A sermon preached by Pastor Lewis Polzin on Maundy Thursday, April 2, 2015 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Bemidji, MN, on Exodus 12:1-14. You may play the audio of the sermon here.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text this evening is from Exodus, the twelfth chapter:
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast.
Thus far the text.
My dear friends in Christ,
Here, in Moses’ account of the Exodus, we find one of the very first foreshadowings of the true Passover, that meal that Christ would institute that Thursday so many years ago. See what our Lord does for Moses. He makes the eating of the meal, the Passover, the first month of the year, the beginning of all things new. This was to be done each year, only on the Passover, to remember that the Lord their God brought Israel out of slavery, through their sinful wandering and sojourning, and into the Promised Land as He had given them Word.
See how the assembly, the congregation of Israel, waited for this day every year. Every year, they would remember this Passover day by reenacting it. By taking the lamb, a perfect lamb, without blemish in any way, and prepare it for eating. They would kill that lamb, a good and right food, and take its blood, spreading it upon their house, the place where they dwell. They would take the meat and fire it, eating it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They would never boil it, they would never eat it raw, but they would put it on the fire and they would eat until it was gone.
There was a whole ceremony to follow here for these Israelites. The questions would arise, “Why is this night different than all other nights?” “Why do we do things in this way?” The answer is plain: God told us to do so. This was ultimately the answer to the question, why should we celebrate the Passover? But God does tell us more. He instituted the Passover so that the Lord would not strike the one who is eating and drinking dead. When the Lord sees the blood, He see that this house has faith in His words, and He knows that this house is a house of the redeemed, a house of an Israelite believer. He would see the blood that marks this place and pass over it.
And notice, the Lord then sets this day up forever. It is to be a memorial meal, throughout all the generations of Israel… until Israel is fulfilled. All of Israel, its history, its practices, are all fulfilled, for Jesus Christ is the embodiment of all of Israel. Their fleeing into Egypt for protection is His parents’ fleeing to Egypt to get away from Herod. Their going through the Red Sea is Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan. Their 40 years of wandering are His 40 days of Temptation. Their pagan desire for a king delivers Him to Pilate. Their sin is taken into Him. And their Passover meal is Jesus’ Eucharist, His Supper, His Communion.
Everything that Israel was and everything they did pointed us toward the Christ who is to come. And when Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, then fulfills the last bit of Israel’s history the night He would be betrayed by instituting His Supper, this is the most preeminent and high point of His apostles’ lives. For there, in the celebration of the Passover, Jesus gives a new command. That is where this day’s name comes from.
Mandatum is the Latin word for “command,” and it seems that from there it was shortened to “Maundy.” And of that command, Jesus gives good things. As He washes His disciples’ feet, He tells them, “A new command I give you, love one another.” And this is good. And this is right. But this isn’t merely shown through the washing of feet, though it is good practice to take care of our neighbor by supplying the fulfillment of his needs.
There was another command that Maundy Thursday of Jesus. Let’s see if you hear it: “Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body.’ And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.’”
Did you hear our Lord’s command? Did you hear His mandate, His mandatum? Take. Command. Eat. Command. Drink. Command. Do this. Command. And why? In remembrance of me, He says. We get this wrong in the English. Greek is interesting. This isn’t so much that we are remembering Jesus, like we would recall Him. This remembrance is more that He remembers us, and that we know, when we eat this bread, which is His body, and drink this wine, which is His blood, He remembers that He has given to us this meal for the forgiveness of our sins. This is the Lord passing over us, as He once passed over the houses of the Israelites.
When we eat and drink here at this altar, Jesus looks at us and says, “You, My dear friend, are eating and drinking Me here, and you believe My words by faith. Well done, good and faithful servant. I have come to you and I will always come to you here. I will always forgive you here.” You see? This is important.
Just as the Lord passed over the houses of Israel when He saw they had blood on their door, so the Lord passes over you. So He turns His eternal wrath away from you because you have His blood smeared on the lentils and doorposts of your mouth. He turns away His wrath from you because you have the body of the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world in your house and you eat all of it.
This is true. You have the entire body of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, given to you. John doesn’t get a finger. Sarah doesn’t get the knee. But, when you open your mouth and are given that little piece of bread, you receive with it the entirety of the body of Christ, the Lamb of God. And so, nothing goes to waste. You eat all of His body in that bread, and you drink all of His blood in that cup, and it all goes to YOU, for the forgiveness of your sins. His whole being, His whole life, comes to you in this meal.
There is nothing left over for you. You eat it all. You trust Him completely to give you what you need at this altar. And so Christ has given to you here a new Passover, a new meal to celebrate. But, notice the difference. The Lord told the Israelites to celebrate this meal only once per year. But, hear how Paul recounts the institution of the Lord’s Supper: “…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 covenant 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 comes.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
As often as you eat and drink. Do this as often as you drink it. Our Lord tells us, for our great joy, that this Supper is to be had as often as possibly can. Would that we had it every week together as we have it tonight! Would that we had it every time it was offered!
Yet, by our own sin, we have put up impediments to the Altar of the Lord. We stop ourselves from receiving the Lord’s Supper because we are not present. Or we stop others from receiving it because we decide not to have it certain weeks. Or we allow anyone and everyone to come to the altar, even if they don’t believe what we believe, teach, and confess of the Lord’s Supper, which is what Jesus Himself has told us it is in His Word. Or, God forbid, we come to the altar, unwilling to repent of our sins, unwilling to believe that Christ is in His Supper, unwilling to believe that His forgiveness is for me. We have erred. And we have sinned.
Our Lord commands us to be careful with the Lord’s Supper, yes. He tells us to make sure that those who receive His body and blood do so faithfully, so that they are able to discern the body. By this, it means that they discern the confession of the Church and agree with it, but that they also believe the words, “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of your sins,” and believe that Christ is truly present in, with, and under the bread and the wine. We are told to be careful, yes, but we are commanded to celebrate the Lord’s Supper as often as we can together.
And why? Because, in this Supper, our Lord has completed His journey. In this Supper, His life, death, and resurrection come to us. The Scriptures tell us that in the Law of God, the Israelites were not to drink the blood of any animal, for the life of the animal was in the blood. In the blood of Christ, we drink then His life. He has opened this Law for us, so that we may drink His blood. His body is broken upon the cross, beaten, whipped, nailed, pierced, and that body comes to us. And His resurrection comes to us in the promise of life, the forgiveness of sins. We have the entirety of Christ in this meal, and Christ is the entirety of Israel.
We have here, in this Supper, a better Israel, a better Passover, than was ever given before. For here, we have our Lord, who comes to literally be in and with us. He is with you here. He passes over you with His wrath, and enters you to be with you forever. This is why we should take it as often as we can, this is why our Confirmands have professed their desire to receive it faithfully and often, because it strengthens us all unto everlasting life.
When we are dying, we shall know that we have been washed in Christ’s Baptism, we have been forgiven in His Absolution, we have been fed in His Supper. When we are nearing the closing of our eyes, we may have confidence that our Lord has been in us, and will be with us forever, even as our bodies lay in the ground. For if Christ will be resurrected from the dead, even as we celebrate that this weekend at Easter, so shall we also be resurrected from the dead if He is in us.
This is our hope, and we would do well to hear our Lord’s command to us: Do this in remembrance of me. And so we shall. And so we shall also then have hope in Him, the true Israel, the better Passover, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, forever, unto everlasting life. For this night, He is with you. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now may the peace of God which passes all human understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, our Lord! Amen.
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