Exodus 12:1-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-32; St John 13:1-15, 34-35
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Yesterday the Church heard from St Luke’s narrative of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. After instructing Peter and John to follow the man with the jar of water, tell the master of the house the Teacher needs the guest room, and to prepare the Passover for Him and the others, that they may eat, the two disciples went and found it just as He had told them, and they prepared the Passover (Lk 22:13).
And when the hour came, He reclined at Table, and the Apostles with Him. And He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk 22:14-15). That’s probably a bit weak. Given the context we ought to be careful how we render it, but maybe: I have lusted to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
That sounds strange, I know. I've been longing. I have yearned to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. The point is that He is not just saying, “I was looking forward to,” or “I wanted to,” or even “I really wanted to.” I have been aching to give you this Gift for a very long time.”
How long? It was already on His mind and heart when Melchizedek, the King of Salem and Priest of God Most High, brought out bread and wine to share with Abraham (Gn 14:19). Already from the time an anguished Abraham had prophesied, God will provide Himself the Lamb for the burnt offering my son (Gn 22:8).
From the time Moses taught about how the Lamb’s blood would cause death itself to Passover and spare those who were sheltered at home beneath it. For to eat that Passover meal was to eat deliverance.
From the time Isaiah foretold of a feast on the holy mountain to celebrate death’s doom. On this mountain YHWH Sabaoth will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine, of rich food, full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all people, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will shallow up death forever (Is 25:6-8a).
He had been aching to give them this Gift in this Passover to the day when John pointed to Jesus and said, “That’s Him. He’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” That’s the kind of love the Evangelist has in mind tonight. And when he later writes, In this love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be Sacrifice of Deliverance for our sins (1 Jn 4:10).
And now that Lamb is preparing for His slaughter. And so He prepares His Apostles, the priests of the new covenant in His Blood. Just as Moses had Aaron and his sons wash their feet, being set apart by God has His priests, before entering the newly erected tabernacle (Ex 40:32).
Did His eyes leave the Lamb as they carried it in? It would have been slaughtered at the Temple and brought to the house, to the table, to be roasted for them. Justin Martyr said that at the time of Jesus the Jews roasted the lambs using a spit with an additional piece through the shoulders. The lamb would have been roasted on a Cross! So now His love would lead Him to be roasted, spitted upon the Tree and His blood poured out to cover the world’s sins.
The Lamb has been at the heart of God’s love for the lost race of humanity from the very beginning. From when He had made garments of skin for the Man and the Woman and clothed them. He sacrificed a lamb, accepted its blood as a substitute for their’s, and then covered them with it. And so, from the beginning, He had longed for this day.
He came into the flesh to bring it about. He had foreshadowed it in the Passover, in that meal of feasting and worship bound together in sacrifice and deliverance. At the heart of this deliverance was the mortal combat between life and death, faith and unbelief.
Already from His heart He had foretold something of this Passover when He spoke words that left the crowd puzzled and thinking He was crazy: I am the living Bread the came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever. And the Bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh. My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will rate him on the Last Day (Jn 6:51, 55, 54).
And now, at long last, right before His sufferings would commence, He delivers to them the gift foreshadowed in the types of the Old Covenant. Foreshadowed in the sin offering and guilt offering, the peace offering, burnt offering, and grain offering. Foreshadowed in the blood sprinkled on the Mercy Seat and the blood shed at the base of the Altar. Foreshadowed in the near sacrifice of Isaac and the Tabernacle and Temple.
Foreshadowed in that first Passover millennia ago, whose shadow was cast over all the Old Testament sacrifices. For that Passover sacrifice was bound together with feasting and worshipping as God Himself had attested and longed for His people to partake. Even as this Passover, the Last and the Lord’s, is bound up with His once for all Sacrifice and the Feast of your salvation in the worship of the God the Father who delivered His only Son into death for you.
