Listen to the sermon with the player below, or, download the audio.
+ + + 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. (Amen.)
When we hear the Divinely-inspired Gospel accounts’ multiple lengthy chapters’ narrating our Lord Jesus Christ’s Passion, we might miss the fact that, in less than 24 hours, Jesus goes through a series of almost dizzying events—including His instituting His Holy Supper, being arrested, tried for blasphemy, sentenced to death, and crucified—all essentially in five different locations. The changes in those locations have long been used as natural divisions in the Passion narratives, and so this year, as Pilgrim again uses its five Midweek Lenten Vespers Services in order to hear and reflect on the Passion as reported by St. Luke, the services’ Special Sermon Series is themed “Places of the Passion according to St. Luke”. As you heard, tonight’s Reading focused on “The Upper Room”, and so also this sermon focuses on “The Upper Room”.
Ranveig’s picture of the current “Cenacle” at the traditional “upper room” site is from here and used in keeping with the license linked there.
Tonight’s service outline has a picture of what is called the “Cenacle”, from the Latin word for “dining room” that the Church Father Jerome used in order to translate two different Greek words that mean “upper room” (the other is used, for example, in Acts 1:13). The Cenacle pictured is in the Gothic structure standing today at what is the traditional site of a centuries‑earlier building’s upper room that Jesus and His disciples used on the night when He was betrayed, and perhaps also on Easter Evening, again one week later, on Pentecost, and on other occasions in the book of Acts. The upper room that Jesus and His disciples used was likely built on the flat roof of the building’s first story and would have been reached by outside stairs. Regardless, there was a real upper room, and the events of tonight’s Reading really took place. While the specific place is somewhat important for its locating the events in history, the place itself is not of ultimate importance but what happened there is of ultimate importance.
As we heard in tonight’s Reading, in the days before Jesus and His disciples’ observance of the Passover in the Upper Room, the Jewish leaders—both the chief priests of the party of the Sadducees and the scribes of party of the Pharisees—were conspiring with Judas to arrest Jesus as privately as possible, while Jesus was arranging with Peter and John to observe the Passover as privately as possible without such an interruption. Jesus had Peter and John led to a large upper room furnished with the necessary low tables and dining couches or cushions in order for them to recline at the meal (confer Mark 14:15). Jesus knew what was coming, and He wanted to continue getting His disciples ready for it (Luke 18:31-38). When the hour came, Jesus instituted His Holy Supper, pointing to His Body given for them and His Blood poured out for them, and also making clear that one of them in that intimate family‑like setting hypocritically would betray Him. We can imagine how the disciples’ questioning one another asking which of them was going to betray Jesus could sinfully lead to their again arguing about which of them was to be regarded as the greatest (Luke 9:46). So, Jesus spoke about His being among them as the One Who serves; Jesus foretold Peter’s denial, and Jesus directed the disciples to prepare for opposition.
Somewhat surprising in St. Luke’s narration is that Jesus singled Peter out when speaking of Satan’s demand to have all the disciples in order to sift them like wheat. We know Peter was somewhat impetuous and at times would speak on behalf of the Twelve (for example, Luke 9:20), so perhaps Peter was the most insistent that He would not betray Jesus (compare John 13:36-38), or perhaps Jesus just used Peter to address all Twelve. Of course, Jesus knew how Peter would deny Him, just as Jesus knows how you and I deny Him. Jesus knew how Judas would betray Him, just as Jesus knows how we betray Him. Jesus knows how we act from motives such as greed and how we can think of ourselves as better than others. Jesus knows all our sin, as well as our sinful nature, how we deserve nothing but punishment now and for eternity. So, Jesus has His Holy Spirit call and so enable us to turn in sorrow from our sin and to trust God the Father to forgive our sin. When we so repent, then God forgives us! God forgives our sinful nature and all of our sin. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
In my some eight years of waiting on tables, I served major corporate executives, a former first‑lady, state government officials, and countless others of high and low estate, sometimes in the main restaurant, and sometimes in private dining rooms. From my personal experience, I can assure you that the answer to Jesus’s Upper Room question truly is that not the one who serves but the one who reclines at table is greater—not that you need some eight years of waiting tables to figure that out. Yet, as Jesus said, He was among the disciples as the One Who serves. So, Jesus is sometimes thought to have literally served His disciples the Passover meal that night in the Upper Room, enacting a detail in a parable that St. Luke earlier uniquely recorded Jesus’s telling (Luke 12:37; confer John 13:3-20; compare Matthew 24:45-50). Regardless, Jesus served His disciples and the whole world by giving His life on the cross as a ransom for all, both in the place of all and in order to benefit all (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45). As we heard Jesus say, God’s prophecy through Isaiah about Jesus’s being “numbered with the transgressors” had to be fulfilled (Isaiah 53:12; confer Luke 23:32). Jesus’s being “numbered with the transgressors” was Divinely necessary for us and for our salvation! Jesus was the Lamb of God Who took away the sin of the world (John 1:29, 36), including your sin and my sin. For Jesus’s sake, God forgives our denials and betrayals of Jesus, our greed and our pride, all our sin, whatever our sin might be, and also our sinful nature.
Though frequently regarded as one feast and sometimes called by either name, both the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover commemorated God’s deliverance of His people from their slavery in Egypt. Instituted in that context, Jesus’s Holy Supper more‑significantly effects God’s deliverance of His people from their slavery to sin. Jesus made clear that His Body and Blood once given for us on the cross are now given to us and for us in His Holy Supper. So, those who have been baptized and absolved are admitted to this Altar and its Rail. Notably, St. Luke’s account mentions the disciples’ each drinking in turn from a single cup! Yet, we would admit that however we who repent receive the wine—not to mention whatever volume of wine we drink or at whatever concentration of alcohol we drink it—we also receive all of Christ’s blood and therefore in addition receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
As we heard in tonight’s Reading, after Jesus foretold of His betrayal, after the disciples argued about who was the greatest, just before Jesus foretold of Peter’s denial, Jesus strikingly nevertheless spoke of His disciples as those who had perseveringly remained with Him and continued to remain with Him in His trials, His testing or tempting. And, Jesus spoke of His appointing them dominion and fellowship in His Kingdom. Jesus saw them and sees us who repent as forgiven, and Jesus said that He would bless them and will bless us in His Kingdom. They had to endure their own testing or tempting, as we have to endure our own testing or tempting, and, when they succumbed to temptation and returned in repentance, they were forgiven, as are we, when we succumb to temptation and return in repentance, forgiven. Like the disciples, we expect and endure hostility and persecution. And, ultimately, we all will fully realize the blessings and glory of Jesus’s Kingdom for eternity.
This evening we have considered “The Upper Room”, as the first of five “Places of the Passion according to St. Luke”. In what has been called the “Cenacle”, contrasts have abounded! We have considered both our sin and God’s forgiveness by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, including how God forgives us, for example, through Christ’s Holy Supper. At the end of tonight’s Reading, Jesus is said to have ended His and His disciples’ discussion and essentially dismissed them from the upper Room in order for them to go to the Mount of Olives, where next week we will go by Reading and reflection, as God wills and with God’s grace and blessing.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +