1. Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts, be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this Maundy Thursday is taken from Zechariah 1:12-17, it’s entitled, “The Lord Returns to Jerusalem with Mercy,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. This is a passionate week. Christians are passionate about this week as we contemplate Christ’s work of salvation for us. The world goes on like any other week, but Christians passionately set aside time throughout this week to ponder what Christ has won for us by his suffering and death. Amid our meditation this week, we find some who seize the moment to lob attacks against the Christian faith. Look in the news magazines and TV programs and you’ll find a host of different tactics to undermine Christianity during our most holy week. We can’t help but respond with passion. But this Holy Week isn’t first about our passion, but Christ’s. We rightly call it the week of our Lord’s Passion because in this week he suffers. Passion at its core isn’t about intense feelings, but about suffering.
3. But there is no separating Christ’s suffering this week from his intense, passionate yearning for you and for all people for whom he will suffer and die. This week is punctuated by Christ’s passionate zeal. You see it when Christ enters the temple. Zeal overtakes him, and he cleanses the temple of the money-changers and others who were profiting from the Lord’s gift of the Passover sacrifice. Christ’s passionate fervor is again on display when he curses a fig tree. His passion isn’t in doubt when he debates in the temple, silencing his opponents. Christ passionately speaks woes against the scribes and Pharisees. With overwhelming intensity, Christ laments: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Mt 23:37). Passionate fervor is found in Jesus’ words from the Mount of Olives when he describes the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the glory of his impending return on the Last Day. Jesus passionately defends the woman in Bethany who anoints his feet with oil.
4. This most certainly is a passionate week. And it all comes to a head tonight. Jesus longs for this night and this meal with his disciples. Ever since his conception in the womb of Mary, Jesus has been in the state of humiliation. He is fully divine with full access to his divine power, but he has not been making full use of that power. At his resurrection, he will be in the state of exaltation for the rest of eternity. He will make full use of his divine power for your blessing and benefit. But on Holy Thursday, he remains in the state of humiliation. In that state, he suffers as every human suffers. Throughout his life, he knew hunger and pain. He knew what it was to be sore oppressed, not just by physical travail, but in every other way. That’s where he is this night. He is spent even as the fullness of his passion, his suffering the wrath of God against our sin, is still to come.
5. With all of that upon him, Jesus is emotionally exhausted. It’s no wonder he’s been longing for this Last Supper with his disciples. He needs this night to rejoice in the Passover, to be strengthened by the presence of his disciples, and to remember the Lord’s gracious salvation of his people from Egypt that he might have strength as he brings about a far greater salvation in the hours to come. This night is of the highest benefit for Christ’s disciples, as he institutes his Supper so that they receive his body and blood for the forgiveness of sin. And so this night is of the highest benefit for you. The Supper and its blessings are yours. But Christ needs this night as well. He longs for this night.
6. You could even say that Jesus is jealous for this night. You are blessed by Christ’s jealousy. Zechariah chronicles how the Lord sent his angel to deliver comforting words to the prophet. Those words are for you also. Among those words of grace and comfort are these. The Lord says, “I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion” (Zech. 1:14). Jesus is jealous for Jerusalem and Zion. That is the passion Jesus showed throughout Holy Week, including his call, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem.” You are blessed by that jealousy because you are Jerusalem and Zion. Jerusalem is shorthand for the people of God. Zion is shorthand for the temple that stood upon Mount Zion, the temple where God promised to dwell among his people in grace and mercy. The Lord, Jesus himself, is jealous for his people, for he longs to dwell among them with grace and mercy.
7. Jesus is jealous. That carries a bit of shock value. But you’ve heard it before. You’ll find it in the close of the Ten Commandments in your Small Catechism. The Catechism takes it from the midst of the First Commandment in Exodus 20. Why should you have no other gods? Because God says, “I the Lord your God am a jealous God” (Ex. 20:5). You were likely taught by your mother, like I was: Don’t be jealous. When Mom taught me that, she was using the word jealous as a synonym for covet, right in line with the Ninth and Tenth Commandments. That’s the common English usage. Jealousy is when you desire what belongs to someone else.
8. But, Scripture uses jealousy a bit differently. You are jealous when you desire to keep what rightfully belongs to you. There are times when we want to keep our stuff due to sinful motives. But desiring to keep what is rightfully yours is also driven by holy love. A husband who finds another man flirting with his wife is rightfully jealous. Christ is rightfully jealous when some false god flirts with Jerusalem, his Bride, the Church. When a child is kidnapped, mother and father rightfully are stirred to holy jealousy. The child belongs with them. It’s not that they’re being selfish. They’re driven by love for their child. They refuse to share their child with another because they want to provide for that child, to love her, to meet her needs, to shelter her, to cherish her.
9. That is the jealousy that Christ has for you. He will not share you with some idol that tries to capture your heart or that would kidnap you. Christ knows that every idol will fail you. Whatever idol you chase after—money, power, prestige, fame, health, excitement—each of them won’t be able to follow through on whatever promises they’ve made. Most of all, they won’t deliver life to you. They’ll do the opposite. They’ll rob you of life. That’s why Jesus is jealous. He won’t share you with idols that will fail you and take life from you. Christ’s jealousy is pure Gospel.
10. His jealousy drives the Lord to return. Zech. 1:16: “Thus says the Lord, ‘I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy.’ ” Zechariah saw fulfillment of these blessed words in his own day. The temple was rebuilt in order that the Lord might dwell among his people, delivering forgiveness, grace, and mercy. Zechariah had reason to rejoice. You have a greater reason to rejoice. The Lord returns to Jerusalem in humiliation, passionately ready to suffer for your salvation.
11. The Lord returns to us! For weeks, we’ve been hearing the repeated call of the Lord, “Return to me!” His call was driven by his jealousy. He longs to keep his people so that he might gather them as a hen gathers her chicks to herself. The Lord intensely desires to recline at table with every one of his beloved people so that he might have fellowship with you and that he might meet your need. “Return to the Lord” is a passionate call of love. And now the Lord has taken that love and ratcheted it up another level. Instead of calling you to return, the Lord returns to you.
12. The same flesh and blood that returned to Jerusalem riding upon a donkey. The same flesh and blood that went out from Jerusalem carrying a cross. The same flesh and blood that was buried outside Jerusalem. The same flesh and blood that came forth from that grave alive. The same flesh and blood that ascended to the right hand of the Father. That same flesh and blood will return again on the Last Day. But you don’t have to wait until that day for his grace and mercy. He returns to you this night with his flesh and blood under bread and wine. “Take, eat; this is my body.” “Take, drink; this is my blood shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sin.” The Lord returns to you. Mercy is yours not because you have returned, but because the Lord returns to you.
13. And so is fulfilled the Word of the Lord spoken by his prophet Zechariah: “The Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem” (Zech. 1:17). O Jerusalem, Bride of Christ, here is your comfort. Christ returns to you with his body and blood. He chooses you with passion and jealousy. Here is the evidence—his body and blood. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.
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