Jesu Juva
St. Matthew 26:26-28
April 6, 2023
Holy Thursday-A
Dear saints of our Savior~
Our Lord Jesus Christ was a master of metaphors. Nobody could make a phrase more memorable than Jesus—by taking a word that depicted one thing, and using it to depict an altogether different thing. Metaphors create a comparison between two different things. “I am the vine,” He said, “you are the branches.” Hmmm. I wonder what He meant by that? Or what about, “I am the door. I am the gate. I am the good shepherd, the bread of life, the resurrection and the life?” And Jesus has some amazing metaphors for you too: “You are the light of the world—the salt of the earth.” Metaphors make people ponder! You can mine a metaphor for a multitude of sermons.
But tonight—the night when our Lord was betrayed—this is the night when metaphors give way to the clarity of a new covenant—a new testament. A mere metaphor could never capture what Jesus did on this most holy night. Jesus wanted to be clear, direct, specific, unambiguous—just like when you make out your last will and testament. You choose your words carefully. Taking the bread, Jesus said, “This is my body.” Taking the cup Jesus said, “This is my blood.” This was no metaphor—not pretend or make-believe. This was for real—as real as the blood our Lord was about to shed.
Tonight’s Scripture readings put the accent squarely on blood. At the institution of the old covenant, on Mount Sinai, the blood of the sacrificial animals was sprinkled both on the altar and on the people. And that covenant was ratified with a meal shared between the Lord and the elders of Israel. The author of Hebrews stresses the purifying quality of blood. And he notes that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. And in the upper room, as Jesus reclined at table with the twelve, He took the cup, gave thanks, and said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins.” This covenant is new. And this covenant would be sealed, not with the blood of animals, but with the blood of Jesus.
Covenants were serious, bloody business in the Scriptures. The language is important. You don’t “make” a covenant. You don’t “draw up” a covenant. Nor do you “compose” a covenant. You CUT a covenant. And what you cut was the sacrificial animal: sheep, ox, goat, dove, whatever. You cut it. . . in half. Blood was shed. The halves of the sacrificial animal would be laid side by side. And the two parties entering into the covenant agreement would walk between the halves of the sacrificed animal. This was a solemn agreement, sealed in blood, that if either party broke the covenant, then what happened to the sacrificial animal would happen to the guilty party. The guilty party—the one who broke the covenant—would be cut in two. Blood would be shed. Life would be lost. And as for the sacrificial animal, it wasn’t left there to rot. It was cooked up and eaten as a symbol of the covenant fellowship that now existed between the two parties. They sealed the deal . . . with a meal.
Beloved in the Lord, this is the night. This is the night when a new
covenant is cut. And this new covenant would be cut in the flesh of Jesus. He will be the guilty party. He will be the covenant-breaker—the sinner. His blood will be shed. His life will be lost. He will be the Lamb of sacrifice. His body and His blood will be served up in a meal to seal the deal—in the salutary gift of the Lord’s Supper.
Blood makes people queasy in our culture. The meat department at Sendiks sells thousands of pounds of meat each year; but every drop of blood is carefully soaked up, whisked away, and disposed of. Consumers are carefully sheltered from having to see that red liquid. The truth is that blood is good. Blood is life. You can’t live without it. And you can’t live eternally—your sins can’t be forgiven—apart from the blood of Jesus, shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.
The shedding of Jesus’ blood is a reminder of God’s wrath against sin—of how serious our sin is. God hates sin. But our attitude about sin is far more casual and careless. We’re very nonchalant about receiving God’s gifts in the Divine Service. We feel little urgency for receiving God’s forgiveness. The slightest schedule conflict takes us away from here. We are lazy in the work of our vocations—especially when it comes to our vocations at home, among our family members. We casually dismiss our idolatries and our adulteries. We couldn’t care less about covenants and promises we’ve broken. What matters most is our comfort and our entertainment. For all this sin there is hell to pay. Blood must be shed.
This is the night. This is the night when Jesus gives His body and blood to us for the forgiveness of sins. We weren’t there on the night when Jesus was betrayed. We weren’t there when He took the bread and blessed it, saying, “Take, eat; this is my body.” We weren’t there when He took the cup, gave thanks, and said, “This is my blood of the [new] covenant, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins.” But as we celebrate this meal “in remembrance of Him,” when we remember what He did for us, we become part of it. It’s no longer just history—something that happened a long time ago. No, you are there, at the table with Jesus, and with the whole Church.
The covenant meal we celebrate tonight is not historic reenactment—like they do with civil war battles, or like a lot of churches do when they present Seder meals at this time of year. Doing this in remembrance of Jesus is not pretending to go back in time and reliving the past. It is a past event that comes to us as a present reality. THIS is the night. Tonight IS the night on which our Lord gives His body and blood. Only we don’t have to go to an upper room in Jerusalem; the upper room comes to us in this room. This is the place where our Lord dines with His followers and feeds them with His life-giving body and blood. This is where heaven and earth intersect. This is the mountain where the new Israel beholds God, and eats and drinks.
This is the night. Thursday night. Did you ever consider that Jesus first gave His sacrificial body and blood on the night BEFORE He actually made the sacrifice on the cross? He gave the gift of His body and blood on Thursday; but His body and blood weren’t sacrificed on the cross until Friday. What does this mean? It means that this gift is not bound by time or place. If He could give this gift before He died, then He can also give it after He died and rose again—in Jerusalem after Pentecost, in Corinth two decades later, and in every Christian congregation of every time and place. There is Jesus feeding His people with His body and blood—the fruit of the cross. This is the night. This is place. This is the gift of God for you.
On this night Jesus also said, “I give you a new commandment: Love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus also washed His disciples’ feet to show them what love looks like. At the very same table where Jesus gave His body and blood for them to eat and drink, He also washed their feet. These things go together, His Supper and His washing of feet. With the gift of His body and blood He loved them. And with the washing of their feet, He showed them how to love each other.
This is the night where we also learn anew to love one another. We love as we have been loved by Jesus. As Jesus serves us, so we serve one another. No task is too low. No work is beneath your dignity. Fed and nourished with the body and blood of our Savior, we are not too proud to stoop down to the least, the lost, the lowly, the forsaken, the disabled. We do what needs to be done for those whom God has placed in our path. It’s what our liturgy calls “fervent love for one another.”
This is the night. No more metaphors. The Lamb has been slain. His blood is poured out for your forgiveness and salvation. His body, too, is given for you. Take and eat. Drink of it, all of you.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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