1.
Sanctify us in the truth, O Lord,
Your Word is truth, in the name of Jesus.
Amen. The message from God’s Word
for this Maundy Thursday is taken from Luke 22:14-22 and is entitled, “Jesus--Rejected, but the Christ.” Let he who has ears to hear, let him
hear.
2.
It doesn’t take a lot to realize
that we’re close to the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry and life in Luke’s
Gospel account. Jesus’ first and last words are clear: “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer”
(v 15); “The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed” (v 22). The Passover comes at a time when Jesus
had been rejected by men, but The
Passover Shows Us That Jesus Is the Christ, the Son of God.
3.
Jesus knew what lay ahead of him.
He told the disciples that this was his last supper before he had to suffer. Jesus
wasn’t acting in some sort of misdirected self-fulfillment of his own words: “The Son of Man must suffer many things and
be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must
be killed” (Lk 9:22). Jesus knew who he was. He was the anointed Servant
King, who came to save sinful humankind. He knew it was written from Isaiah 53,
“He was despised and rejected by men, a
man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. . . . Surely he took up our
infirmities and carried our sorrows. . . . He was pierced for our
transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought
us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Is 53:3–5). So it
was prophesied about the Son of Man. By this time, the religious leaders hadn’t
only rejected Jesus, but they’d also determined to kill him. Because of Jesus’
teaching, he had been rejected. All the miracles over demons, disease, nature,
and death didn’t convince the religious leaders that Jesus was the Christ. In
fact, the miracles gave them a reason to reject Jesus as the prince of demons.
4.
People continue to reject Jesus even
today. Jesus isn’t accepted as true God. It’s often said that Jesus never
claimed to be God’s Son. Jesus is placed, by those who want to be tolerant, as
a great teacher among teachers; he’s considered a founder of one of the great
religions. By others he’s dismissed as a metaphysical maniac, whatever that
means. Even among those who claim to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, the
rejection continues. In countless daily decisions, Jesus is rejected by the
Christian as not being the Lord of their lives when we don’t follow His
commands, or not being the God who’s there and jealously guards the loves of
our hearts. “Despised and rejected by men”
(Is 53:3) means that Jesus is rejected as the Son of God. But if Jesus isn’t
the Son of God, then we have no substitute for our death, no one to take the
punishment for our sins, and no healing for our losses and sorrows.
5.
Thanks be to God, man’s rejection
doesn’t change who Jesus is! And when we find that we need the truth about God,
when we’re ready to assess our lives honestly, then we need Christ, the Son of
God. He offers us the forgiveness of sins through the new covenant. It is at
the Supper, which Christ instituted in light of the Passover, that we see Jesus
is who he claims.
6.
You’ll remember that God commanded
Old Testament Israel to observe the Passover when the angel of death was to
pass over their houses, on which the blood of the lamb was to be painted over
the door. Each year, the people of God were to celebrate this meal to remember
their freedom from Pharaoh in Egypt and to remember that God was their Redeemer. Four cups of wine were drunk during this meal
to remember the four “I will”
promises of God to redeem his people: “I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of
the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will
redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I
will take you as my own people” (Ex 6:6–7, emphasis added).
7.
As the Passover meal began, the
youngest child was sent outside to look for the Messiah, or in Greek, the Christ.
Jewish tradition expected the Christ to come on the eve of Passover. The father
then asked the youngest, “Why is this a
great night in Israel?” And the youngest person there rehearsed the history
of the salvation of God and what it meant. The meal consisted of sharing the
bitter herbs, reminding them of the bitterness of slavery. Then the first cup
was passed around and shared. Next came the eating of the unleavened bread. The
second cup was passed, followed by the eating of the lamb. The third cup passed
around was known as the cup of blessing. They sang some hymns and then passed
the fourth cup.
8.
Luke records only the first cup and
the third cup. The matzah, or unleavened bread, was placed on the table in a
special container called a matzah tash. This square, white silk bag is divided
into 3 compartments for the 3 matzah wafers, symbolizing unity. Jewish
Christians understand this unity to represent the triune God, with the three
matzos symbolizing Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In other Jewish tradition, the
middle matzah represents the Christ. What was Jesus Christ saying “on the night he was betrayed, took bread,
and when he had given thanks, he broke it” (1 Cor 11:23–24), and gave it to
them? Not just, “This is my body given
for you” (Lk 22:19), but “I am the Son of God. I am the Christ. Wait for no
other.” The breaking of the bread was Jesus’ last prediction that he would
be crucified for us. The traditional hiding of half of the middle matzah
represents the burial and the resurrection of Jesus. The meaning is clear: this
is the meal that frees us from sin, gives us the sure hope of eternal life, and
places us in full fellowship with God. “He
was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our
justification” (Rom 4:25).
9.
“In
the same way, after the supper he took the cup” (Lk 22:20). What cup was
that? The cup of blessing, to which the promise of God was attached, “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm
and with mighty acts of judgment” (Ex 6:6). Jesus referred to this promise of
redemption when he said, “This cup is the
new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (v 20). The prophet
Jeremiah had said, “I will make a new
covenant. . . . They will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
. . . For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more”
(Jer 31:31, 34). With arms outstretched on the cross, Jesus would pay for
our sins, and in a great act of judgment, God would condemn the sinless Jesus
in our place.
10. This
Passover was never completed. The 4th cup of wine was never drunk.
After they sang the psalms, they went out to the garden. With Jesus’
redemption, God’s promises were fulfilled. The Lord’s Supper replaced that last
Seder.
11. Jesus’
words remain, “Do this in remembrance of
me” (v 19). What does “remember”
mean in English? It means to think backward in time mentally to something that
isn’t present now. That’s not what the Greek word (anamnēsis) “remembrance” means, though. And the
Hebrew word “remember” (zakar)
is used in the Old Testament specifically for people to remember the exodus
continually.
12. Neither
word means to go backward in time mentally and think about something that isn’t
here now. When a Jew was encouraged to “remember
the exodus,” he or she was to remember that the event long ago made him or
her free today. The effects of that event are present in the here and now! “Do this in remembrance of me” means that
in the Lord’s Supper, the benefits and the presence of the Christ who died on
the cross 2000 years ago are present and being distributed now. We, who know
firsthand the bondage of sin and the forgiveness of Jesus, need to remember
again that this is done again for us daily. He who called us by the Gospel,
through our Baptism by the Word of God,
“daily and richly forgives all my sins and the sins of all believers” (Luther’s
Small Catechism with Explanation, p. 15).
13. We’re
the ones who still have that old nature of sin with us, and, when we’re honest,
we must confess we’ve sinned by rejecting Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the
living God by what we think, say, and do. But Jesus initiated this Supper to
save us from bondage to sin, death, and the devil. He comes to us, offering us
himself with all God’s promises. “Take
and eat. Take and drink. This is my body and my blood given and shed for you
for the forgiveness of sins.” Hear his words. See his redeeming acts. Live
before God and man as a forgiven child of God eternally, because Jesus truly is
the Son of God. Amen.
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