There is much that happens on Maundy Thursday. If we put together a composite picture from the Gospels, we see Jesus and His disciples celebrating the Passover, Jesus demonstrating servanthood by washing His disciples’ feet, Jesus teaching His disciples at length in the Upper Room, Jesus and His disciples out in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus is ultimately arrested. All that on a Thursday evening. But probably the thing which happened on Maundy Thursday which has had the most lasting impact happens toward the end of the Passover meal. For it is there that we see Jesus instituting the Lord’s Supper.
The fact that the Lord’s Supper originally came about in the context of a Passover meal is important. The Passover was the great celebration of deliverance for the people of Israel. It was a commemoration of who they were and how they really became a nation. Every good Jew could recite for you the story of how Moses had led the people of Israel out of the hand of the Pharaoh through the Red Sea. Chief to the Passover celebration was the sacrifice of a lamb and the eating of unleavened bread, the drinking of the wine of blessing and thanksgiving. Passover was an occasion of great happiness for the children of Israel, a celebration of nationhood much like our Canada Day, but with a deeply religious significance as well.
But this Passover dinner was different from any Passover dinner before or since. For at this Passover, in place of the celebration there was an odd pall cast on the evening, when Jesus suddenly announced a forthcoming betrayal. “As they were eating, he said, ‘Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.’ And they were very sorrowful and began to say to him one after another, ‘Is it I, Lord?’ He answered, ‘He who has dipped his hand in the dish with me will betray me. The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.’ Judas, who would betray him, answered, ‘Is it I, Rabbi?’ He said to him, ‘You have said so.’” (Matthew 26:21-25)
Betrayal was not a theme of Passover. Especially to be betrayed by a close friend—that one who dipped alongside Jesus would be His betrayer! It was an awful thought. And Judas must have felt awfully awkward, knowing that Jesus knew what he was about to do. Judas’ love of money, which we read of in John 12, led him to set the events of later in the evening into effect.
And yet without Judas’ betrayal, the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday would not have carried out as they did. Although what Judas carried out was from a wrong-headed and sinful motive, yet God used it to work great good for all people.
This brings us to the main point of our Gospel for this evening. “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.’” Notice who is here when our Lord first has this communion—only His disciples. Only those who have lived and worked with Him, only those whom He has trained and taught over the course of His ministry are present at this Lord’s Supper. Jesus could have instituted such a meal with the feeding of the five thousand, if He chose, but He didn’t. He chose to do it here, with only His closest friends and nearest associates.
This is one of the reasons why the Church of all stripes had, until the last couple centuries or so, practised closed communion. If communion is the fellowship of those who have been similarly discipled and taught the words of the Lord, it makes sense to restrict admission to those who have undergone such teaching; not out of a sense of “we’re better than you”—God forbid I should ever look at myself as being somehow a better Christian than any other—but out of respect for our Lord’s call to unity in mind and spirit. One of the alternate readings for this evening is 1 Corinthians 11: 23-32, which I would like to read for you now:
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 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. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. (1 Corinthians 11:23-32)
Paul speaks about the importance of self-examination. It is important to consider what you yourself believe about God and about the Lord’s Supper, to examine your sinfulness and your need for the grace and mercy offered in the Lord’s Supper. Paul also speaks of discerning the body in this passage—the importance of being in agreement in faith with those with whom you commune. One of the trends in culture and society is to think about faith as being a private affair, between you and God only. But the Scriptures tell us to discern the body—and the body is not made of just Jesus and me, but of the whole church together. Discerning the body implies knowing what you believe about Christ and expressing your faith in agreement with a local body—a congregation. Discerning the body also implies recognizing Christ’s body and blood in the Supper. We call the Lord’s Supper “communion” because it reflects the unity of faith and practice within the local congregation.
If two people claim to believe the same things but one believes Jesus is really present there in His body and blood in communion and one believes that Jesus is in heaven and all they are getting is bread and wine, that unity of mind and spirit when approaching the Lord’s table is not there. If one believes Jesus is their Saviour and another that Jesus was just a good example for people to follow, that unity is not there. If one believes they are a sinner in need of grace and the other that this is just a way to show God how much we love Him, that unity is not there. Worse yet, if a general call to communion is given and people come who have no faith at all, or openly profess a faith in a different god, then they are profaning, treating as worthless, the body and blood of Christ. To eat and drink the body and blood of Christ in an unworthy manner, without “discerning the body”, without the proper unity and faith, is to sin against Christ. Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 11 that this is eating and drinking judgment on yourself, and that some members of the Corinthian church had taken ill or even died from misusing the Lord’s gifts in the Lord’s Supper. By not examining their hearts they were sinning gravely against God the Son, and suffered the consequences. It appears, from Matthew 26, that Judas had not yet left the room when this supper was first given–and see what became of him with his heart not set on Christ!
For us as Lutherans, as our Small Catechism states in the section on Christian Questions with their Answers, the base requirement for self-examination and attending the Supper is confession and instruction in the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. This learning unites us around a common core of what we believe. This isn’t to say that we are robots with no individual ideas, but that we agree that this is the teaching of Christ and His Word that we hold in common. As a pastor cannot read people’s hearts, he can only go by their public statement of belief based on what church they belong to and attend. This is why it matters what church you are part of. Each church has its own stance on a number of things from the Scriptures, and by being part of the church, you are saying this is what you also believe.
Important, too, is that Jesus says, “This is my body,” and “This is my blood.” Not “this symbolizes”, not “this looks like”, not “this represents”, but “this is”. How the bread that our Lord is holding can actually be His body or how the cup He offers to His twelve can actually be His blood is one of the great mysteries of the faith, but if Jesus says it, as the Son of God, it is important to hear and receive it as He says it. Many churches have given up this teaching. I have been at churches where when they have communion, it is clearly stated that what they are doing is just remembering Jesus’ death, that the bread and wine are just symbols of Jesus’ death. Such a teaching does not give forgiveness of sins, nor any of the promises of God, for in the very act of receiving that which Jesus would give, the people of the congregation are being taught that no such giving is going on. How sad!
Yet this evening the Lord invites us, who have been taught of Him in the Word through the catechism, who trust in His word of promise, who have been called to faith in Him, to come to His table and here join with Him in preparing for His death. As the catechism says, “That person is worthy and well-prepared who has faith in these words, ‘Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.’” If you have become accustomed to just taking the Lord’s Supper without preparation, please, take a moment and examine your heart before approaching. Then come. Take and eat, His body given for you. Take and drink, His blood shed for you. Come to His table and receive release from your sins. Come to His table and gain in strength in His salvation. Come to His table that you may not weary of being His disciple in this world which grows increasingly loveless and cold. Come to His table that His grace would abound in you, and through you, to the world around you. Come that your old Adam, your sinful desires, with his allegiance to Judas, may be quelled and that Christ’s life may once again stir you in heart and mind. For Christ calls us, and bids us come to Him. In Jesus. Amen.
Last updated March 2008 by the webmaster.