1. Corinthians 11,23-26. Maundy Thursday

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

1. Corinthians 11,23-26        2319

Gründonnerstag 030 weiß

Wicterp, Bishop of Augsburg, 8. century

18. April 2019

1. O Almighty, Everlasting Lord God, who has commanded us to remember and proclaim Your sufferings in the institution of Your blessed Sacrament, grant that we may so employ the Sacrament of Your body and blood so that we may daily realize Your salvation in fruitful hearts.  Amen. (Löhe 467-68) 

2. »For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said: This is My body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of Me. In the same way also He took the cup, after supper, saying: This cup is the new testament in My blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He arrives.«  

3. Maundy Thursday begins the pinnacle of the Church Year for we 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 the awaiting of His victorious resurrection from the grave. 

4. 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 the next day, 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.« This Sacrament of the Altar is one way Jesus gives us the forgiveness of all our sins that He merited upon the cross. 

5. The Holy Gospels proclaim that Jesus’ Passion is necessary for salvation, for He is the only one who can cleanse us from our sin. Jesus is necessary for salvation, and He is sufficient for salvation. Jesus gives us the forgiveness of sins 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. Jesus gives this forgiveness to us through the Lord’s Supper which He has established as a new testament as a pledge of His eternal faithfulness to do what He has promised. The Apostle Paul writes: »For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He arrives.« When we partake of the Lord’s Supper, we are confessing that Jesus suffered and died on the cross as the redemptive Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. The Lord’s Supper is the Church’s first creed. 

6. 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. 

7 „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.

8. 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. 

9. 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

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All Scriptural quotations are translations done by The Rev. Peter A. Bauernfeind using the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 4. Edition © 1990 by the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, Stuttgart, and the Novum Testamentum Graece, Nestle-Aland 28. Revised Edition © 2012 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. 

Löhe, Wilhelm. Seed-Grains of Prayer: A Manual for Evangelical Christians. Wartburg Publishing House, Chicago circa 1912. Concordia Publishing House; Concordia on Demand.