St Paul picks has this in mind when he says, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you. In Greek its paradidomi. We sometimes translate it as “tradition.” That which is handed over. As in See, we are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priest and scribes and they will condemn Him to death and hand Him over to the Gentiles (Mk 10:33). Jesus was handed over to the Sanhedrin who handed Him over to Pilate who delivered Him to be crucified. But even he had no authority over Jesus unless it had been given from above (Jn 19:11). It was the Father who handed Jesus over to death and the grave. To be roasted upon the spit and suffer.
But before He suffered, He fervently desired to eat this Passover with them. For it is His heart’s desire to give Himself to us in His Body and Blood for our forgiveness. To give you this sacred meal where His sacrifice, feasting and worship are all bound together. Where to eat this Supper is to eat deliverance. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? (1 Cor 10:16)
Receiving this gift in faith you abide in Christ and He in you and you have life in Him. And you are one with everyone else at the Lord’s Table. All participants in the one bread, members of one and the same body. Indeed you even confess this to those who are not able to go forward to the the Altar tonight; your brothers and sisters in Christ, sheltering at home under the cover of His blood. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you preach the Lord’s death until He comes.
Tonight we remember the fervent desire of His heart to give Himself to us in His Body and Blood. This gift He hasn’t ceased to give to poor sinners in all the years since. Jesus gathers His Church around His Table, welcomes sinners, and gives to us the irrefutable sign of His love. Maundy from the Latin, mandate, to command, refers not only to the command to love one another as He has loved you, but also to Do this.
Do this, the fullness and fulfillment of the Passover. Receive the Body that was on the Cross, accepted as a substitute for you. Receive the Blood that ran from His pierced brow, hands, feet, and side, which covers the sins of the world, and is poured over your lips.
We go on living our fallen lives in this fallen world by taking dead things that are not quite rotten and stick them in our gullet to keep us going a while longer, their lives supplying our life as we stumble toward our end. But God wanted and ached that we have so much more than that. And so He supplied a living food, His Son’s flesh and blood, alive with the Father’s own life, together with the Spirit.
That is why He ached to celebrate that Passover with His disciples and why He still aches to celebrate His Supper with you. He wants to be your food, your Lamb, your Forgiveness and your Everlasting Life.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
Yesterday the Church heard from St Luke’s narrative of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. After instructing Peter and John to follow the man with the jar of water, tell the master of the house the Teacher needs the guest room, and to prepare the Passover for Him and the others, that they may eat, the two disciples went and found it just as He had told them, and they prepared the Passover (Lk 22:13).
And when the hour came, He reclined at Table, and the Apostles with Him. And He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Lk 22:14-15). That’s probably a bit weak. Given the context we ought to be careful how we render it, but maybe: I have lusted to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
That sounds strange, I know. I've been longing. I have yearned to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. The point is that He is not just saying, “I was looking forward to,” or “I wanted to,” or even “I really wanted to.” I have been aching to give you this Gift for a very long time.”
How long? It was already on His mind and heart when Melchizedek, the King of Salem and Priest of God Most High, brought out bread and wine to share with Abraham (Gn 14:19). Already from the time an anguished Abraham had prophesied, God will provide Himself the Lamb for the burnt offering my son (Gn 22:8).
From the time Moses taught about how the Lamb’s blood would cause death itself to Passover and spare those who were sheltered at home beneath it. For to eat that Passover meal was to eat deliverance.
From the time Isaiah foretold of a feast on the holy mountain to celebrate death’s doom. On this mountain YHWH Sabaoth will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine, of rich food, full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And He will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all people, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will shallow up death forever (Is 25:6-8a).
He had been aching to give them this Gift in this Passover to the day when John pointed to Jesus and said, “That’s Him. He’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” That’s the kind of love the Evangelist has in mind tonight. And when he later writes, In this love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be Sacrifice of Deliverance for our sins (1 Jn 4:10).
And now that Lamb is preparing for His slaughter. And so He prepares His Apostles, the priests of the new covenant in His Blood. Just as Moses had Aaron and his sons wash their feet, being set apart by God has His priests, before entering the newly erected tabernacle (Ex 40:32).
