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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even those of us who have been attending regularly the past three weeks cannot deny the coronavirus’s impact on the Church as we experience it. Sanitizing and social‑distancing aside, dear brothers and sisters in Christ are absent. At home, perhaps streaming audio files either of our full services or of just the sermons, those absent may not have received the Lord’s Supper since the middle of March, though since then I have privately communed those who have requested it, either at their homes or here at Pilgrim. During these extraordinary times, Pilgrim is trying to continue faithfully both preaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments. In keeping with the Eighth Commandment, we would like to say that congregations in our church body are also trying to be so faithful, but putting that “best construction on” what they are doing or explaining what they are doing in that “kindest way” is more possible in the case of some congregations than other congregations. Those other congregations, among other things, are in some cases attempting to change the elements of the Lord’s Supper, attempting to distribute the elements outside the context of even an abbreviated Divine Service, attempting to consecrate the elements via the internet, and even encouraging people other than pastors to attempt to consecrate the elements. Such efforts are shown to be false when, for example, we hear, as we did in the Gospel Reading tonight, how “The Lord gives His Supper”.
As we heard, and as we know from parallel accounts, the Lord Jesus Christ went to some lengths both to ensure that He would be able to keep the Passover with His disciples, at a location that His betrayer would not know until it was too late, and once there to institute His Holy Supper. That evening as they were eating the Passover, recalling the Israelites’ sorrows in Egypt, they themselves became very sorrowful after Jesus prophesied of His betrayal. And then, more than the usual family liturgical observation of the Passover, the occasion of God’s passing‑over or sparing Israel when slaying the firstborn of Egypt (Exodus 12; 13:3-9), Jesus with His disciples introduced new elements and new meaning, fulfilling and surpassing what had come before, with unleavened bread that also was Jesus’s Body and with wine that also was Jesus’s Blood. Though Jesus was about to suffer a violent death, He implied His resurrection and His and disciples’ ultimate victory (Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 26:29, p.475) by speaking of drinking of that fruit of the vine—a Jewish technical‑term for wine—new with them in His Father’s Kingdom (confer/compare Mark 14:25).
Surely the Lord Who gave His Supper is Himself very sorrowful when unfaithful congregations try to have His Supper with crackers and grape juice, when they distribute it as if were fast-food at a drive-through restaurant, or try to have it without a living incarnation of His Office of the Holy Ministry. Perhaps the Lord Who gave His Supper is also sorrowful when otherwise faithful pastors and people stop gathering together around His Supper. I do not want to create undue guilt for those who are absenting themselves from our face‑to‑face Divine Services out of an abundance of caution for their temporal lives, but I do want all to see that an extended absence potentially risks one’s eternal life. The Lord knows our true regard for His Supper: whether we let it change our lives for the better, whether we truly hunger and thirst for His righteousness (Matthew 5:6), whether we are strong or weak in faith, and whether we regard His Supper as something harmful like poison or otherwise despise this blest communion (Lutheran Service Book 617:3). Though not exactly like Judas, in one way or another we all betray our intimate fellowship with our Lord, and, unlike Judas, we want to heed our Lord’s warning, and so, in the words of tonight’s first Psalm (Psalm 130; antiphon: v.4) we cry to the Lord out of the depths of our sin and sinful nature and the condemnation that we deserve on account of them.
With the Lord, there is forgiveness, for He redeems us from all of our iniquities. The Lord works what today’s Epistle Reading called an eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:11-22). The One Who was named Jesus because He would save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21) saved them by dying on the cross for them (Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 26:28, p.474). As we heard in the Gospel Reading, Jesus knew His time was at hand, and He voluntarily went as it was written of Him. Later that same Jewish day, in His violent death on the cross (Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 26:28, p.474), He poured out His blood for many (that is, for “all”), for the forgiveness of their sins. For, as we heard in the Epistle Reading, with reference to the Old Testament, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness (confer Leviticus 17:11). For our ransoming, Jesus gave His Body and shed His blood, which excel all price (LSB 630:1). As in tonight’s Old Testament Reading (Exodus 24:3-11), God lovingly chose to make this new covenant with us in Jesus’s blood and so deliver us not from slavery in Egypt but from bondage to our sin. With repentance and faith, we receive God’s forgiveness, by grace for Jesus’s sake.
Because God is surpassingly rich in His grace, the Gospel offers counsel and help against sin in more than one way (Smalcald Articles III:iv). The forgiveness of sins is preached to the whole world, and such reading of God’s Word and preaching can be conveyed through electronic means. Forgiveness of sins is worked in Holy Baptism, which, once given, lasts a lifetime. Forgiveness in the form of individual Holy Absolution follows private Confession, the gathering of two (Matthew 18:20) for mutual conversation that results in the pastor’s consolation through the Office of the Keys. And, as we heard in the Gospel Reading, forgiveness is given through the Lord’s Supper. Here, as we sang in the second Psalm (Psalm 116:12-19; antiphon: v.17) and will sing in the Offertory based on that Psalm, we offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the Name of the Lord. Unfaithful attempts to provide the Supper not in keeping with the Lord’s institution raise doubt whether Christ is truly present and so such “Suppers” ultimately cannot comfort. Still, those who desire this Holy Meal and yet cannot receive it at all should not despair, wrongly thinking that somehow they are not forgiven, for the other Means of Grace remain both available to and effective for them, and so they can comfort them as the Supper comforts us.
Nevertheless, Jesus certainly intends for all to continue to observe His Supper (Luke 22:19-20; 1 Corinthians 11:23-25). Under normal circumstances the Lord’s Supper is, like Holy Baptism, necessary for salvation (John 6:53; confer John 3:3, 5). Along with individual Absolution, these Sacraments apply the Gospel to us individually in ways that the reading and preaching of God’s Word do not. Though in some sense we eat and drink individually, by such eating and drinking we are also united with the Body of Christ sacramentally and ecclesiastically, that is, we are united with our brothers and sisters in Christ in the Church, both with those who gather in this time and place and with those who gather in every time and every place, including those who have gone before us in the faith, and who are now with the Lord.
Recently a brother pastor and I were trying to track down the introduction of some particular language that is used in our liturgy to refer to the Lord’s Supper now as a “foretaste” and to the Lord’s Supper in the end as “the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom” (Revelation 19:9), and we think we at least partially traced that introduction back at least to the Missouri Synod’s 19‑69 Worship Supplement. Tonight’s Gospel Reading has shown us that “The Lord gives His Supper”, and to some extent we have considered its past, present, and future aspects (confer Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 26:26-29, p.1413 n.60, citing Davies and Allison, 3:477). Despite the coronavirus and its disruptions, as we eat and drink the Supper He once established with one another now, we look forward to eating and drinking also with the Lord Himself (Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 26:26-29, p.1413) in the new eternal fellowship of the meal in His Father’s kingdom in the world to come (Roehrs‑Franzmann, ad loc Matthew 26:17-29, p.39; confer Kretzmann, ad loc Matthew 26:26-29, p.147, citing Stoeckhardt).
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +