This year during the season of Advent through to New Year’s Eve our theme continues to be “The Means of God’s Giving.” Today not only do we rejoice and celebrate the birth of our Savior, the Word made flesh, we also rejoice in God’s gift of the Holy Supper and how through the simple earthly elements of bread and wine and the power of God’s Word, namely God’s name, God does such great things, strengthening us in faith, giving us forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
In order to best under God’s gift of the Holy Supper we must go back to what Jesus was celebrating with His disciples when He gave us this Holy Meal. Jesus was celebrating the Passover with His disciples, that is the deliverance of Israel from their bondage of slavery in Egypt, the tenth plague of the angel of death and their being spared through the blood of the lamb marking their houses. As you might remember, preparation for the night of the exodus and the tenth plague, a spotless lamb was chosen and sacrificed. It’s blood was collected and painted on door post and lintel of the house, a marking similar to making the sign of the cross, to mark the house so the angel of death would pass over that house.
On the night of the plague along with unleavened bread, the lamb was eaten. At this time God also gave this ordinance to Israel that in remembrance of this night, this tenth plague and their deliverance from Egypt, every year they were to celebrate this event. They were to cleanse their houses of leaven. They were to eat unleavened bread as well as the lamb. No where do we have any indication that the children of Israel were to participate in this meal in any manner other than actually physically eating so that the lamb became a part of their physical being. In other words, no where do we get any idea that any of this was symbolic or representative.
On the night of the tenth plague, the houses were marked with the blood of the lamb. Indeed, the people staying in those houses were marked. Those marked with the blood of the lamb were saved because the angel of death passed over those houses and spared the people inside.
Before we move to Jesus’ celebration of the Passover with His disciples we want to take a moment to connect the dots of history. First in the Garden of Eden, then throughout the Old Testament, especially in Exodus and Leviticus, and finally with John the Baptist. In the beginning God created all things perfect and holy. He created a perfect man and a perfect woman and placed them in the perfect garden He had created for them. He gave them one rule, do not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He even set the penalty if they disobeyed His one rule. The price for disobedience, for sin was set at death, human death for human sin. And we know that account, they sinned and God stepped in with the promise to take care of their sin by sending a Savior.
Moving on to Exodus and Leviticus, as we were earlier reminded, God established the celebration of the Passover as the Israelites were being rescued from Egypt. In Leviticus God gives the ceremonial sacrificial system of laws which were intended to separate and set aside His people, the Israelites, from the rest of the world, the pagan nations that would surround them. All these sacrifices had the main emphasis and pointed to the fact that the price for sin was death, human death for human sin and ultimately pointed to the one ultimate sacrifice of the Savior God would send. Remembering that the price for human sin was human death the animal sacrifices were not what brought salvation but pointed to the One human who would pay the price, the complete price.
When we get to the New Testament we begin with John the Baptist who was born to prepare the way for the One promised in Eden, the Savior. When John was with his disciples and sees Jesus he points to Jesus and says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” John acknowledges that Jesus is the Lamb of God. The One ultimate sacrifice to which the people were looking was indeed this Lamb of God.
So, on Maundy Thursday, the night in which He was betrayed Jesus is celebrating this Passover meal, the eating of unleavened bread and drinking of wine. During the meal we are told as the three Gospel writers and Paul attests, “Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body’” (Matthew 26:26). Jesus does not say that this bread symbolized His body nor that it represented His body, nor that it was changed into His body. He says the bread He was holding in His hand was and is His body.
After giving His disciples the bread/body we are told that, “In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me’” (1 Corinthians 11:25). In other words, here again Jesus does not say that this cup of wine symbolized His blood nor that it represented His blood, nor that it was changed into His blood. He says the cup of wine He was holding in His hand was and is His blood.
How can this be? How can this bread be His body and this wine be His blood? If we raise our human reason over the very Words Jesus speaks then we may not understand and so we may be tempted to attempt to explain these words in some way we as humans may accept as more rational. However, when we believe the Words that Jesus speaks we simply say what He says and believe what He tells us whether or not we may fully comprehend something of God’s nature we are not intended to fully comprehend.
But the important thing to know, believe and confess is that because the price for sin was set at death, at the shedding of human blood for human sin, in this Holy Supper Jesus gives us His body and blood marking His disciples and us so that eternal death and hell passes over us. In our physically eating and drinking the body and blood of Jesus He becomes a physical part of us so that His perfect life becomes our perfect life. His perfect death and resurrection become our perfect death and resurrection.
So, what does this mean? And what does this mean as we celebrate the birth of our Savior? From the fall into sin in the Garden of Eden human beings have been cursed with the sin of our first parents as well as our own sin, the price of which was set at death. From the moment of conception we are all destined to die at least to physically pass away from this world. Left to ourselves we would also be destined to die an eternal death in hell. Yet, in the very beginning God promised to take care of the sin of Adam and Eve and all people, us included. In Egypt the people of God were physically marked with the blood and eating the lamb so that in their deliverance from bondage to slavery, the punishment of the Egyptians passed over them.
Today, for us, we celebrate the birth of Jesus, the birth of the One, as the Gospel writer John described, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:1,14). We celebrate the first word, the oral word of the promise of a Savior spoken to Adam and Eve, the written words of promise given throughout the Old Testament, the Word of promise made flesh in Jesus and now the tangible Word given to us in the Lord’s Supper. Today we celebrate that we physically consume Jesus’ body and blood, marking us for salvation and the passing over of eternal death and hell.
As we have been expounding on the power of these means that God uses, through which God gives us the gifts He has to give, this morning we rejoice once again in the Word of God which gives His Holy Supper the power to forgive sins and with forgiveness is life and salvation. Indeed, as we are given the bread and His body and the wine and His blood and as we hear those most beautiful words, “For you,” then we know that we are being given exactly what we are told, Jesus’ body and blood for the forgiveness of sins.
As we begin our Christmas celebration and Christmas season we rejoice in the clarity, sufficiency, efficacy and power of God’s Word. Indeed, we rejoice that God’s Word is the power in His means of grace to give the gifts He has to give. We rejoice that nothing depends on us, nor our reason, but all God’s gifts are given to us and we are simply given to and moved to rejoice in being given to. And so now we begin our twelve day Christmas celebration, beginning by celebrating what a great God we have, what a loving God we have, what a gift giving God we have. To God be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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