — worships the Father with His Body and His Life; and so does He also love and serve you, His neighbor, by and with His precious Blood.

It is Christ Jesus who thus makes this House of God your home, your place of peace and rest. For here the Ceremony of His Holy Supper (His Passover) is delivered to you, no less than He handed it over to His disciples. By this means, He gives Himself to you as your Meat and Drink indeed. He pours out His Blood to cover you, to shelter and protect you, here within His Father’s House.

Holy Baptism is the door through which you have entered this House, and by which you have been made a member of this Household and Family of God. For in the washing of the water with the Word and Spirit of God, you have been signed by the Cross with the Blood of the Lamb: upon the lintel and the door posts of your body and life, upon your forehead and your heart. So that all you think and say and do is marked by the cruciform Image of God in Christ, in whom you now live.

The Lord has given to His Church on earth these sacred rites and ceremonies as the way and means by which He remembers His people, and by which they worship Him. Thus are His Body and His Blood administered in His Name and stead by those whom He has called and sent. And this Holy Sacrament is both the Sign and the Instrument of His great deliverance, by which you are saved. For the Lord your God sees this Blood of the Lamb, which marks both you and this House wherein you feast and live; His judgment passes over you in mercy, and no plague befalls or destroys you.

This definitive Ceremony of the Lord’s Liturgy — this most sacred Tradition of Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, who has mercy upon you and grants you peace — this Passover of the New Testament is the first and foremost of days and weeks and months and years. Indeed, it is the beginning of eternity for you, as you eat and drink at the Word of Christ in faith and with thanksgiving. It is a perpetual Memorial established by God for your heart, mind, body, and soul, whereby you worship the Lord here in time and hereafter in Paradise forever. Not by your doing, but by hearing what He says, receiving what He gives, and trusting what He does.

For all of which it truly is meet, right, and salutary to thank, praise, serve, and obey Him in love.

It is likewise by this Meal of His Body and His Blood that you and all the children of God are one Household and Family, fellow members of one Body in Christ Jesus, anointed by one Holy Spirit. You have one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, and one God and Father in Christ, the beloved Son. And you are given to feast upon this one Lamb who has been sacrificed for you, whose Blood now marks your Father’s House. As you eat of His one Body and drink from His Chalice of Salvation, you are bound together with all who eat and drink, as one Body in Him. You are bodied and blooded together with all of your brothers and sisters in Christ, as one Holy Communion in Him.

Thus, you are what you receive, and you receive what you are: The Body of Christ. Not on your own, but together with all who are baptized into Him, who recline at His Table and feast on Him.

To love your neighbor, therefore, is to love the Lord Jesus Christ in your neighbor. This, too, is to worship the Lord your God and to live by faith in Him. And so it is that you love your neighbor as Christ Jesus loves you, because Christ now lives in you, both body and soul, by and with His Word, His Holy Spirit, and His own Body and Blood, given and poured out for you in His Supper.

You wash your neighbor’s feet, as Jesus washes you. Not only metaphorically, but sometimes for real, as when your parents or spouse are no longer able to care for themselves or wash their own bodies, or when you mothers and fathers bathe your little children and wash between their toes.

So do you also tend your neighbor’s wounds, and you tenderly care for his needs and his feelings. You feed his body, you cover his expenses, you clothe his nakedness, and you forgive his sins. You visit him in his affliction, in the house of bondage, and you grieve and mourn with him in the cords of death and the grave. You comfort him with such love as the Lord so patiently lavishes upon you. Indeed, you give life to your neighbor by way of your own blood, sweat, and tears.

And yet, for all of that, if you examine yourself rightly, and if you examine this Body of Christ to which you belong — if you consider even these neighbors here with you, who are your brothers and sisters in Christ, your own kin, the children of your own God and Father in Him — if you thus examine yourself, then you know that you have not loved as Christ has commanded you to love.

You have not let His love have its way with you, and so your love for others has failed. There are those whom you have hurt, and there are those whom you have failed to help. Your thoughts, words, and deeds have been soiled with sin, marred by selfishness, lust, and greed. In your fallen flesh there is nothing else but this vile sin and death, from which you cannot set yourself free.

Nevertheless, the Lord your God has called you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, out from under Pharaoh’s bitter yoke. He has delivered you from sin and death. Not because you were more prosperous or stronger than anyone else; not because you were more pious and faithful and sincere; not because you were more Lutheran, more confessional, or more orthodox than others. It is not because you were more plain and simple, nor because you were more formal and elaborate.

The Lord has called you, by His grace alone, with His Gospel of forgiveness. He has passed over your sins in mercy, and He remembers them no more. He has spared you from death and the grave, and He has brought you into Life with Himself. He has done so for His own Name’s sake, for the sake of His divine and holy Love in Christ Jesus, the Lamb who has been slain for your salvation.

So has He named you with His Name by calling you out of bondage and bringing you into His House of peace and rest through the waters of Holy Baptism and the forgiveness of all your sins.

The Father has sacrificed the unblemished Lamb for you at Twilight, and He has marked your door with His Blood. He catechizes you here in His House with His Word; He seats you here at His Table; and He washes your feet with the Absolution of Christ, so that you are clean by His grace.

And here the Father feeds you with the Lamb whom He has chosen from before the foundation of the world; whom He has sacrificed upon the Cross in your place, that you might live by His grace. As He fed the disciples then, even Judas and Peter and Thomas — not because of their faithfulness, but by His own faithfulness — so does He feed you. For the Father loves the disciples of Jesus, whom He has called and chosen by His Word and Holy Spirit. And so does the Father love you, as Christ Jesus loves you, even to His death upon the Cross, and in His Resurrection ever after.

