Grace Evangelical-Lutheran: Psalm 111,2-5.9; 1. Corinthians 11,26. Maundy Thursday

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Psalm 111,2-5.9; 1. Corinthians 11,26. Maundy Thursday

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

Psalm 111,2-5.9; 1. Corinthians 11,26 2217

Gründonnerstag 030 weiß

Hermenegild, prince, Martyr 586

13. April 2017

1. O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou art gracious and merciful; help us to partake and receive of Your wondrous work in the Sacrament of the Altar, so that we always remember the testament You have made with us in this Sacred Meal. Amen. (Gradual)

2. »For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He returns. Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. Full of splendor and majesty is His work, and His righteousness endures forever. He has caused His wondrous works to be remembered; the Lord is gracious and merciful. He provides food for those who fear Him; He remembers His testament forever. He sent redemption to His people; He has commanded His testament forever. Holy and awesome is His Name!«

3. 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 plus His victorious resurrection from the grave.

4. On Maundy Thursday, we hear the Apostle Paul’s exhortation to the Church: »For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He returns.« Why would St. Paul exhort a regular reception of the Lord’s Supper? A: This Sacrament connects us with the crucifixion of Jesus for the reception of it is a memorial and a remembrance of His great vicarious sacrifice for us on the cross. Thus, this Sacrament is one way Jesus gives us the forgiveness of all our sins that He merited upon the cross. And the reception of the Lord’s forgiveness is something we should desire regularly.

5. The Introit thus reminds us that »Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them.« The work of Jesus on Good Friday is the greatest work of salvation God has performed for mankind, and the night before His crucifixion, Jesus gave His Church a great gift: His very body and blood to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins. Again, the Introit: »Full of splendor and majesty is His work, and His righteousness endures forever.« God’s work in Christ Jesus is an eternal work that makes us righteous. The Sacrament of the Altar gives us this righteousness, and furthermore it reassures us that »the Lord is gracious and merciful. He remembers His testament forever.«

6. The Introit proclaims: »He sent redemption to His people; He has commanded His testament forever.« Thus in the Church the Lord’s Supper was instituted that by remembrance of the promises of Christ, of which we are admonished in this sign, faith might be strengthened in us, and we might publicly confess our faith and proclaim the benefits of Christ, as Paul says, 1. Corinthians 11,26 (Apology IV, Article III, 89). Forgiveness has been purchased by Jesus on the cross, but we don’t receive that forgiveness by meditating on the cross. Jesus gives us the forgiveness He purchased 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 and 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).

7. 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.

8. „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). The Supper has been set; join me in receiving it as our confession of the Crucified Christ and Savior of the world. Amen.

9. 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.

10. 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.

Grace Evangelical-Lutheran

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Psalm 111,2-5.9; 1. Corinthians 11,26. Maundy Thursday

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