Brent Kuhlman

+ Jesu Juva +

St. Luke 22:7-20

Passover.  Jesus is eager to eat it with His disciples.  Peter and John have made the preparations in the upper room according to the Lord’s directions.  The Passover’s a family meal and a family occasion. 

So where is Jesus’ family?  Mary is not there.  No brothers or sisters either.  And where’s the roasted lamb?  If this is a Passover meal, it is unlike any Passover meals that have taken place before.  And that’s precisely right. 

Why?  Because Jesus is the Host.  He oversees this meal as if the Passover belongs to Him.  And it does!  This Supper is His.  It is the Lord’s Supper.  And He’s the Lamb that will be baked and roasted in the red-hot heat of Good Friday’s dying and death for sin.

In the midst of this eating and drinking Jesus says words that were never said at a Passover before.  He takes the bread.  He gives thanks.  And then these most incredible words:  “This is my body given for you.”  Which body?  The body born of the Virgin Mary?  The body that will be offered cruciformly on the altar of the Cross?  Yes!  That body exactly.  With His Words attached to the bread Jesus gives out His Body for His disciples to eat.  They eat with their mouths the very Passover Lamb who will carry in His Body the sin of the world.  He bears their sin and the world’s sin to the Cross.  He takes it all as His very own.  Indeed, no other Passover like this before.  He’s doing the Lord’s Supper.

Then more astonishing words.  We’d never believe it unless He said it.  Jesus does what He wants.  He gives what He gives with His words.  And here they are connected to a cup of wine.  That cup contains “the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.”  Don’t you see how incredibly wonderful this is?  Nothing like this had ever been said or done before.  Drink blood?!!!!!!!!  Forbidden in the Old Testament.  Because the life of the person is in the blood.

But here as Jesus does a Lord’s Supper, the Lord of Life gives His Life with the wine-cup of His Blood.  “The new covenant.”  Only God makes covenants like this.  That’s Jesus isn’t He?  Doing a new covenant as Jeremiah prophesied.  The climax of Jesus doing a Lord’s Supper, the blood of “the new covenant” IS THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS!  

No forgiveness without the shedding of blood, you remember.  So Jesus sheds His.  For His disciples.  For you.  For the world.  Here is God’s new covenant for you:  The Lord’s Supper.  It provides the fruit of Good Friday’s Tree from which we may eat and live forever.  Jesus is the Host.  He is the Food.  No other Passover like this before.  He brings and bestows the benefits of His Cross to them with His Words.  And with His Words He gives His Body to eat.  His Blood to drink.  His very life.  Where there is forgiveness of sins there is life and salvation.

In His Supper Jesus is among you “as one who serves” (Luke 22:27).  Not only is He the Host and the Food.  He’s also the Butler and the Waiter!  Truly a divine service.  God Jesus serves up heaping portions of forgiveness, life and salvation with the bread and wine of His Supper.  Servant Of All Jesus hands out His Body and His Blood to eat and to drink.  With His sacrificed on the Cross Body given in the bread you “have been sanctified” (Hebrews 10:5).  And with His Blood your hearts are “sprinkled clean from an evil conscience” (Hebrews 10:22).

To eat and drink from the Lord’s Supper is to be ushered into the very presence of the Lord Jesus Himself.  It is the “Holy of Holies of the Christian Church, the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy Seat of the New Covenant” (C.F.W. Walther, Amerkanisch-Lutherische Evangelien Postille, 1875, p. 147).  The Lord’s Body and Blood are the most holy things of the New Testament.  To faithfully eat and drink these most holy gifts is to be given their holiness.

Therefore, a proper preparation is most beneficial before we eat of this wonderful and holy mystery of the Lord’s Supper.  We do not, through unworthy eating and drinking, want to bring death or damnation upon ourselves.  We want the forgiveness of sins and the life and salvation that come with that forgiveness.

Do you remember how Abraham trembled when the Son of God appeared to him in human form to announce the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:2ff.)?  But here in the Lord’s Supper the Son of God is set before us.  Not to be eye candy but to be tasted and consumed.

What happened to King Uzziah who arrogantly went to the Ark of the Covenant to burn incense?  Was God pleased?  No.  Uzziah was immediately inflicted with leprosy on his head (2 Chronicles 26;16).  And here in the Lord’s Supper the true Ark of the New Covenant is before us.  It is the throne room of the Lord Himself.  It is the Holy of Holies.

So how do we properly enter into the presence of the Lord so that we do not bring sickness, death, or damnation upon ourselves (1 Corinthians 11:30)?  God’s Word in the liturgy prepares us.  The preparation part of the divine service is confession and Absolution.  Or if you choose, you’re free to see your pastor privately to confess and receive Holy Absolution.  Forgiven through the Word of Absolution you now have the freedom of access to enter through the heavenly gates that lead you to the Marriage Feast of the Lamb where He feeds you His Body and His Blood of the new covenant.

Absolution:  forgiveness spoken and given into your ears and hearts.  Forgiveness delivered into your mouths, throats and bodies with the bread and cup of your Lord’s Body and Blood. 

What was begun in your Baptisms and through the preached Gospel is confirmed and brought to a heavenly peak in the Supper.  It is your heaven on earth until you enter heaven.  For surrounding you at the Supper are all the archangels, angels, and all the company of heaven.  “The Holy Supper is the real crown of all the means of grace which Christ has given to His dear Christendom . . . O, who can express what a glorious, comforting, heavenly sweet Meal the Holy Supper is?  Here the forgiveness of sins is not only preached, proclaimed, promised, assured, and sealed to us, as in the other means of grace, but here Christ at the same time gives His Body and His Blood to His Christians, as the guarantee of it . . . Let us not be ashamed of this doctrine, but joyfully confess it, and publicly praise it as the most precious treasure entrusted to us” (Walther, Ibid.). 

Calvary is for you.  The Lord’s Supper is for you.  The Lord’s eager to feed you.  Happy eating and drinking.  His Body and Blood purify you from all sin.

In the Name of Jesus.