It is by this Love of God for you in Christ Jesus, by the Body and Blood of the Lamb, that you live and worship the Lord your God in body and soul, and that you also love as you are loved, forever.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Christ Jesus is the Passover Lamb of God

The sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were not spared from death because of any merit or worthiness or innocence of their own, but for the sake of the Lamb that was sacrificed in their stead.  The blood of that Lamb covered them from death, it shielded them from the Angel of Death.  And the flesh of that Lamb fed them for the journey out of bondage into freedom.

All of this on account of divine and holy Love, the grace and mercy of the Lord their God.  And that is already to speak of Christ Jesus.  It’s all about Jesus.  And it is all fulfilled for you in Him, the one Lord Jesus Christ.  He is the firstborn Son of God, who is not spared from death, though He committed no sin, nor was there any deceit found in His mouth.  He is the firstborn Son of God from all eternity, who was in time conceived and born as the promised Seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  He is the true Israel.  And He has become the Lamb of God, who takes upon Himself and takes away the sins of the world.  He is sacrificed for you and all as the true Passover Lamb.

His Sacrifice has been completed once-for-all in His death upon the Cross, and there is no other sacrifice for sin, nor is any other needed.  His Victory is sure and certain.  It is finished and perfect.

And yet, the Passover requires, not only the sacrifice of the Lamb, but also that His holy and precious Blood be applied to you, that it should cover you; and likewise, that His Flesh should be given to you, and that you should eat His Flesh in repentant faith and with thanksgiving.

It is true, as you have heard from the lips of Jesus, that you are already clean by the Word that He has spoken to you; for He has called you by His Gospel, and He has enlightened you with His gifts of grace and peace.  In Holy Baptism He has washed you with water and His Word; He has there forgiven you all of your sins, and He has poured out His Holy Spirit generously upon you.

But consider your day-to-day life and your circumstances in this world.  You do not love and serve your neighbor as Christ Jesus loves and serves you.  Perhaps your neighbor does not need you to wash his dirty feet — or perhaps he does — but your neighbor does have needs, in any case; and he is set before you as an object of divine Love, so that you also might love and serve him or her, as the Lord Jesus Christ has humbled Himself and served you, even unto death upon the Cross.

But the truth is that you do not love your neighbor as Jesus loves you, certainly not consistently and all the time.  You do, however, sin every day in the way that you think, in the way that you speak, and in the way that you act.  Indeed, you are surrounded on all sides, within and without, by sin and death — by your own sins and weaknesses, and by the sins of others against you — and by all the assaults and temptations of the devil and the whole fallen world around you, all seeking to destroy you by grabbing you away from God and plunging you into bitter death and judgment.

Your own covetous lust (whether for money, for sex, for food and drink, or for entertainment) can so easily lead you astray into sin and finally death, as happened in the tragic case of Judas Iscariot.  How often do you compromise yourself for wealth or pleasure?  And how often do you excuse your selfishness and sin, supposing that you are in a position to call your own shots?  But to pursue that path is to open your heart and mind, your body, and your life to Satan and his wicked ways.

All of which is also to say that, if the Lord Jesus does not continue to wash you by His Word and Spirit, to cleanse you with His Blood and feed you with His Flesh in divine mercy, then you shall have no part in Him.  If He does not continue to catechize you with His Wisdom, you shall perish.  You shall be consumed and destroyed by the Angel of Death on account of your unbelief and sin.

So, then, do not be like Simon Peter in this case, questioning and resisting the Word of the Lord and His Means of the Gospel.  Rather, hear and heed the Word of Christ Jesus, and trust Him to serve you, to love you with the ways and means He has provided for you in divine and holy Love.  Remain in the House of His God and Father, and so keep the Feast at His Table.  Live and love as a child of God, and give no place to the devil in your heart, mind, or behavior.  But where you have fallen into temptation and sin, return to the Lord your God by fleeing to His mercy in Christ Jesus.

Now, it is certainly true that your life as a Christian disciple of Jesus is one of joyful peace, of faith and hope and confidence.  And how shall we not give thanks and praise to our dear Lord on such a night as this one, in particular?  But with that, so are you also called to live in the fear of the Lord, and to exercise sober judgment and repentance by His Word and Spirit in this sinful world.

“Repent.”  That is the preaching of Jesus.  “Examine yourself.”  That is the teaching of His Holy Apostle, St. Paul.  “Consider your place in life according to the Ten Commandments,” and so learn to confess to your pastor those sins that you discover in yourself, in your thoughts, words, and actions.  That is the teaching of the Lord’s faithful servant, Dr. Luther.  Judge yourself rightly in the light of God’s Word.  Acknowledge your sins, your weaknesses, and your mortality.

And knowing your many and great needs, confess your sins and receive the forgiveness of Christ Jesus, your Savior.  Be returned to the cleansing and Life-giving waters of your Holy Baptism by the right use of His Word in Confession and Holy Absolution.  And as He remembers you in love and speaks to you in peace here in His Supper, so eat the Flesh with which He feeds you, and drink the Blood with which He removes your sins, shelters you from death, and brings you into Paradise.

Here at the Table of the Lord is where and how you learn to love and serve your neighbor, and so to live as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ; because here at this Table is where and how the Lord Jesus loves and serves you as His own beloved.  So is He faithful and gracious even to the end.

Here is the Hour of His Glory, where He is glorified in His grace and mercy toward you as your beloved Lord and Savior; because here is where the Glory of His Cross, His Victory over sin, death, and the devil, is given to you and poured out for you, unto Life and Salvation in Him.

Here the devil cannot have you or tyrannize you anymore; not while the Word of Christ rings in your ears, in your heart, in your body and your mind.  Nor can your sin accuse you or harm you; not while you cling by faith to the forgiveness of the Gospel of Christ Jesus.  And not even death can touch you forever; not while you rest and remain in the Body and Blood of the Lamb.

Though the world may shed your blood and slay you, yet the Lord Himself prevails for you and saves you from sin, death, and hell.  For you are baptized into Christ Jesus, and here in His Supper you abide in Him — and He abides in you — unto the Resurrection and the Life everlasting.

It is the Lord’s Passover, and you are His Israel indeed, whom He sets free from bondage and brings through the wilderness into the good Land that He has promised; that you may live with Him in His Kingdom, and worship Him and serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness all your days, even to the close of the age, when you shall see Him face to face and live forever.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Given and Poured Out for You and for the Many

It is a common but misleading error to think of the Lord’s Supper as simply a “means to an end,” as one of many other means of forgiveness.  To be sure, it is a gracious means of forgiveness, and so also of Life and Salvation with God in Christ Jesus.  But this Chief Part of the Christian faith and life — the Sacrament of the Altar — is really the crescendo and fulfillment of everything else.

In the First Chief Part, the Ten Commandments reveal your sin and demonstrate your desperate need for a Savior from sin, death, and hell; and they provide you with the Word of God that you need to examine yourself honestly and rightly, so that you are able to confess your sins and receive the Lord’s Holy Absolution by way of the Fifth Chief Part, the Office of the Keys & Confession.

In the Second Chief Part, the Apostles’ Creed confesses and declares the Church’s holy faith in the Word and promises of the Holy Triune God, who grants Life, Life, and more Life to His people in the incarnate Son, Christ Jesus.  And all this Life that you receive from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is given to you, personally, in the Fourth Chief Part, the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, whereby you are God’s own child, united with the Lord Jesus Christ in His Cross & Resurrection.

In the Third Chief Part, the Our Father teaches and gives to you the very Words with which to pray as a baptized child of God in Christ Jesus, calling on His Name with bold confidence for all that you need in both body and soul.  And all of these things that you believe, teach, confess, and pray for, the Lord graciously places into your hands, upon your lips, and into your mouth and body in the Sacrament of the true Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, given and poured out for you.

Far from being a means to some other end, the Lord’s Supper is the very Foretaste of the End — a very present and real participation in the divine, eternal Life and Salvation of the Holy Triune God.  It is, indeed, Paradise itself here on earth, in the face of Satan, sin, and death, and in the midst of this fallen and perishing world with all its sickness and sorrow.  What more could you ask or hope for than the Body and Blood of your crucified and risen Lord Jesus, your Savior and God?  In truth, nowhere are you closer or more intimately united to Him in this body and life on earth.

Of course, much time has been spent in the course of Christian history arguing over the presence of Christ Jesus in His Holy Supper.  Such arguments are a shame, but the Body and Blood of Christ in His Sacrament are not incidental, inconsequential, or irrelevant, but central and fundamental.  To put it bluntly, it is worth fighting about; the Truth is that important.

You cannot know or embrace the true significance of the Holy Communion without knowing what the Sacrament of the Altar 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.”  Anything else or less than the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, which He gives to you here, would leave you without the forgiveness and grace, life and salvation with which He feeds your body and soul in His Supper.

Along with this confession, that the Sacrament of the Altar is the true Body and Blood of Jesus, given and poured out for you and for the many, there is also the larger significance of this Blessed Sacrament for your faith and life in Christ.  We could hardly begin to exhaust that significance, even if we spoke of nothing else from now until eternity.  But I have often found that three Old Testament precursors are especially helpful in grasping the meaning and purpose of this Supper.

Probably the most obvious Old Testament precursor to the Lord’s Supper — indeed, the context in which it was first given and poured out for you and for the many — is the Passover, which was so central and instrumental to the Lord’s deliverance of His Israel from Pharaoh’s bitter yoke.

You’ve heard the beginning of that story again this evening.  When the Lord was about to bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt by His mighty arm and outstretched hand — when He would send His Angel of Death throughout the land to slay the firstborn son in each and every household — He prescribed the Passover as a means of grace to be eaten by those who trusted in Him.

Instead of the firstborn sons of Israel, each household would sacrifice a male lamb without spot or blemish.  On the night of the Exodus from Egypt, the blood of that lamb would be applied to the doorposts and lintel of each home — in the shape of a cross! — to protect the family from the Angel of Death; and within that house the flesh of the lamb would be eaten as a meal of salvation.

All of this was a marvelous exercise of the Lord’s mercy upon Israel.  But as with everything in the Old Testament, the Passover also pointed forward to the coming of the Christ and His Cross.

Indeed, the true Passover Lamb is our dear Lord Jesus, the Christ.  He is the firstborn Son of God, who willingly offered His Life as a sacrificial Lamb in the stead of the entire world.  And now, in His Holy Supper, His Blood covers you from death, His Flesh is given as your Meal of Salvation.

Following the Exodus from Egypt — after all the people had been “baptized into Moses in the Cloud and in the Sea,” as St. Paul writes  — the Lord established His Covenant with the sons of Israel at Mt. Sinai.  He declared Himself to be their God, and He blessed them to be His people.

At the foot of that sacred Mountain of God, sacrifices of oxen were made on behalf of the people.  Then Moses took half of the blood from those sacrifices and sprinkled it on the Altar as an offering to the Lord.  And the other half of the same blood he sprinkled on the people to seal the Covenant between them and the Lord their God.  “This is the blood of the Covenant,” he said as he did so.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was handed over to His voluntary suffering and death upon the Cross, took up those same Words of Moses and made them uniquely His own in the pouring out of His Blood of the New Covenant for His disciples to drink in the Sacrament.  So does He now give you to drink from His Cup, the New Covenant or Testament in His Blood, here at His Altar.  The same Blood that He offered to the Father on the Cross, He now pours out for His people to drink as the Seal, Pledge, and Guarantee of His free forgiveness, eternal Life, and Salvation.

We typically think and speak of the “Old” and “New Testaments” as collections of Books in the Bible.  But in actual fact, the Old Testament was really that Blood of the Covenant at Mt. Sinai; and the New Testament, likewise, according to the Words of our Lord Jesus Himself, is the Cup of His own Blood which He pours out for you and for the many, for the forgiveness of sins.

That is the “New Covenant” that God promised through the Prophet Jeremiah, in which He gives Himself to each and all of His dear children.  For He comes to you and feeds you with His own Body and Blood, intimately uniting Himself to you, and giving you His Life in body and soul.

If you pray that He would be your God, if you would be and live as His child, then learn from Him to seek and to find the answer to that prayer in His Sacrament of the Altar, His New Testament.

As the sons of Israel then wandered in the wilderness on their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land of Canaan, you know how the Lord provided them with Manna from Heaven.  In fact, we  recently heard reference to that daily bread with which He fed them so faithfully all those years.

Well, the Lord Jesus reveals in one of His sermons, recorded by St. John, that the Manna was really pointing forward to the true and living Bread from Heaven — that is, to Christ Jesus Himself, the  Word of God who became Flesh and tabernacles with us; who has come down from the bosom of the Father in heaven, conceived and born of St. Mary, in order to save us all from sin and death.

The Bread that He gives for the life of the world is His own Flesh.  He says so, Himself.  So does He also promise that whoever eats His Flesh and drinks His Blood will never die — as those who ate the Manna did — but they will live forever in and with Him, sharing His divine eternal Life.

It is, of course, this true Bread from Heaven, this Flesh and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, that He spreads before you in this Feast of His Holy Supper, here at His Table in His House.  And it is of the greatest significance and benefit — for you — because of the Words with which He gives to you His Body to eat and pours out His Blood for you to drink, for the forgiveness of your sins.

His Words of Institution — the Verba Testamenti with which He gives this Holy Supper — and His Body and Blood thus given — indicate, first of all, the meaning and purpose of His Sacrifice; that no one takes His life from Him, but He lays it down willingly in faith and love, handed over by His God and Father to His Cross and Passion for the reconciliation of the world.  Thus did He sacrifice Himself in obedience to His Father and with divine compassion for you and all people.

And just as He offered up His Body and His Blood in sacrificial death for you and all upon the Cross, so does He now hand over His Body and Blood to you and to the many, to eat and to drink, in order to give to His disciples all the fruits and benefits of His Sacrifice.  Apart from His Words — that these most Holy Things are here given for you — you would hardly dare to take the Body and Blood of the almighty and eternal Son of God upon your lips; nor could you ever do so.  But the fact is that He has spoken — and His words, for you, invite you to believe and trust in Him.

Take these precious and priceless Words to heart, and so also take the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus into your mouth with peace and joy and hope and confidence in Him.  There is no greater treasure in heaven or on earth than these sacred Gifts.  And your own dear Savior desires nothing more than this, that you should receive them as your very own, as your participation in His Life.

When you are tempted by the devil, by the world, and by your own flesh to avoid the Sacrament — whether it be out of a misguided sense of humility or a false sense of unworthiness, as though you could ever be worthy of yourself to eat and drink the Body and Blood of Christ — or whether it be out of laziness or pride — consider the good advice that Dr. Luther gives in the Catechism:

“What should encourage a Christian to receive the Sacrament frequently?”

In respect to God, both the command and the promise of Christ the Lord should move him, and in respect to himself, the trouble that lies heavy on him, on account of which such command, encouragement, and promise are given.

“But what shall a person do if he be not sensible of such trouble and feel no hunger and thirst for the Sacrament?”

To such a person no better advice can be given than this:

First, that he put his hand into his bosom, and feel whether he still have flesh and blood, and that he by all means believe what the Scriptures say of it (in Galatians and Romans).

Second, that he look around to see whether he is still in the world, and keep in mind that there will be no lack of sin and trouble, as the Scriptures say (in John’s Gospel and 1st Epistle).

Third, he will certainly have the devil also about 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’s Gospel, as well as First Peter, Ephesians, and Second Timothy).

In all things, at all times and in all places, it is the Word of the Lord that catechizes you in the true Christian faith and life.  And Christ be praised that, by His Word and promise, you have such a sure and certain refuge in His Body and His Blood — given into death upon the Cross for your Atonement and Redemption — and now given and poured out for you here in His Supper for the free and full forgiveness of all your sins, and for Life and Salvation with Him in body and soul.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

One for All, and All for Love

Everything that Jesus does, He does in love for you, in order to give you Life with God the Father in Himself.  So, too, the love that He commands you to have for one another is this same Love that He has and exercises for each and all of you.

He has come from the Father into the Flesh, and He tabernacles with His Church in the Flesh, in order to reveal the Father to you and to all in His own Body of flesh and blood.  And as He has come from the Father, so does He also return to the Father — in His Flesh, through His Blood, by His Cross and Passion — in order to bring you to the bosom of the Father in and with Himself.

He is your merciful and great High Priest, and so it is that by His sacrificial death He enters into the Most Holy Place on your behalf.  That is to say, He enters the presence of His God and Father, in order to establish a permanent place for you there.  This He has done!  In His crucified and risen flesh, He is your steadfast Anchor behind the veil.  And where He is, there you shall be also.

This is the New Covenant that He has established between God and man, which is the bond and union — the Holy Communion — between God and man.  In Christ man is in harmony with God forevermore, because He has reconciled the world to God the Father in Himself, in His own flesh and blood, crucified for your transgressions and raised from the dead for your justification.  In this New Covenant of Christ, you are bound to God in peace, as He has bound Himself to you in love.

Now the same Lord Jesus Christ calls you to receive and enter into that New Covenant of His, not by any works of your own, but by the promise of His Gospel.  He calls you by the Gospel, and you both receive the promise and enter into His Covenant by the way and the means of the Gospel.

That is what He is doing, and what happens, in the preaching of His Holy Gospel.  That is what He has done for you and given to you in Holy Baptism.  And that is what He continues to do and give in Holy Absolution.  By the bath of your Baptism, you are already clean.  And daily, by the Gospel of forgiveness, the Lord Jesus washes your feet, that you may have your place with Him.

In each and all of these ways, the Holy Gospel bestows the very thing that it promises, although it is hidden in the Mystery of the Cross, which seems to have taken Christ Jesus away from you.  What the Gospel promises, and what it gives — not in spite of the Cross, but from the Cross — is the forgiveness of all your sins, and rescue from all of your enemies, and redemption from death.

The Blood of the Lamb has atoned for your sins and reconciled you to God.  Therefore, the devil has no rightful claim on you; he has no right to accuse you, nor is he permitted to tyrannize you.  And death is not permitted to have you anymore, either, or to hold you forever.  For where there is forgiveness of sins, as there is for you in the Gospel, there is resurrection, life, and salvation.

Thus, by the Gospel of the Cross of Christ, the Lord has executed judgment against all the gods of Egypt, against all the principalities and powers of this present age, and against the devil, the world, and the fallen flesh of old Adam, which seek to thwart His will and to destroy His people.

He has executed judgment against all of those false gods and mortal enemies of man.  So it is that He spares you from their demise, He delivers and redeems you from their grasp, and He brings you out of Egypt by His mighty arms and outstretched hands.

Therefore, do not turn to those false gods and enemies for life and help, for comfort or blessing.  They attempt to deceive you with false and alluring promises, but they cannot help or save you.  They cannot give you life.  They cannot do anything but enslave you again with sin and bring you back into death and the grave.   Therefore, do not forsake the Lord your God, nor forget His Holy Covenant, but daily repent of your sins, return to the sure promise of the Gospel, and cling to it.

It is for this reason, and to this end, that the Lord also disciplines you in love, so that you are not condemned with the idolatrous and unbelieving Egyptians, but rescued and redeemed for life.

He disciplines you with His Word of the Law, and with the sufferings of your mortal flesh in this fallen world.  But He calls you to repentant faith, He raises you up and restores you to Himself, by the preaching of His promise.  It never is by your own reason and strength, but by the preaching of the promise itself, that you receive and believe the promise of His Gospel.  It is His preaching that opens your ears to hear, His giving that opens your hand and your mouth to receive, and His kneeling to wash your feet that cleanses you of all unrighteousness and so enables you to stand.

Do not boast and brag of yourself, as Simon Peter did — and then he fell down hard and fast, as you will, too, on that path of self-reliance.  But hear and heed the Word of Christ who saves you.  By His Word and promises, by His actions and His gifts, He sanctifies you in body and soul, inside and out, with His forgiveness of all your sins.  It is by His Gospel that you are completely clean.

That is what the Divine Service of His Word and Sacrament is all about.  Indeed, that is what the Divine Service actually is: The Lord Jesus coming and doing, speaking and giving, all by grace.  By the preaching of repentance for the forgiveness of sins He returns you to the cleansing waters of your Baptism.  And then He brings you to His Table to feed you with His Body and His Blood, so that, in Him, in His flesh, you live and abide in the Holy Communion of the Holy Triune God.

It certainly doesn’t look that way for now.  You do not discern the Lord’s Body by your eyesight or your intellect.  Indeed, you cannot.  All your wisdom, reason, and senses will utterly fail you in that regard.  But you discern the Lord’s Body here and now, hidden under the Cross in humble bread and wine, by the Word that He speaks, and by the proclamation and catechesis of His Word.

It is His Word that not only reveals His Body and His Blood, but actually makes the bread to be His Body, the wine to be His Blood.  He uses that strong and simple word, “is,” at the heart of the Consecration, and He invites you to eat and to drink because of that identification: He speaks, and it is so.  “This Is My Body.”  Therefore, “Eat.”  Likewise, also, “This Is My Blood,” and, with that, “This Chalice is the New Covenant in My Blood.”  Therefore, “Drink of it, all of you.”

There simply is no Lord’s Supper without the Lord’s Word, which makes the Supper what it is, and which gives the Supper to you, His Christian, to eat and to drink in faith and with thanksgiving.

But this Word of the Lord, by which He consecrates His Sacrament of the Altar, is not spoken or heard in a vacuum.  As often as the Church is gathered to eat this Bread and drink this Cup, this Holy Supper of Christ Jesus is given and received along with the preaching and teaching of His death — until He shall come in glory as the risen and exalted One, and all His angels with Him.

It is by the proclamation of Christ Jesus, crucified and risen, that you discern the Lord’s Body in the Holy Communion, and that you receive and believe the promise of His Gospel.  That is to say, you believe, not only that the bread and wine are His Body and Blood at His Word, but also that this Most Holy Food and Drink are given and poured out for you, for the forgiveness of your sins.

He gives you His sacred Body to eat, and He pours out His holy and precious Blood for you to drink, for the forgiveness of all your fears and failings, for your betrayals and denials, for your arrogance and envy, for your faithless despair, and for all of your other shameful sins and vices.

Thus, by His Word and promise of the Gospel, which is to say, by His free and full forgiveness of your sins, you remember Him in this Holy Sacrament.  Not only in your heart and mind, with your intellect and emotions, but also with your ears, and with your hand and mouth, and in your body as well as your soul.  For His Body and His Blood are surely given for both your body and soul.

You remember Him by His Word of the Gospel, as He remembers you in love by giving you His Body to eat and pouring out His Blood for you to drink.  For He is not a passive or distant observer of this Holy Supper, but He truly is the Host, the Waiter, and the Meal, as surely as He is the Sacrifice Itself, the Meat and the Drink of which are here received and shared in the fellowship of the Church with her dear Lord Jesus Christ, and with God the Father and the Holy Spirit in Him.

You remember Him, as He remembers you in Love, not only in the Sacrament, but also in loving one another as He has loved you.  It is the New Covenant of Christ that undergirds and informs the New Commandment.  Not that “Love” is something altogether new, for the entire Law of God is summarized in that one word.  But Christ has fulfilled the Law, and He has made all things new. So then, “Love” itself is redefined — or, better, it is realized for what it is — in the Cross of Christ, in the Sacrifice of His flesh and blood for the atonement of the world, and in His Holy Sacrament.

As a Christian, a disciple of Christ Jesus, you are given to love your neighbors without prejudice or partiality, as the Lord Jesus loves and serves all people and lays down His life for the salvation of the world.  But all the more so are you given to love one another, as you are bathed and washed and cleansed by one Lord Jesus Christ in one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and you are fed by the same Lord Jesus Christ, with His Body and His Blood, as fellow members of one Body in Him.  It is His Love for you in these means of grace which fills you with His Love for each other.

His Love for you is not relegated to the past, but it is constant and continuous.  Consider that He loves you and serves you unto the “end” with His forgiveness and life and salvation.  That is how you remember Him and follow Him to and from His Holy Altar, even unto the Life everlasting.

For what He receives from and has with His Father, He also hands over to you by the Ministry of the Gospel.  This is the Holy Tradition of which St. Paul the Apostle writes.  That is, what he has received, he also hands over to the Church.  And that holy “handing over” of Christ Jesus really begins, not with Judas the betrayer, but with God the Father handing over His beloved Son in the flesh, unto His death upon the Cross.  The incarnate Son goes just as it is written of Him.

And the Tradition continues with the Son handing Himself over to “His own” beloved disciples, even as He hands Himself over to the Father by His willing Self-sacrifice as the Lamb of God.

“Do this,” Jesus says, “in remembrance of Me.”  Which is not only to love one another, as He has loved you, but what He has done for His disciples, they are to do for His Church: To take bread and wine, to bless and give thanks to His God and Father, to consecrate with His Word, and in His Name and stead to distribute His Body and His Blood to His baptized and catechized disciples.

By this Holy Ministry, the “handing over” of the Son by the Father reaches now to you, to your ears, to your hands, and to your mouth and body.  So it is that everything Christ Jesus has received from His Father, He now gives to you in turn.  And as the Father remembers Him, and raises Him from the dead, and receives Him back to Himself in peace, so does the Father remember you in Christ Jesus, His Son.  That is what He does for you and gives to you in this Holy Sacrament.

Such is the meaning and purpose of this New Covenant, which Christ has established in Himself.  In His own flesh and blood you have Life with God in both your body and soul — already here and now, by grace, in the Holy Communion (on earth as it is in heaven) — and in the resurrection of your body, at the last, to the Life everlasting in Paradise.  That is the promise and pledge which is bequeathed to you in the Lord’s Supper, even the eternal inheritance of the Father for His Son.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The Newness of Love in the New Covenant of Christ

It is said that, in his later years, the preaching of St. John the Apostle could be summarized simply as, “My little children, love one another.”  That is not hard to imagine.  St. Paul often writes of love in his Epistles, but it is St. John who has recorded the New Commandment of the Lord Jesus, the “mandatum” for which this day has been named: “Maundy Thursday.”  St. John likewise writes of this New Commandment in his Epistles, and he there repeats the point with emphasis.  Hence, the “beloved disciple,” who knew the love of Jesus well, has also become the Apostle of Love.

Not only St. John and St. Paul, but the Lord Jesus Himself teaches you that Love is the summary and fulfillment of the Law: Love for God above everything else, and love for your neighbor with the same affection, care, and dedication that you have for yourself.  This is what the Lord requires of you as a child of God, as a disciple of Christ Jesus, in all that you do and say.

In faith before God, to the glory of His holy Name, you are called and commanded to humble yourself in service to your neighbor.  And your “neighbor” is found in all those people whom God the Lord has stationed alongside you in this life on earth.  You are to sacrifice and give yourself for others, to cleanse and feed your neighbors in the world, even those who trespass against you.

How, then, shall you wash your neighbor’s feet?  Little children, how shall you love one another?

And with that, you fathers and mothers, how shall you teach your own children to love, as Christ Jesus and His Apostles have taught you and commanded you to love?  Or, if you have no children of your own, how shall you teach your students to love, or anyone else entrusted to your care and oversight?  The answer is obvious enough.  In the first place, you are to love them.  For you cannot expect or suppose that your children (or students) will love any differently than you love them.

Parents, do you want your children to love each other?  To be polite and respectful to you and to other people?  To be considerate, kind, and gentle?  To put the needs of others ahead of their own?  You should desire all of these things.  And so should you love your children as Christ Jesus loves you, and serves you, and gives Himself for you, as He forgives you, cleanses you, and feeds you.

Jesus does not ask you to do anything more or anything else than what He Himself does for you and gives to you by His grace.  He rather commands you to be like Him, and to do for others as He does for you.  As we have heard from St. Peter earlier this week, the Lord Jesus Christ has left you an example in the bearing of His Cross and Passion, that you should follow in His steps.

Your feet are to walk in the way of Christ Jesus, which is the way of faith before God, and the way of steadfast love for one another (as Dr. Luther’s post-Communion Collect summarizes so well).

But where is the Gospel found in all of this?  For the Gospel is not a law, it is a gift.  The Gospel does not tell you what to do.  It proclaims what Christ has done, and it freely delivers His good things to you.  So where is the Gospel in the Lord’s good example and in His New Commandment?

Is the “newness” of the Lord’s command an even higher and holier Law than God had previously given through Moses in the Old Testament?  Has He just upped the ante even more?  For the whole Law of Moses was already summarized in Love — for God and for the neighbor — whereas now you are commanded to love both God and man in the perfect way that Christ Jesus does.

But in fact, the perfect love of Jesus — for His Father, for you, and for all people — is precisely the fulfillment of what the old Law demanded.  So that expectation is not the “newness” at hand.

In any event, you could not do it — not of yourself or by yourself.

You love God and your neighbor only as the Lord Jesus first loves you.  You learn from Him to love, not only by His good example and instruction, but as He serves you in love, and cleanses you by grace, and makes you brand new in Himself, recreated in His divine Image and Likeness.

Would you presume to wash your own feet and cleanse yourself and become your own savior?  You know better than that!  Be humbled before the Lord who humbles Himself to love and serve you, and so receive His grace.  Be cleansed and fed by Him who is your Savior.  You bend your knee in reverence before Him, and rightly so.  You meekly bow your head and fold your hands in His presence, and that is truly meet, right, and salutary.  But here, too, humble yourself by giving Him your dirty feet to be washed, and by opening your mouth to eat and drink from His hand.

There is something remarkably new in that.  Among the Jews, it was unusual even for a servant to wash the feet of his own master.  A Jewish servant could not legally be required or compelled to do so, although he might choose to do so for a beloved master.  But here it is the Lord who strips Himself to serve, who gets down on His knees to wash the feet of His disciples, including one who will betray Him and one who will deny Him, as He well knows; and all of them will run away.

In this humble service of Christ Jesus — the great Lord who came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for the many — in this you are brought to the heart of the matter.  For the “newness” of His Commandment is the newness of the New Covenant in His Blood.

It is in Him that all things are made new, including you.  In His own Body of flesh and blood.

The newness is found in His keeping and fulfilling of the Law — not only God’s commandments, but also His promises — including the divinely given rites and ceremonies of the Lord’s Passover.  So has He kept and fulfilled the Law of God from His conception, birth, and childhood, from His Baptism in the Jordan River, and throughout His life and ministry on earth.  But it all culminates and is completed — even as it continues — on this night, in this Hour, in His Passion unto death.

In humility He comes down from the Father in heaven into the very depths of your sin and death.  He lays down His life for you, as He lays aside His garments and kneels down to wash your feet.  It is something that a master would never do for a slave; and yet, the Lord Jesus does so for you.

The waters with which He cleanses you flow from His wounded side together with His Blood.  So you are cleansed by His Blood in the waters of Holy Baptism.  And you are cleansed by His Blood from the Cup of His New Covenant, which He pours out for you in His Sacrament of the Altar.

When the Israelite fathers sacrificed the Passover lambs at twilight, they did so in the doorways of their homes.  At the threshold was a basin, an impression dug into the floor, which would normally be useful for preventing water from washing into the house.  The blood of the sacrificed lamb was poured out into that basin, and then painted onto the doorframe at its top and each of its sides with a brush of hyssop — thus making the sign of the Cross!  In like manner, the Blood of the true Passover Lamb, Christ Jesus, is poured out from His sacred wounds into the “basin” of His Baptismal Font, and into the “basin” of His Holy Communion Chalice, at the foot of His Cross.

Here is the Love of God with which He loves you: His own Lifeblood, shed for you and poured out for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.  And with that, you have Christ Jesus, and life and salvation in Him as a member of His Body, the Church, His own beloved household and family.

You know well enough, even from everyday life, how important and significant meals are, not only for the nourishment and sustenance of your body, but also for fellowship with your neighbors.  To eat and drink together is a fundamental bond of family and friends, and the dinner table is, or ought to be, a regular gathering place for parents with their children, and for brothers and sisters with one another.  The husband and father who provides the meal, whether by farming, by hunting and fishing, or by paying for the food, thereby loves and cares for his wife and children.  Likewise, the wife and mother who prepares the meal and serves it to her family, thereby loves her husband and children and cares for them.  Such works and service are not incidental; they are among the cords of love that bind the members of a household to each other and actually make them into a family.

Similarly, Jesus here “presides” over the Meal of His Household and Family, as a Husband to His beloved Bride, and as a Father to His dear little children.  In gathering you to Himself in this Feast, He includes you in His Family, His Church.  He gives you a part in Himself, in His Body.  All the more so because He has not only provided for this Feast and paid for it with His own Life; He has not only prepared it by His death; and not only does He Himself serve you, as your Waiter, through His Ministry of the Gospel; but He is the Food and the Drink with which He now feeds you.

Consequently, you are “bodied” and “blooded” together with the Lord Jesus Christ.  You are what you eat, that is, a member of the Body of Christ, truly flesh of His flesh and blood of His blood.  And in Him you are “bodied” and “blooded” together with each other.  You are all one Body in Christ, as you all eat of His Body and drink of His Cup.  Thus, you belong to each other, and you are given to love and serve and care for each other, as the Lord Jesus Christ loves each of you.

To be sure, you are “bodied” and “blooded” together with Christians of all times and places.  But this congregation is your immediate family.  The Christians who sit and stand and kneel beside you here in this place are your brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.  And you all have one Father, who gathers you right here to love you and to feed you with His beloved Son.  So this is your family, and this is your home.  And this is the Table where you eat and drink together in faith and love.

Where then shall your feet take you, as they are cleansed by the Lord who loves you?  Let them bring you here to share this Meal with your family, which Christ in mercy has prepared for you and gives to you.  And then let your feet take you from this Altar to love and serve your neighbors in the world.  Learn to know the needs, the hurts and hopes, the heartaches and joys of your brothers and sisters, and do not run away from them and their pain, but walk beside them with compassion.

Little children, love one another.  For love is of God, and you are beloved of Him.  He loves you, even here in the midst of sin and death, even to the bitter end.

Not only that, but “the end,” it turns out, is really the beginning of abundant life with God in Christ Jesus.  For the One who has laid aside His garments to cleanse you by the shedding of His Blood, by His innocent suffering and death, and by the washing of water with His Word, has also taken them up again, in order to clothe you in His garments, richly wrought, and to adorn you in His righteousness like a beautiful bride or a handsome prince, made good-looking by His love for you.

The One who has laid down His life for you has taken it up again on His journey back to His God and Father in heaven.  And as He has come down from heaven for you and your salvation, so does He bring you, in and with Himself, to the One who is your own dear God and Father in Him.

The Son of Man has glorified the Father in Himself by His sacrificial death as the Lamb of God, bearing the sins of the world in His own Body on the Cross.  And His Father has glorified Him by raising Him from the dead, never to die again.  So it is that all things are made new in Him, in His crucified and risen Body; and all flesh is cleansed and made alive by His holy and precious Blood.

His Blood marks the threshold of His Church in Holy Baptism, sealed with the sign of His Cross from the basin at His feet to the beam and lintels above His thorn-crowned head and on His right and on His left.  His Blood has likewise signed and sealed you with His Cross in the waters of your Baptism, so that you are clean and made ready for this Feast, which He has made ready for you.

In your eating of His Body, in your drinking of His Blood, you pass with Him through death into life, and you enter with Him into the Most Holy Place.  For here at His Table you are united with your whole family in heaven and on earth within your Father’s House.  And here you are kept safe and sound.  The destroyer and death and the devil must leave you alone and cannot touch you here, because Christ the Lamb lays hold of you in love, that He should abide in you, and you abide in Him, body and soul, unto the Life everlasting.  This is Love.  And this is your Life forevermore.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The Passover Lamb of God

The Sons of Israel were not spared from death because of any merit or worthiness or innocence of their own.  They were delivered on account of the Lamb, which was sacrificed in their place.  Its blood covered them, and its flesh fed them.  Not as though any animal could merit atonement or redemption, but it was their rescue by the Word of the Lord, by the grace and mercy of God.

On account of His divine and holy Love, He instituted the Passover as the Prophecy and Promise of Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  In Him is the fulfillment of all the Law and the Prophets, of the Exodus from Egypt and the Good Land of Canaan.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the firstborn Son of God from all eternity, who has also been conceived and born as the promised Seed of the Woman, of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel.  In His own flesh and blood, He is the Ram caught by His horns upon the branches of His Tree, the Lamb that God has provided for Himself in place of all the sons and daughters of Adam.

He is given and poured out upon the Altar of His Cross as the Propitiation for your sins, and not for your sins only, but for the sins of the whole world.  His Sacrifice has been completed, once and for all, and there is no more sacrifice for sin.  His Victory is certain, finished, and complete.

Yet, the Passover of God requires not only that His Lamb be sacrificed, but that His holy, precious Blood be applied to you, that it should mark and cover you; and that you should eat His sacred Flesh in repentance and faith, with praise and thanksgiving to the Name of the Lord.

It is true that you are already clean by the Word that He has spoken to you; for He has called you by the Gospel and sanctified you with His gifts.  And in Holy Baptism He has washed you with water and His Word, and poured out His Spirit upon you through the forgiveness of your sins.

But consider your life and your circumstances in this world.  You do not love your neighbor as Christ the Lord loves you, but you do continue to sin day after day in your thoughts, words, and actions.  And you are surrounded on all sides, within and without, by sin and death, and by the assaults and temptations of the devil, the world, and your own fallen and perishing flesh.

Your covetous lust can so easily lead you astray, into sin and finally death, as happened in the tragic case of Judas.  How often do you compromise yourself for money or for pleasure?  And how often do you excuse your selfishness and sin, supposing that you are in a position to call the shots?  But to pursue that path is to open your heart, your body and life, to Satan and his wicked ways.

If the Lord Jesus does not continue to wash you, to cleanse you with His Blood and feed you with His Flesh, you shall have no part in Him.  If He does not teach you by His Word, you shall perish.  You shall be consumed and destroyed by the angel of death on account of your unbelief and sin.

Do not be like Simon Peter, questioning and resisting the Word of the Lord and His Means of the Gospel.  Rather, hear and heed the Word of Christ, and trust Him to serve you in His divine Love.  Remain in the House of His God and Father, and so keep the Feast at His Table.  Live and love as a child of God, and give no place to the devil in your heart, mind, or behavior.  But where you have fallen into temptation and sin, return to the Lord your God by fleeing to His mercy in Christ Jesus.

Your life as a Christian surely ought to be one of joyful faith and confidence, and how shall we not give thanks on a night like this, in particular.  But so also are you called to live in the fear of the Lord, and to exercise sober judgment and repentance by His Word and Spirit in this sinful world.

Examine yourself, as the Holy Scriptures and the Small Catechism admonish and instruct you.  Consider your station in life according to the Ten Commandments, and judge yourself honestly in the light of God’s Word.  Recognize your sinfulness, your weakness, your mortality and death.

And knowing your failure and your need, confess your sins and receive the forgiveness of Christ Jesus, your Savior.  Be returned to the cleansing and life-giving waters of your Holy Baptism by the right use of His Word in Confession and Holy Absolution.  And as He remembers you in love and speaks to you in peace here in His Supper, so eat the Flesh with which He feeds you, and drink the Blood with which He removes your sins, shelters you from death, and brings you into Paradise.

Here at the Table of the Lord is where and how you learn to love and serve your neighbor as a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ; because here is where and how He loves you and serves you as His own, sustaining you with His Body and Life throughout your pilgrimage, even to the end.

Here is the Hour of His Glory, where He is glorified in His grace and mercy as your Savior.  For here is where the Glory of His Cross, His Victory over sin and death, and the power of His bodily Resurrection are all given to you, and poured out for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins.

Here the devil cannot have you or tyrannize you anymore; not while the Word of Christ rings in your ears, in your heart, in your body and your mind.  Nor can your sin accuse you or harm you; not while you cling by faith to the forgiveness of the Gospel.  And even death cannot touch you forever; not while you rest and remain in the Body and Blood of the Lamb.

Though the world may shed your blood and slay you, yet the Lord Himself prevails for you and saves you from sin, death, and hell.  For you are baptized into Christ, and here in His Supper you abide in Him, and He abides in you, unto the life and salvation of your body and your soul.

It is the Lord’s Passover, and you are His Israel indeed, whom He sets free from bondage and brings through the wilderness into the good Land that He has promised; that you may live with Him in His Kingdom and worship Him and serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness all your days, even to the close of the age, to the resurrection of your body and eternal life in Him.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.