Maundy Thursday
Ex.
12:1-14
4/2/15
I mentioned in a sermon recently that Amy and I lived in Alexandria,
VA during my vicarage – the 1997 to 1998 school year. During that time we saw and did everything in
Washington, D.C. that we wanted to do.
Since then our life has taken us on to St. Louis, Dallas, Chicago and now
Marion.
We haven’t been back to Washington, D.C. in almost twenty
years. That will probably change in the
next couple of years. We have been
waiting for our children to get old enough to appreciate the history and
significance of Washington before going there.
Now that Michael is in first grade and Timothy is in eighth grade, we
are entering into the window of time when we will want to go.
When we go to Washington, it will be fun to share with our kids
all of sights there as they experience them for the first time. There is, however, one sight that I am
looking forward to seeing for the first time, and that is the National World
War II Memorial.
The World War II Memorial didn’t exist when Amy and I lived in
Alexandria. The Vietnam War Memorial
existed because it had been completed in 1982. The Korean War Memorial existed
because it had been completed in 1992.
But the World War II Memorial didn’t exist because it was not completed
until 2004.
When you stop and think about it, this is really stunning. After all this was an event of tremendous
national sacrifice. Four hundred
thousand Americans died in the war. Six
hundred thousand Americans were wounded.
Fighting and winning World War II in Europe and the Pacific was the
greatest undertaking in the history of our nation.
World War II ended in 1945.
And so in response to the sacrifice and significance of this event, the
nation built a National Memorial in Washington, D.C. … in 2004. Fifty-nine years after the war ended
the nation finally built a memorial. The United States waited so long, that
ultimately one of the driving forces for getting it built was the fact that the
veterans of the war were rapidly beginning to die because of age.
In the Old Testament lesson for Maundy Thursday we hear that
Israel is supposed to do something as a memorial. They are to celebrate a
Passover meal as a memorial – as a reminder – of how God had rescued them from
slavery in Egypt. Yet there was to be no long delay before this memorial took
place. Instead, they were to undertake
this memorial one year from the event – and then at the same time every
year in the future as they remembered God’s rescue.
In our text we hear about Yahweh’s instructions to Moses for the
Passover. Jacob and his family had gone
down to Egypt in order to join his son Joseph who was now second in charge of
the country and was able to provide for the family in the midst of a famine. The nation of Israel grew and prospered
during the time in Egypt. However the
beginning of the book of Exodus tells us that eventually, “there arose a new
king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” This king saw in the foreigners a
potential threat to Egypt, and so he acted. He enslaved Israel and used them as
forced labor.
The people suffered and cried out to God for help. And Exodus tells us, “Their cry for rescue
from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered
his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of
Israel—and God knew.”
Yahweh knew his people’s suffering and so he acted to rescue
them and fulfill the promise he had made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob about
giving the land of Canaan to their descendants. He raised up Moses and sent him
to Pharaoh with the message: “Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son,
and I say to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve me.’ If you refuse to let
him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.”
Pharaoh refused. And so
Yahweh began a series of nine plagues upon the land of Egypt, while at the same
time sparing the Israelites. Yet Pharaoh
refused to allow Israel to leave.
Finally, the moment arrived when in the tenth plague Yahweh was
going to deliver the decisive blow that would free Israel. In our text we hear how he commanded Israel
to prepare a lamb for a meal. They were
to roast it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They were to eat it, ready to go – with belt
fastened, sandals on feet and staff in hand.
And in addition to the meal itself, they were to do one very
unique thing. They were to take the
blood of the lamb and put it on the two door posts and the lintel of their
houses. They were to do this because as
God says in our text, “It is the LORD's Passover. For I will pass through the
land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of
Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute
judgments: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses
where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague
will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.”
God was going to rescue them and the Passover meal was part of this
rescue. Yet the meal itself was not to
be a one-time thing. Instead we learn in
our text, “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a
feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall
keep it as a feast.” Israel was to do
this every year in order to remember God’s rescue. And it would serve another
function as well. It would teach the
generations to come. Just after our text
Moses says, “And when you come to the land that the LORD will give you, as he
has promised, you shall keep this service. And when your children say to you,
‘What do you mean by this service?’ you shall say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the
LORD's Passover, for he passed over the houses of the people of Israel in
Egypt, when he struck the Egyptians but spared our houses.’”
God remembered his covenant.
He rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt. He gave Canaan to Israel – the
promised land. But God had also promised Abraham, “and in you all the families
of the earth shall be blessed.” God had
promised that through Abraham’s offspring he would provide blessing to all
people. He promised a Savior – the
offspring of Eve who would crush the serpent’s head.
At Christmas we celebrated how this One entered into the world.
Conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary he was true God and
true man. As true man, he was a faithful
Jew who kept the Law – God’s Torah. But
Jesus Christ had come to do more than just keep the law. He had come to fulfill it. He had come to bring all of God’s promises to
their saving conclusion.
God had used the death of the Passover lambs as the means to
mark his people and spare them. Their
blood shed caused God’s wrath to pass over the Israelites. Yet that had prepared the way for and pointed
forward to something even greater that God was going to do. Jesus Christ had come as the Lamb who would
shed his blood to cause God’s wrath to pass over not just Israel, but all people
of all times. As St. Paul told the Corinthians: “Christ our Passover lamb has
been sacrificed.”
At that last supper with his disciples, Jesus took the Passover
meal and transformed it into something far more. He made it his own meal. He transformed it into a meal in which he
gives his true body and blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of
your sins.
Like the Passover, it is still a meal that causes God’s people
to remember. Twice in our epistle lesson
we learn that Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” In the celebration of the Sacrament of the
Altar Jesus gives us his body and blood, and in receiving this gift we remember
that Jesus died on the cross for us and rose from the dead.
Jesus says, “Do this in remembrance of me.” “Do this,” as Martin Luther notes in the Large
Catechism is a command. It is a
command that you need for two reasons. First, the old Adam in you is inclined
stray from receiving this gift. You are
distracted by other things and you forget to focus your life upon Jesus. You lose sight of how much you need this gift
and so, it becomes easy to think little of not being here to receive it.
And second, you need it because Satan works very hard to
convince you that Christ’s forgiveness can’t possibly really be for you. After all, you have done awful things. You have used pornography. You have spoken terrible words to a family
member or friend. You have acted in ways
that hurt others.
Jesus Christ calls you back to his Sacrament again and again
because it is his true body and blood given and shed for you. He leaves no doubt. He gives you the very price he paid to win
you forgiveness – his body nailed to the cross and his blood poured out. And he puts it into your mouth. It is his true body and blood given and shed for
you for the forgiveness of your sins.
And so you are able to go in peace. You can leave this place forgiven for what
the old Adam has prompted you to do, and with the new man in you nourished by
God’s grace to take up again the struggle against sin. You can leave forgiven and refreshed. It is something Jesus wants you to do -
indeed, he commands you to do. He says
“Do this in remembrance of me” so that you will never cease to hear the words:
“Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”
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