Maundy Thursday 2008
(Exodus 12:1–14; 1 Corinthians 5:7-8)

"This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord." (Ex. 12) "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed." (1 Cor. 5:7b)

Tonight we commemorate that night Christ founded the Sacrament of the Altar, in which He feeds us with His body broken and gives us His blood outpoured to drink. "Do this in remembrance of Me," Jesus says. In this Sacrament, the Lamb of God has left us a memorial of His mercy.

It is a memorial far different than any other. I visited Gettysburg last year. Every-where were elaborate monuments celebrating the valor and the sacrifice of the soldiers who died there. I have seen the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC and been dwarfed by the impressive image of the Great Emancipator. But these are all memorials to the dead. The Lord Jesus is the Lamb who once was slain but now is alive forever. And the memorial He instituted is not simply a monument that inspires memories, but a life-giving meal. In this meal we feed upon and are nourished by His saving mercy.

There had been memorial meals before this one. The night that Jesus was betrayed He had gathered in that Upper Room with His disciples to commemorate the exodus of God's people Israel from their slavery under Pharaoh. It was the Lord's Passover. God gave elaborate instructions to His people for the preparation of this feast. The entrée was lamb, but not any ordinary lamb -- a lamb without blemish or defect.

Every time they ate that meal, the Israelites ate it in remembrance of the Lord and His mercy. It was a meal full of hope and promise, but hope and promise hidden under the very threat of death. That night in Egypt when God set His people free, the angel of death was passing over. In every household in Egypt the firstborn of man and beast died, except where the blood of a sacrificial lamb marked the door. God's people Israel knew they had received mercy; the angel of death passed over them, and they were miraculously delivered from sure and certain death. Israel's Passover was the Old Testament sacramental meal of deliverance, for in that meal God's people dined on the body of the very animal whose life was sacrificed to save them from death. It was a communion of sorts -- a communion in the body that died to save.

In the Meal we eat this night there is a communion as well. But it is a communion in a living body, the body of the Lamb of God who has mercy on us. Jesus intervened to rescue us from the slavery of sin and the eternal death it threatens. He was made a curse for us and died upon the cross, giving His body and shedding His blood for the remission of our sins. Jesus, too, was a Lamb without blemish or defect. He had no sins of His own but took upon Himself our sins so that by His death for us He could end the ancient curse of death and the Father's wrath against all sin and every sinner. His body was the sin-offering. His blood is the sign and seal of our redemption. When we eat the bread and drink the cup of this Supper, it is a communion in the body and blood of Christ, the Lamb.

As Israel once dined on the flesh that revealed God's mercy and gave them life for death, so the Church continually dines on the flesh and blood that rescued us once and for all. St. Paul drives this home when He calls the Lord Jesus our "Passover Lamb" (1 Cor. 5:7). Those lambs who gave their lives to save from God's judgment of Egypt were only a dress rehearsal for the real thing. At the cross, the true Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world gave His body and shed His blood to save us all from eternal death.

And so at the Lord's Table this night you and I are given yet again a front-row seat in the great drama that won our salvation. Tonight the cross comes to us. While we cannot go to Jesus, He comes to us. Repeatedly in this holy Supper, the Lamb who shed His blood that we might live says to us, "Drink of it, all of you; this cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins." In this sacred memorial Meal, He does more than ask us to remember Him. He Himself actively recalls and gives us once again the fruits of His love and all the benefits of His saving death as He says to us: "Take, eat; this is My body, which was given for you."

And those two little words "for you" bring us confidence and consolation in this hour. For God's love is no shadowy abstraction, some warm fuzzy feeling. It is concrete reality. Now sin, death, and hell have been overcome, since Christ, our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed for us. Now we may know for certain that we are not alone in this world, that all the burdens and sorrows of life that threaten to overwhelm us can never rob us of the love of God in Christ our Lord.

His love, you see, is big enough to include the whole sorrowing, hurting world, but it is exact enough to address each and every one of us personally and individually. God's love is not a general "to whom it may concern" message, some sort of vague "have a nice day" bulk mail flyer or email spam memo. In this Supper His love is given to you.

Take this to heart and never give up or seek anything more than this Supper! For those in Egypt, the Passover lamb was life. If its blood marked their doors, they lived; without it, they died. Can the blood of Jesus, the true and eternal Lamb of God, be any less essential? Never give up or take for granted the true body and blood of Christ given to you! For with it you receive God's eternal mercy.

Mercy. That is what we need, and that is what the Lamb of God brings us now in His Banquet that He spreads before us and that we eat in His remembrance. "For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes" (1 Corinthians 11:26). Here is God's mercy in Christ for you.

So take heart this night. Death and destruction may loom and lurk on every side, but everything that troubles you and all that robs you of your joy is eclipsed in this feast of mercy and love. Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. Now is vanquished sin and death and hell. Heaven intersects with earth at this altar, and in this eating and drinking we have Christ's eternal freedom, and a foretaste of the feast to come in heaven.