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.