St. Luke 22:19-20
Divine Service
 

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

There is an old adage that says: “familiarity breeds contempt.”  I am certain that I DO NOT agree with that adage.  I can be fairly certain that the person that I am most familiar with is my wife, and there certainly is not contempt among my feelings for her.  Another saying goes something like this:  “people always want newer and better.”  Again, I am very content with my wife – I will not trade her in for two younger models. 

What about the last 2 verses Gospel lesson that was just read?  Are they very familiar to you?  Those are the Words of Institution proclaimed from the altar before communion.  These are not just any words, but the very words of Jesus Himself, passed down to us by the Evangelist St. Luke.  The same words, with minor variations, are recorded also by St. Matthew, St. Mark and St. Paul.  The church from its very beginning has used these very words in this very way.

We come to church and we hear these familiar, comfortable words of Christ.  Would we maybe like to hear something not quite so familiar?  Are we ready for something newer and better?  Do we hunger and thirst for the true body and blood of our Lord, or has our familiarity bred disdain and indifference in that, also?

Think about those words again.  Do you hear them often enough?  How often is enough?  Consider what Jesus said in those words: “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”  The word translated as covenant often leads people to think of this as a replacement for the Old Testament covenant sealed in blood that God made with the Hebrew people.  The word translated here as covenant is really closer to a will – a last will and testament to be executed after the death, and only after the death, of the person making that will.  It is not a 2-sided contract.  It is a gift to be given after the death of the originator.

What gift is Jesus giving here:  “in my blood.”  He is giving us the gift of Himself, to be celebrated in the Lord’s Supper.  We need to ask a different question here: why!  Why would God send His Son into our flesh to be our Savior?  Why would He care?  The answer to that is very simple.  It is God’s very nature to give.  One of the early church fathers put it this way: “God created man in order that He might have someone upon whom to bestow His blessings,” (Saint Irenaeus; Adv. Haer. IV.14.4).

If you think of it that way, one can see how incredibly painful and hard it must have been for our heavenly Father to see His children, us, denying and refusing the gifts He has given.  I can hardly imagine the pain He must have felt at knowing that His own disciples would desert Him and flee at the sight of trouble.  What could He do to strengthen them in their time of need?  What can He give to us as we struggle with sin and death every day of our lives?

Looking at it from that perspective, we begin to get a glimpse of the wonders that Jesus has given to us in his Holy Supper.  We live in a culture that glories in self-help.  Self-help medicine, business plans, exercise equipment, self-serve gas stations, etc., etc., etc.  But where do you turn when you are out of the “self-help” mode?  Some would try to turn to positive imaging and visualization: visualize your problems gone, and they will disappear!

Other groups would try to comfort the hurting sinner with doctrine.  Sometimes I think that some in the church try to use the Bible as a Band-Aid.  If you have a problem, pull out your cross-reference index, and then all of your problems will magically disappear.  I heard one televangelist proclaim that the Bible was his owner’s manual – and since it was a big owner’s manual, he had a big life.  Now obviously our Lord wants us to use His Word, the source of our strength and life.  He doesn’t want us to use it like a glorified self-help manual for living.  There is a difference.

Jesus in our text does not try to comfort or console or strengthen His disciples with pithy sayings and quick answers.  He gave them the one thing that could heal their pain, and take away their sin: He gave them Himself.  The Christian faith isn’t about a book or a doctrine; it is about a Person, the one and only Jesus Christ.  That is what the Lord’s Supper is all about.

This is why Lutherans consider the Real Presence of Jesus in the Sacrament so important.  Our faith is not based on remembering something that happened long ago.  Faith is given and created through the Word, Jesus Himself, and probably the clearest place in all of Scripture where we see that is in the words of institution.  Jesus body and blood are given to you for the forgiveness of sins.

Think of these words for a moment.  Jesus gives you Himself.  He gives you Himself for the forgiveness of your sins.  As you come to the Altar and receive Him under the bread and wine, think of all of the blessings that He gives to you.  Communion with Christ.  Forgiveness of all your sins. Life.  Salvation.  Communion with the whole Christian Church, both in heaven and earth.  In the Lord’s Supper heaven and earth are joined together, and you become one with all of the saints who have gone before.  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the prophets, the Apostles and martyrs, and the whole heavenly host. That is why we say in the liturgy, “Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify your glorious name…”  Those are just words on a page. That is reality.

Considering the wonderful gifts and promises that God has attached to this blessed Sacrament, how can anyone stay away from such a blessed gift?  Many feel that they are unworthy, and that they must become pure before they can receive communion.  To this Dr. Luther answers with these words from the Large Catechism: ‘Here stand the gracious and lovely words, “This is my body, given for you,” “This is my blood, poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.”  These words, I have said, are not preached to wood or stone but to you and me; otherwise Christ might just as well have kept quiet and not instituted a sacrament. Ponder, then, and include yourself personally in the “you” so that he may not speak to you in vain.  In this sacrament he offers us all the treasure he brought from heaven for us, to which he most graciously invites us in other places, as when he says in Matt. 11:28, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will refresh you.”  Surely it is a sin and a shame that, when he tenderly and faithfully summons and exhorts us to our highest and greatest good, we act so distantly toward it, neglecting it so long that we grow quite cold and callous and lose all desire and love for it.  We must never regard the sacrament as a harmful thing from which we should flee, but as a pure, wholesome, soothing medicine which aids and quickens us in both soul and body. For where the soul is healed, the body has benefited also.’

For Jesus said "Do this in remembrance of Me."  Or literally, keep doing this.  He wants us here. He wants us here with our sin, so that His blood can wash that sin away.  He wants us here with our weak faith, so that He can strengthen that faith.  He wants us here because He is here.  And if He is here, my sin is not.  If He is here, my death is not.  If He is here, then Heaven is here, and I have been raised to a new life.  And if He is here, then the hands we are in are not the angry hands of a holy God offended by our sin, but the nail-pierced hands of the God who died for our sin.  And in those hands we are safe, we are secure, we are forgiven.

God’s forgiveness can never be ‘too familiar.’

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen