John 13,1-15. Maundy Thursday

✠ Take, this is My body and My blood of the new testament ✠

John 13,1-15 [34-35] 2015 

Gründonnerstag 030 weiß

Theodosia, Virgin on Tyre, Martyr at Caesarea Palestine, ✠ 308

2. April 2015 

1. O Lord Jesus Christ, who has given us the joy of Your bread to eat and Your cup to drink in remembrance of Your sufferings, we pray, enlighten us so that by true self-examination we may worthily receive that Sacrament, in true discernment of Your presence.  Amen. 

2. »Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had arrived to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had arrived from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He put aside His outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around His waist. Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around Him.«  

3. Now, on Maundy Thursday, we begin the pinnacle of the Church Year and remember die große Heilsgeschichte (the great salvation history) of our Lord Jesus Christ. The final three days of Holy Week (Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Saturday) constitute what the Church calls the Triduum, and they take us through the final hours of Jesus’ precious life, His humiliation, suffering and death on the cross. 

4. The washing of the disciples’ feet shows us that what Jesus is doing in His Church is: 1. necessary for salvation, 2. sufficient for salvation and 3. effective for salvation. 

5. The Gospel according to John does not record the institution of the Lord’s Supper, but rather gives us additional  accounts of what Jesus said and did on Maundy Thursday that the Synoptic Gospels do not record. First, John tells us that Jesus washed the feet of His apostles and told them: »The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean.« Jesus used a physical example to explain a spiritual example. The apostles were spiritually clean. Their sins were forgiven, and how were their sins forgiven? Jesus had instituted the Lord’s Supper and they had partaken of it that night. 

6. Jesus and His apostles were celebrating the Passover with a meal together. During this Seder, Jesus gives His Church the new testament that is founded not on the blood of lambs but rather on the the blood of the Lamb, yes, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Isaiah 53,7; John 1,29). On the night before His death, Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper and celebrated it with His apostles. He took bread and wine, that were used throughout the Passover meal, and instituted a new meal. This Abendmahl (evening meal) is the first Sacrament delivered unto Christ’s Church. Jesus tells us that this bread is His body and this wine is His blood. Which body and blood is this? The very body of Christ that would be crucified tomorrow, and the very blood of Christ that He would shed on the cross. Thus the Church teaches the Real Presence of Jesus in the Sacrament of the Altar. This bread is the body of Christ; this cup is the blood of Christ. When we partake of the Lord’s Supper, the Apostle Paul teaches that we participate in the body and blood of Jesus. Thus we participate in Christ’s death and our redemption. Jesus proclaims: »This cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins« (Matthew 26,28). Paul comments on this, saying: »For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He arrives« (1. Corinthians 11,26). This Sacrament of the Altar is one way Jesus cleanses us from all our sins. 

7. The Holy Gospels proclaim that Jesus’ Passion is necessary for salvation, for He is the only one who can cleanse us from our sin. If Jesus does not wash us clean, then we can never be cleansed from our sin. This is the point He is making to the apostles by washing their feet. We need Jesus if we want salvation. 

8. Jesus is necessary for salvation, and He is sufficient for salvation. Jesus took unto His Divine Nature our very human flesh and blood. He undertook this incarnation in order to partake of life as we do. He was without original sin, but nevertheless He suffered and died like any other man or woman. But Jesus suffered and died to destroy death, the devil and hades itself. The Epistle to the Hebrews explains it this way: »Jesus had to be made like His brothers in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people« (Hebrews 2,17). A propitiation is when one appeases God and atones for sin by sacrificing Himself (Luke 18,13; Hebrews 2,17). Christ proclaims Himself to be the world’s Propitiator when He institutes the Lord’s Supper and says: »This is My body given for you; this is My blood shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins.« Forgiveness has been propitiated on the cross, but we don’t receive that forgiveness from the cross. Jesus gives us the forgiveness He propitiated in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and this is why He tells us to eat and drink at this altar for in doing so we are eating and drinking our forgiveness. This is why He tells us to celebrate this Sacrament often. Jesus assures us through this Holy Meal that God the Father has a friendly heart toward us, a heart that if full of compassion, love, mercy and forgiveness upon His fallen creation and sinful mankind. Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in a worthy manner will be found to revere the body and blood of the Lord. Anyone who eats and drinks with discerning the body eats and drinks justification on himself (1. Corinthians 11,27.29). We have this justification through Jesus alone. 

9. Jesus is necessary for salvation, He is sufficient for salvation and He is effective to salvation. God’s Word does what He says, and Jesus accomplishes what He promises. Jesus promised to make us clean, and He has done so through His Passion on the cross. Jesus gives this cleansing through the Lord’s Supper. 

10. If you desire the forgiveness of your sins, then partake of the Lord’s Supper and receive the absolution that Jesus paid for with His very own body and blood. Receive Him in this Sacrament through faith and believe that in this Sacrament Jesus gives you what He has promised and merited for you on the cross, namely, the forgiveness of all your sins. 

11. „ Dearly beloved, in God’s behalf, ... according to mine Office, to administer to all such as shall be religiously and devoutly disposed the most comfortable Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ; to be by them received in remembrance of His meritorious Cross and Passion, whereby alone we obtain remission of our sins, and are made partakers of the reign of heaven. Wherefore it is our duty to render most humble and hearty thanks to Almighty God our Heavenly Father, for that He has given His Son our Savior Jesus Christ, not only to die for us, but also to be our spiritual food and sustenance in that Holy Sacrament. Which being so Divine and comfortable a thing to them who receive it worthily, and so dangerous to them who will presume to receive it unworthily; my duty is to exhort you in the mean time to consider the dignity of that holy mystery, and the great peril of the unworthy receiving thereof; and so to search and examine your own consciences, and that not lightly, and after the manner of dissemblers with God: but so that you may come holy and clean to such a heavenly Feast, in the marriage-garment required by God in Holy Scripture, and be received as worthy partakers of that holy Table“ (The Book of Common Prayer 245-6).  Amen.

12. May the Almighty and Merciful God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, accomplish this in you and me. You have been invited by Christ Jesus Himself to His Heavenly Father’s glorious banquet of eternal life. This Lord’s Supper of Christ’s Body under the bread and His Blood under the wine are a foretaste of that heavenly feast to come. Do not excuse yourself from Christ’s invitation and Supper, but receive His invitation with joy and thanksgiving for He has established and instituted this Supper for your blessing. The Supper has been set; join me in receiving it for our salvation and forgiveness.  Amen. 

13. Let us pray. O Christ Jesus, You have caused Your wonders to be remembered; You are gracious and merciful. In this Sacrament of the Altar You give us Your true body and blood in the true bread and wine for the forgiveness of our sins. Help us to rightly remember all You have done for us in Your Passion whereby You merited the forgiveness of each and every sin we have or will commit, for Your forgiveness is properly given to us through this new testament Passover meal we call Holy Communion, so that we may always know and believe that we are at peace with You on account of Your holy merit that has been applied to us as our own merit and we thus receive it by faith in You.  Amen. 

Which is poured out for everyone.

✠

All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4th Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 27th Edition © 1993 by Deutsch Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart. 

Book of Common Prayer, The. Copyright © 2011 Cambridge University Press. 

ELKB. Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. www.bayern-evangelisch.de/www/index.php. Copyright © Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Bayern. 

Gerhard, Johann. An Explanation of the History of the Suffering and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Copyright © 1999 Repristination Press. 

Luther, Martin. Luther’s Works: Church and Ministry II, Vol. 40. Conrad Bergendoff, Ed. Copyright © 1958 Muhlenberg Press.