Second mid-week Lent sermon - What is the benefit of this eating and drinking?

 

Mid-Lent 2                                        

What is the benefit of

this eating and drinking?

3/19/25

 

 

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.”  That’s what Paul told the Corinthians immediately after he quoted the Words of Institution that he had handed on to them.  The apostle says that each celebration of the Sacrament of the Altar is a proclamation of Jesus Christ’s death until he comes.

While it is the risen and exalted Lord who gives us his true body and blood in the Sacrament, there can be no denying that it focuses our attention on the death of Jesus.  The Lord says it is his “body given for you.”  It is his “blood shed for you.” The body to which Jesus refers is his body that hung on the cross. The blood is his blood that was shed as he died on the cross.

The words “for you” tell us that this death was for your benefit.  As they approached Jerusalem, Jesus took the twelve apostles aside and said: “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

Christ’s death on the cross was purpose of his ministry.  He went to the cross because as Paul told the Romans, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  He offered himself there as the sacrifice for our sin.  He was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Peter wrote that we have been ransomed “not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”

Jesus Christ offered himself in death as the sacrifice that has won forgiveness for us.  He did this once for all time.  The writer to the Hebrews says, “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”  There is no other sacrifice to be made, and so the Sacrament is not a sacrifice that the Church offers to God.  This would take the Gospel gift and turn it into Law.  It would take God’s action that gives forgiveness, and turn it into something we do. 

The forgiveness of sins was won on the cross. But as Martin Luther noted, forgiveness is not given out there. We can’t go back there and then.  Instead, God gives to us the forgiveness that Christ has won, here and now.  In the Sacrament he does this through the located means of bread and wine.  He uses bread and wine to give us his true body and blood.  He does this here at the altar as the Sacrament is celebrated. We know exactly where and how God gives forgiveness to us.

In explaining the benefit of the Sacrament, the Small Catechism says, “These words, ‘Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,’ show us that in the Sacrament forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation are given us through these words.”  In the Sacrament, Jesus gives the very body that was given into death on the cross. He gives the very blood that was shed in death on the cross.  He gives the very price that he paid to win forgiveness.

He leaves no doubt that this forgiveness is for you, for he places it into your mouth.  He deals with you as an individual.  You receive the body and blood of Christ, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. And in this action Christ provides the comfort and assurance that your sins are forgiven.

In the Words of Institution, Jesus says “this cup is the new testament in my blood.”  The Greek word translated here as “testament” more commonly means “covenant” in biblical language. When God brought Israel into the covenant with him, Moses took the blood from the sacrifices and sprinkled it on the people. He said, “Behold, the blood of the covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” By this action, he indicated that Israel had been taken into the covenant with God.

The prophet Jeremiah wrote, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD.”

He spoke of how in the future, God would make a new covenant with Israel.  Jesus established this new covenant by his death and resurrection. Yet this covenant is not only with Israel. Instead, it includes all people who believe in Christ.  In the Sacrament, Jesus gives us the cup which is the new covenant in his blood.  Jesus gives us his blood and so encourages us with the fact that we are included in the new covenant. We are part of God’s people, and so God’s word in Jeremiah is true for us: “For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

The Small Catechism states that in the Sacrament we receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, for as it goes on to explain, “where there is the forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.”  This life and salvation is something that is both now and not yet.  It is something we already have now in Christ, and something that we will receive in its completeness when Jesus Christ returns on the Last Day.

The Sacrament is food for the new man.  As we face the ongoing struggle against sin and the old Adam within us, Jesus uses the Sacrament of the Altar to nourish the new man who was created in us by the work of the Spirit in baptism.  The Large Catechism says: “Therefore, it is appropriately called food for the soul, for it nourishes and strengthens the new man.  For in the first instance, we are born anew through baptism.  However, our human flesh and blood, as I have said, have not lost their old skin.  There are so many hindrances and attacks of the devil and the world that we often grow worry and faint and at times even stumble.  Therefore the Lord’s Supper is given as a daily food and sustenance so that our faith may be refreshed and strengthened and that it may not succumb in the struggle but become stronger.”

This life and salvation that is ours will reach its consummation when Jesus Christ returns on the Last Day.  Paul told the Corinthians that in the Sacrament we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. And each celebration of the Sacrament is an action by Christ that points forward to this.

In the Sacrament of the Altar, Jesus Christ comes bodily into our midst.  It is the true body and blood of Christ, the Son of God, that is present. We acknowledge this fact when we sing, “Holy, holy, holy” in the Sanctus - the song of the angels that Isaiah heard when he was in God’s presence.  We sing “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” – the same words spoken by the crowds on Palm Sunday – because Jesus is coming to us in his body and blood. And after the consecration we sing “Lamb of God You take away the sin of the world; have mercy on us” in the Agnus Dei as we praise Christ who has come to us in this miraculous way.

The coming of Christ in the Sacrament attests to the fact that the Lord will return in glory on the Last day.  And in the Sacrament we receive encouragement about the life and salvation that will be ours when he does.

The Old Testament describes God’s future salvation as a feast. Isaiah says, “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.” Jesus says, “I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”  Jesus is the bridegroom for his bride, the Church, and the future salvation is called the marriage feast of the Lamb.

In the Sacrament of the Altar, Jesus hosts us at his supper – the Lord’s Supper.  Here we receive a foretaste of the feast to come.  As we pray in one of the post-communion Collects: “Gracious God, our heavenly Father, You have given us a foretaste of the feast to come in the Holy Supper of Your Son’s body and blood.  Keep us firm in the true faith throughout our days of pilgrimage that, on the day of His coming, we may, together with all Your saints, celebrate the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom which has no end.”

            When Christ returns in glory on the Last Day he will raise and transform our bodies to be like his own.  Paul told the Philippians, "we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” In the Sacrament Jesus gives us the assurance that our bodies will be raised.  The risen Lord gives his body and blood into our bodies.  Jesus said, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

            In the Sacrament of the Altar, Jesus gives us his true body and blood, given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins.  He takes what he won on the cross and delivers it to each one of us as we receive his body and blood in our mouth.  Through this gift he gives us forgiveness of sin, life, and salvation.  This life and salvation is something that we already have now.  And in the Sacrament Christ encourages us with the assurance that we will receive the consummation of that life and salvation when he returns in glory on the Last Day.