Did His eyes leave the Lamb as they carried it in? It would have been slaughtered at the Temple and brought to the house, to the table, to be roasted for them. Justin Martyr said that at the time of Jesus the Jews roasted the lambs using a spit with an additional piece through the shoulders. The lamb would have been roasted on a Cross! So now His love would lead Him to be roasted, spitted upon the Tree and His blood poured out to cover the world’s sins.
The Lamb has been at the heart of God’s love for the lost race of humanity from the very beginning. From when He had made garments of skin for the Man and the Woman and clothed them. He sacrificed a lamb, accepted its blood as a substitute for their’s, and then covered them with it. And so, from the beginning, He had longed for this day.
He came into the flesh to bring it about. He had foreshadowed it in the Passover, in that meal of feasting and worship bound together in sacrifice and deliverance. At the heart of this deliverance was the mortal combat between life and death, faith and unbelief.
Already from His heart He had foretold something of this Passover when He spoke words that left the crowd puzzled and thinking He was crazy: I am the living Bread the came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever. And the Bread that I will give for the life of the world is My flesh. My flesh is true food and My blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will rate him on the Last Day (Jn 6:51, 55, 54).
And now, at long last, right before His sufferings would commence, He delivers to them the gift foreshadowed in the types of the Old Covenant. Foreshadowed in the sin offering and guilt offering, the peace offering, burnt offering, and grain offering. Foreshadowed in the blood sprinkled on the Mercy Seat and the blood shed at the base of the Altar. Foreshadowed in the near sacrifice of Isaac and the Tabernacle and Temple.
Foreshadowed in that first Passover millennia ago, whose shadow was cast over all the Old Testament sacrifices. For that Passover sacrifice was bound together with feasting and worshipping as God Himself had attested and longed for His people to partake. Even as this Passover, the Last and the Lord’s, is bound up with His once for all Sacrifice and the Feast of your salvation in the worship of the God the Father who delivered His only Son into death for you.
St Paul picks has this in mind when he says, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you. In Greek its paradidomi. We sometimes translate it as “tradition.” That which is handed over. As in See, we are going up to Jerusalem and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priest and scribes and they will condemn Him to death and hand Him over to the Gentiles (Mk 10:33). Jesus was handed over to the Sanhedrin who handed Him over to Pilate who delivered Him to be crucified. But even he had no authority over Jesus unless it had been given from above (Jn 19:11). It was the Father who handed Jesus over to death and the grave. To be roasted upon the spit and suffer.
But before He suffered, He fervently desired to eat this Passover with them. For it is His heart’s desire to give Himself to us in His Body and Blood for our forgiveness. To give you this sacred meal where His sacrifice, feasting and worship are all bound together. Where to eat this Supper is to eat deliverance. The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? (1 Cor 10:16)
Receiving this gift in faith you abide in Christ and He in you and you have life in Him. And you are one with everyone else at the Lord’s Table. All participants in the one bread, members of one and the same body. Indeed you even confess this to those who are not able to go forward to the the Altar tonight; your brothers and sisters in Christ, sheltering at home under the cover of His blood. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you preach the Lord’s death until He comes.
Tonight we remember the fervent desire of His heart to give Himself to us in His Body and Blood. This gift He hasn’t ceased to give to poor sinners in all the years since. Jesus gathers His Church around His Table, welcomes sinners, and gives to us the irrefutable sign of His love. Maundy from the Latin, mandate, to command, refers not only to the command to love one another as He has loved you, but also to Do this.
Do this, the fullness and fulfillment of the Passover. Receive the Body that was on the Cross, accepted as a substitute for you. Receive the Blood that ran from His pierced brow, hands, feet, and side, which covers the sins of the world, and is poured over your lips.
We go on living our fallen lives in this fallen world by taking dead things that are not quite rotten and stick them in our gullet to keep us going a while longer, their lives supplying our life as we stumble toward our end. But God wanted and ached that we have so much more than that. And so He supplied a living food, His Son’s flesh and blood, alive with the Father’s own life, together with the Spirit.
That is why He ached to celebrate that Passover with His disciples and why He still aches to celebrate His Supper with you. He wants to be your food, your Lamb, your Forgiveness and your Everlasting Life.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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