Jesus and his disciples gathered in an upper room to share the Passover meal together, but during the meal, Jesus changed the meaning of what was happening. He promised that in this meal, in the ordinary stuff of bread and wine, his body and blood are given and shed for us. God for us – what a magnificent gift of grace!
Here’s my sermon for Maundy Thursday. The Scripture readings Exodus 11, 12:1-14, 21-32, Psalm 136:1-16, and Mark 14:12-26 are included later in the sermon. Helpful was this reflection from Peggy Hahn at Way to Lead.
Let me set the stage before we get into tonight’s Scripture readings.
On Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem, cheered on by a crowd of people who honored him as the messiah, the savior, lining his path with palm branches and their cloaks, sort of a red-carpet welcome, shouting “Hosanna,” which means, “Lord, save us” “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.”
Then Jesus spends the night in Bethany, two miles outside Jerusalem, probably with his friend Lazarus and his sisters Mary and Martha, which is where he’ll stay for several nights.
Monday, Jesus clears the money changers out of the temple.
Tuesday, he teaches on the Mount of Olives. The gospels don’t tell us anything on Wednesday, so maybe Jesus is taking a day to rest.
And then we get to today, Thursday, the first day of the Passover holiday.
Before we get to Jesus’ celebration of the Passover, what we’ll call the Last Supper, we’re going to go back to Exodus, to hear the story of the first Passover, what it is Jesus and his friends are remembering and celebrating.
So, the Israelites, the people of God, have been slaves in Egypt for four hundred years, and they’ve cried out to God and God has heard their cry and sent Moses to rescue them.
Moses keeps asking the Pharaoh, the ruler of Israel, to let the people go, Pharaoh says no, and then God sends a plague, a sign of God’s power.
Pharaoh says yes, I’ll let you go, just take away the plague, so God takes away the plague, then Pharaoh changes his mind.
This cycle happens nine times, with the plagues getting worse every time, getting harder and harder for Pharaoh to ignore. That’s where we pick up the story with the 10th plague.
[Readings: Exodus 11, 12:1-14, 21-32, Psalm 136:1-16, Mark 14:12-26]
I saw a meme of a text message chain with Jesus and one of the disciples asking “Are we still on for the last supper?” and the response: “The what now? What do you mean, last supper?”
I appreciate that, because remember, the disciples don’t really know what’s going on in this story. We know the story of Holy Week; we know Easter comes after Good Friday, but the disciples don’t have that benefit.
They won’t understand the significance of this meal until at least after the resurrection. For that matter, I think it’s fair to say we still don’t completely understand everything that happened at the Last Supper, everything Jesus was doing!
The disciples expect this to be a normal holiday meal. You all have holiday meal traditions, so you know what that’s like, right?
There’s the traditional food you eat, so for my family at Christmas, there’s always lefse, and Easter always has ham. Turkey at Thanksgiving, we have these traditions around holiday meals. So do the disciples.
As good, faithful Jews, they celebrate the Passover every year, just like God said to do in Exodus. The rituals are laid out to help the people remember God’s faithfulness and the miraculous way God rescued them, and all the food has meaning.
The unleavened bread is to remember that the Israelites had to eat in a hurry, to be ready to go before Pharaoh changed his mind. The lamb is sacrificed as a reminder of the lamb’s blood that went on the doorposts of the house so the angel of death would pass over the Israelites’ houses and only strike down the firstborn of the Egyptians.
As we said at the beginning of the service, this is a night to remember. There are other rituals too, like bitter herbs to remember the bitter suffering their ancestors had endured in Egypt, but this is all familiar to the disciples. I imagine the traditions are actually comforting for them, sort of an oasis, something familiar and normal in the midst of a chaotic and busy week.
And then, Jesus does something strange. Jesus changes the meaning of the night. He messes with the reason for the season, as we might say.
The point is still about God’s faithfulness—this Maundy Thursday is a night for us to remember—but Jesus makes it about much more than the Passover meal.
He takes a loaf of the bread, the unleavened bread, the reminder of the flight from Egypt, and he blesses it and breaks it to share, but when he gives it to them, he says, “Take; this is my body.”
Then taking a cup of wine, he gives thanks to God, and as he shares it with them, he doesn’t talk about what God did in the past for their ancestors.
He doesn’t talk about the familiar story of God rescuing the Israelites from bondage in Egypt and leading them through Red Sea and across the wilderness desert to the promised land. Instead, Jesus says, “This is my blood of the covenant.”
When we say the words of institution (and of course that label, words of institution, simply means the story of how Jesus instituted this, started something new), when we say the words of institution, we mostly go from Paul’s version in First Corinthians, which doesn’t exactly match the wording Mark has, but the meaning is the same. Jesus says that somehow, in a mystery the disciples cannot understand yet, he is present in the bread and wine.
And when we share this meal, even two thousand years later, we remember his presence, we trust when he says this is his body and blood, he means what he says, and he promises to show up in these common, ordinary bits of bread or cracker and wine or grape juice. Wafers, toothpick morsels, prepackaged tiny squares that almost seem like they could be breakfast cereal, given for you. Jesus gives his body and blood—his very self—for you, for me, for the world.
When we share this meal together as Jesus told us told us to do, whatever it looks like, we believe—we trust—that Jesus is present in, with, and under the bread and the wine; the only meal that can ever truly satisfy our hunger.
Jesus himself becomes the lamb of God, bearing our sins, sacrificed on our behalf. God will pass over the punishment we deserve—the death our sin rightfully leads to—instead offering us grace, mercy, forgiveness, and love. This is the new covenant. God’s promises are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who is God in the flesh, Immanuel, God with us. God for you. God for me.
God’s own self given for the sinners, for the obedient and the disobedient, the guilty and the ashamed, for the people we agree with and are happy to see here at the table, and for those we wouldn’t invite if it was us hosting. God given even for Judas the betrayer. God who doesn’t give up, but who gives grace and love more generously than we can comprehend. Jesus giving himself.
The disciples don’t understand it, not yet, certainly not until they see Jesus raised from the dead and ascending into heaven and grasp who he truly is.
Still today for us, exactly how Jesus is present in bread and wine is a mystery, a mystery of faith, a mystery to be trusted, believed, received in faith rather than explained or fully understood.
As we celebrate communion, we come to the table where our Lord Jesus is both the host and the meal, the living bread from heaven, our nourishment for life eternal.
And through this meal received in faith, through this tiny foretaste of the heavenly feast to come in God’s kingdom, through Jesus, God offers us grace, strength to continue through life.
Christ gives himself for us. This is a night to remember.
Amen