“Do this in Remembrance of Me”
Luke 22:7-20
4/5/07 - Maundy Thursday
It was the day of preparation for the Passover, the
day when a year old male lamb without blemish was to be slaughtered
before the altar of the temple and then eaten. Along with the
eating of the lamb in the Passover meal was the eating of bitter herbs
and unleavened bread. The bitter herbs reminded the people of
their bitter suffering in Egypt from which the Lord was freeing them,
and the unleavened bread reminded them that they would be a holy
people, a new creation, a people cleansed from sin and belonging to
God. The Passover meal was a remembrance meal. It reminded
them of that first Passover, where the Israelites applied the blood of
the slaughtered lamb to the door-frames of their homes, so that they
were spared the death of their firstborn, when God went throughout the
land of Egypt and struck down all their firstborn. He then
delivered His people through the Red Sea, and drowned all the Egyptians
who pursued them. The Passover reminded God’s people that
He had redeemed them to be His own, that they should live under Him in
His kingdom and serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and
blessedness. And it was to remind them not only of their exodus
from Egypt, but their exodus to that land that God had promised to give
them - a land flowing with milk and honey, where He would nourish them
not only with the food they needed for their bodies, but with the
spiritual food of His Word.
Now Jesus was about to celebrate that meal with His
disciples, only He was going to fulfill this meal and with it institute
a new meal, a meal in which not the flesh of an animal, but His own
flesh, the flesh of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the
world, would be eaten. Here a new exodus would be celebrated -
the exodus from sin, death, and captivity to the devil. Here, not
the blood of a lamb applied to door-frames, but the blood of Jesus shed
on the cross, sprinkled upon you at Baptism, given you to drink in this
meal, and applied to your hearts by faith, delivers you from
God’s judgment and eternal death, and promises you instead the
forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.
Like the Passover meal, this meal, too, is a
remembrance meal. When Jesus instituted this Supper He told His
disciples, “Do this in remembrance of Me.” What kind
of remembering is this, and how is it done? First, in this meal
we remember how Jesus redeemed us. You are reminded that the body
and blood Jesus gives you to eat and to drink in this meal is the very
same body and blood He gave and shed on the cross as the atoning
sacrifice for your sins. In the O.T., the Israelites were
commanded to offer certain animal sacrifices to atone for their
sins. They were not to offer any human sacrifices - just bulls,
goats, sheep, and birds, and they were forbidden to eat any of the
blood of the animals. The blood had to be drained before they
could eat the Passover lambs which they had slaughtered. But the
Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, to whom all those O.T. sacrifices pointed,
gave Himself, His own body, as the sacrifice for our sins. He is
the only human sacrifice that God accepts; His once for all sacrifice
alone removes your sin. And His flesh and blood are the only
human flesh and blood that He commands you to eat and drink. He
commands you to do this, in order that you might remember Him.
To remember Jesus in His Supper is to remember that
it was with His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and
death that He has redeemed you from sin, death, and the power of the
devil, so that you might be His own, live under Him in His kingdom, and
serve Him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and
blessedness. To remember Jesus is not simply to remember the
facts, but to trust and believe that all that Jesus did, He did for
you, and that He delivers those gifts to you in this Holy Supper.
Just as the Israelites were reminded by the Passover meal how God had
saved them, so you are reminded in the Lord’s Supper how Jesus
has saved you.
Second, to participate in this meal is to remember
not only that you have experienced your own exodus from slavery under
the devil in his kingdom, but that now by way of your Baptism you have
been brought into Christ’s kingdom, in which you live under His
gracious and merciful rule. There is both a present and a future
reality to this kingdom. With the life, death, and resurrection
of Jesus, the kingdom of God comes to you now through His Word and
Sacraments. By way of His Word He continues what He began at your
Baptism, working repentance and faith in your hearts, sorrow over your
sins and trust in His promise of forgiveness, causing you also to live
a holy and godly life. And by way of His Holy Supper He continues
to nourish and strengthen you in the faith as He feeds you on
Himself. In these ways God extends His kingdom of grace over you
now, keeping you in the faith into which you were baptized until the
day when He comes to receive you into His kingdom of glory.
And so there is a future reality to God’s
kingdom, and that is to live and reign forever with Jesus in the new
heaven and the new earth which He will create. Just as you live
under God’s grace and mercy now, so you will live under His grace
and mercy in glory, where there will be no more death, mourning,
crying, or pain. And just as there is feasting with Jesus now in
this life at the Lord’s Table, so there will be feasting with
Jesus in that life. The Lord’s Supper is a foretaste of
this supper to come, reminding you and giving you the sure hope that
you will one day feast with Jesus in heaven. Concerning this
feasting, Jesus once told a parable about a king who was giving a
wedding feast for his son. But the ones who were invited to the
feast refused to come; they were all too busy. Many people are
invited to the Lord’s Supper; many are invited to believe the
Gospel, to trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins, and to
feast with Him at His Table, but few come. But to keep yourself
from His Table here is to keep yourself from His Table in heaven.
So the king in the parable destroyed those who rejected His invitation,
and He invited others to the feast instead. In the end the dining
hall was full of guests. This is an illustration of what God is
doing now, inviting all who would receive His Word by faith to come to
this feast He sets before us here at His Table, in order that they
might also sit with Jesus at His Table in heaven. In Revelation
this feast to come is described as the great marriage feast of the
Lamb. An angel says to the Apostle John, “Write, Blessed
are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the
Lamb.” You who eat and drink of the Lord’s body and
blood now in faith have the sure and certain hope of the feast in
heaven to come to look forward to. On the Last Day Jesus will
raise you up from the dead, and the party will begin, just as He
promises, “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal
life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”
So, then, as you come to the Table tonight, invited
by your Lord to eat and to drink of His body and blood for the
forgiveness of your sins, remember that it was with this body and blood
that He redeemed you from sin, death, and from the power of the
devil. The blood of the Lamb of God has been sprinkled upon you
in your Baptism and you have been spared God’s wrath.
Remember that you now live under Him in His kingdom of grace, where He
feeds you on Himself and gives you to drink from the living waters of
His Word as you make your way through the wilderness of this life to
the promised land of heaven. And remember that Jesus will come
again for you and take you to be with Himself in His kingdom of glory,
where you will eat and drink with Him face to face at that great
banquet to come in heaven. Now come and eat of the food of
immortality, the body and blood of Jesus, given and shed for you.
Do this in remembrance of Him. Amen.