Maundy Thursday April 1st, 2010

Pastor Waldschmidt
April 1st, 2010
Maundy Thursday
Portrait of The Savior
Giving A Gift
Text: Mark 14:22-26
In the name of Jesus, God’s gift to the world, dear fellow redeemed children of God,
Imagine a birthday party where everyone comes and there is a gift table. When it comes time to open the gifts, the gifts are handed to the guests of the party by the guest of honor. That’s not the way things usually work. Normally the party guests bring presents for the guest of honor not the other way around. Tonight’s portrait of the Savior takes us to an upper room in Jerusalem where a celebration-the Passover celebration – is being celebrated by Jesus and His disciples. Jesus, the guest of honor has a gift for his followers there and for his followers here. We see the Savior Giving A Gift. I. a precious gift. II. A gift that reminds us of heaven.
Imagine you knew that you were going to die tomorrow. What things might you like to do tonight? You might come up with a list of things that you’ve never done and then quickly try to get them all done. Or maybe we would be in a paralyzing stew about how all this could happen to us. Jesus knew He was going to be arrested in a few hours and then go to a terrible death on the cross the next day. What’s on His mind? We don’t see him stewing about what was about to happen to him. He wasn’t out trying to book a sky diving flight for the next morning checking items he had never done before off of a list. No we see Jesus giving His followers a gift- a precious gift.
That precious gift had been hinted at and pictured for God’s people for a long time. One of those pictures was in the Passover meal Jesus and His followers were eating. The Passover was a celebration of God delivering his people. In their minds they were taken back to the Old Testament, back to the first Passover when the children of Israel were still slaves in Egypt. Remember that God sent Moses to speak to Pharaoh, king of Egypt. "Let my people go," Nine times God demanded. Nine times Pharaoh refused, and each time a plague followed. Finally, God decided to send a plague so devastating that Pharaoh would be forced to let Israel go free. God said, "About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well"
Then God told his people, the Israelites, "This is what I want each of you to do: Take an unblemished lamb, a year-old male, and sacrifice it. Take the blood of that perfect lamb and paint it on the top and on the sides of the doorframe of your house, and when I see the blood of the lamb, I won’t permit the destroyer to enter that house; no one will be harmed." You see, the people were saved by the blood of the lamb. That blood of the lamb symbolized the precious blood of Christ. If you were an Old Testament Israelite, you would have been very familiar with the blood at church. At the temple you would have seen blood on the clothes of the priests and heard the bleating and lowing of the animals as they were about to be sacrificed. God used those vivid pictures to remind his people that He demands blood to pay for sin-not just a drop but the life blood to pay for sin. The writer to the Hebrews makes the point well, "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness." The blood of those animals didn’t pay for sin but they pointed to the Savior who would pay for all sin by pouring out His blood.
Remember the Lenten hymn, “Not all the blood of beasts, on Jewish altars slain, could give the guilty conscience peace or wash away the stain.” The blood of the Passover lamb symbolized the precious gift Jesus would give to us by offering himself. That would be a gift far more precious than any amount of money. Remember Peter’s words, “It was not with silver or gold that you were redeemed but with the precious blood of Christ- a Lamb without blemish or defect.”
Connected to the gift of His sacrifice on the cross Jesus had another gift for His followers. “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take it; this is my body." Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, and they all drank from it. "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many," he said to them.”
Jesus could do miraculous things with food. Remember he fed the 4,000. He fed the 5,000. He provided the huge catch of fish. After His resurrection, he cooked breakfast for His disciples on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. He Jesus provided a meal that has fed the faith of Christians through the centuries and we can dine with him 2,000 years later. He held up a piece of the bread and said, "This, this is my body." Then he took the wine and said, "This, this is my blood." Maybe, for a second, they wondered if they had heard him correctly. "This bread is my body," Jesus said, "and this wine is my blood. Here is the payment for sin and the price of your freedom. All the Old Testament sacrifices pointed to this. Here is the body and the blood of the true Lamb!"
I’ve noticed this year that the selection of Easter candy includes “Reester Bunnies” in addition to the Reeses peanut butter eggs. I don’t think those will last long at our house. The meal that Jesus instituted on Maundy Thursday was meant not just for a few hours of comfort for the followers of Jesus that night but was meant for you and for me too. When we come to communion we can have the same sense of awe that the disciples had when they first heard him call the bread and wine his body and blood. In a way we don’t understand, Jesus still comes to you and me today. With my physical eyes and tongue I see and taste only bread and wine. But God lets my faith see and taste Jesus’ body and blood as well. In a precious gift of His grace, Jesus’ body and blood are not merely represented; they are actually there. You see, this is a miracle gift! St. Paul expressed it like this: "Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?" (1 Corinthians 10:16).
Why is it such a precious gift? Because it brings the forgiveness of sins. Just like His word brings the precious news of forgiveness. So the Lord’s Supper brings that assurance to us that our sins have been paid for. The forgiveness is so precious because it is so badly needed. All of us walk around with a lot of baggage: a lot of things you have done wrong, and a lot of words of which you are not so proud. The bottom line is that you will come with a life that is sinful from start to finish. That is why the body and blood of Christ are such wonderful things. On the surface this gift doesn’t look so precious. The bread looks so simple. The wine doesn’t look very imposing. But in this humble wrapping comes something more precious than all the riches of the world: our Lord’s body and blood. He gives us the price he paid to make us his own. Wrapped up in Christ’s body and blood are the humiliation of Bethlehem and Nazareth, the suffering of Gethsemane and Golgotha, the pain, shame, death, and torments of hell that Jesus suffered in our place. Jesus’ sacrifice for sin lies before us. He gives it to us. We can touch it and taste it and see this wonderful gift.
My mom would often reuse boxes at Christmas time. So when you opened the wrapping paper , you might find a “boom box” box but actually inside was socks. So before you celebrated your new boom box, you needed to look inside and see what is really in there. The Bible says that whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup “you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.” So when you take communion you are making a public statement about what you believe about the gift Jesus gave us in His death. In other words you are saying that you believe what is taught about Jesus in the church when you go to communion. So that means you would need to look inside the cover of that church and see what the church teaches before making the public statement that you agree with what that church teaches. That’s why we don’t take communion in a church that teaches differently than what we believe about the gift Jesus gave. That’s why we ask those who don’t know what our church teaches to wait to come to communion until they have know and agree with what is taught here about the Savior.
Some of my greatest memories of family times revolved around the dinner table. Some of the greatest moments in our future revolve around a dinner table-the banquet table in heaven where we will celebrate with Jesus forever. Jesus points His disciples and us to that day when we will be with him in heaven.
“I tell you the truth, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in the kingdom of God." This banquet reminds us of the banquet that Jesus is getting ready for us right now. Remember on the Maundy Thursday Jesus told His followers, “In my Father’s House are many rooms. If it were not so I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come back and take you to be with me. That you also may be where I am.” In this happy meal Jesus gives us a little taste of the heaven that is coming for us. In heaven nothing- no sin, no problem will be able to separate us from Jesus. God says, "I will be their God, and they will be my people" and Jesus promises, I “will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
“When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.” It was time-time to go to Gethsemane. In His great love, Jesus went. But not before He gave us a gift- a precious gift- a gift that points us to heaven. Amen.