+ + + 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.)
In today’s Old Testament Reading, Moses sprinkled on the people of Israel the blood of the covenant with the Lord, and representatives of the people of Israel beheld God and ate and drank (Exodus 24:3-11). In today’s Epistle Reading, the Divinely‑inspired author of Hebrews tells us that Moses’s sprinkling that blood of the covenant essentially forgave sins (Hebrews 9:11-22; confer Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 26:28, p.475; confer and compare Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 26:26-29, p.1410 n.50). And, in today’s Gospel Reading, Jesus commanded His disciples and us today to eat His Body and drink His Blood of the covenant, which Blood is poured out for “many”—that is, for “all”—for the forgiveness of sins. Only St. Matthew’s account of our Lord’s institution of His Holy Supper makes so explicit that we “Eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins”.
The new covenant centers on the forgiveness of sins (Jeremiah 31:31-34; confer Zechariah 9:11; Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration VIII:53). To be sure, the old covenant, which was started centuries earlier essentially on the same day as Passover with its lambs and the corresponding exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt (Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc Matthew 26:26, p.39, with reference to Exodus 12:1-50; 13:3-9)—that old covenant included various sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins, such as a bull, ram, and two goats on the Day of Atonement (for example, Leviticus 16:1-34). But, Passover, the Day of Atonement, and every other covenant and every other sacrifice all come together on this one Jewish day that we think of as Holy (or Maundy) Thursday and Good Friday, even as all prophecy points to and is fulfilled by Jesus in His giving His Body and Blood, first in the Holy Supper and then on the Holy Cross, all for the forgiveness of sins.
Since consuming blood was forbidden in the Old Testament (for example Genesis 9:4 and Leviticus 17:10-14), Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading’s telling His disciples to eat His Body and drink His Blood, even for the forgiveness of sins, might have been “profoundly shocking” and “seemed unthinkable” to His twelve disciples (Gibbs, ad loc Matthew 26:26-29, p.1406 with notes 29 and 30), although they had earlier heard Jesus speak about the need to eat His flesh and drink His blood, as He taught in the synagogue at Capernaum; after that teaching, the Twelve stayed with Jesus, but the Jews disputed among themselves over how Jesus could give them His flesh to eat, and many of His larger group of disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him (John 6:35-71). So, theologians came to use the technical term “Capernaitic” in order to refer to “a purely natural, physical eating” of Jesus’s Body (Kolb‑Wengert, p.604 n.202). On the basis of Holy Scripture, the Lutheran Reformers rejected such a Capernaitic eating, along with rejecting charges of cannibalism and questions such as whether communicants chewed the flesh of Christ with their teeth and digested it in their stomachs (Formula of Concord, Epitome VII:41‑42 and Solid Declaration VII:127; confer Tappert, p.483 n.9 and p.591 n.4).
As Jesus’s disciples in today’s Gospel Reading essentially examined themselves and asked Jesus whether they would be the one who would betray Him (Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 26:20-25, p.461 including n.36), so we should examine ourselves in regards to such things as our discerning the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Supper, in regards to our discerning the Body of Christ that is the Church, and in regards to our repentance in general, whether we are sorry for our sinful nature and all of our sin, and whether we believe especially the words “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins” (Small Catechism VI:10). We examine ourselves so that we do not eat the bread or drink the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner and so be guilty concerning the Body and Blood of the Lord (1 Corinthians 11:27-29). Too often we place our senses and reason over God’s Word, or we try to probe too far into the supernatural and heavenly mystery that is the Holy Supper. On account of our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, we deserve temporal and eternal punishment, apart from our being forgiven by God the Father, for His Son Jesus’s sake, as we are led to repent by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Triune God, out of His great love for even fallen humankind, takes the initiative to save us who are estranged from Him (Roehrs-Franzmann, ad loc Matthew 26:26, p.39). As we heard in today’s Epistle Reading, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, given by God to make atonement for our sin (Leviticus 17:11). Moses offered the blood of oxen, but Jesus freely offered His own blood. In Jesus, the Son of God united a sinless human nature with the Divine nature, so He could die on the cross for our sin and His death could be sufficient for the sins of the whole world. One single sacrifice for all people who have lived, now live, and ever will live (Hebrews 7:27). Of course, as Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading looked forward to drinking wine new with His disciples in His Father’s Kingdom, so the future came and comes: on the third day He rose again, ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, and will rule over His Kingdom that has no end. When we are sorry for our sin and trust in that Jesus, then God forgives us, and so we are at peace with Him and already now have His eternal joy.
Jesus died objectively for all people, but all people do not repent and so subjectively receive His forgiveness as He gives it through His Word and Sacraments. St. Paul writes to the Romans and to us that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death and shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His (Romans 6:3, 5). We who privately confess the sins that we know and feel in our hearts are individually absolved as validly and certainly, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself (Small Catechism V:12). And, so baptized and absolved, we are admitted to the Holy Supper, where bread that is the Body of Christ given for us and wine that is the Blood of Christ shed for us give us the forgiveness of sins and so also life and salvation. Although St. Matthew’s account of our Lord’s institution of His Holy Supper does not speak explicitly to its repetition, other accounts do (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24-25), and we know that “we daily sin much” (Small Catechism III:16), and we “who hunger and thirst for righteousness” are satisfied with such daily bread (Matthew 5:6).
We “Eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins”. In the words of today’s Psalm, we lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord (Psalm 116:12-19; antiphon: v.17). One commentator says that our drinking the Blood of Christ does not violate the Old Testament command against consuming blood, because our drinking the Blood of Christ is the reason for the Old Testament command against consuming other blood (Kleinig, ad loc Leviticus 17:1-16, pp.370-371). Against the false teaching and practice of other religious traditions, we can speak of His Body and Blood “in, with, and under” the bread and wine, both rejecting the false idea that the bread and wine are changed into His Body and Blood in such a way that their essences or substances are no longer present, and indicating a sacramental union both between the substance of the bread and His Body and between the substance of the wine and His Blood (for example, Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration VII:35). Under normal circumstances we both eat Christ’s Body, no matter how small of a fragment of unleavened bread, and drink Christ’s Blood, no matter how diluted the wine. We know that in the Holy Supper we receive Christ both spiritually by faith and sacramentally in our mouths, supernaturally and incomprehensibly (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration VII:61-65, confer and compare ¶105 and 114). We take our “intellect captive in obedience to Christ” and accept by faith this supernatural and celestial mystery of His Holy Supper as it is revealed to us in God’s Word (Formula of Concord, Epitome VII:41‑42). And so, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ strengthens and preserves us in body and soul to life everlasting.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. (Amen.)
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +
