Sermon - Maundy Thursday 2024

Last Supper, Jacopo Bassano, 1546

Food that Matters

1. Food is important to us

1. This Lord’s Supper is more important

2. We want to eat healthful food

1. The Lord’s Supper is medicine of immortality, except to those who eat unworthily

Food is kind of a big deal. We eat it every day. We have multiple rooms in our houses dedicated to food. The most frequented stores sell food, like grocery stores, restaurants, and gas stations. When we get together with others one of the central activities is typically eating. Even our churches have kitchens and dining rooms as big as our sanctuaries.

Food is kind of a big deal in the Bible, too. The opening chapters of Genesis are about God creating a world to feed us with, and Adam and Eve falling into sin with the action of eating wrongly. Throughout the Bible food is everywhere, from Old Testament dietary laws to the heavenly wedding feast in Paradise with the Lamb of God. Today we heard about one of the most significant events among the Israelites, the Exodus, and their remembrance of that event was to take place in eating.

Since eating is such a common part of life, fasting from food has long been an important practice among us Christians. The greatest example of this fasting from food is Jesus Himself, who fasted for food completely for 40 days and nights and was tempted by the devil. Yet, when tempted with food by Satan, Jesus replied, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that  comes from the mouth of God.” This response of Jesus and the action of fasting from food helps to point us away from the pleasures and passions of this life, from the food which delights our mouths so temporarily and easily leads us into gluttony, and directs us to a much better food.

In a very clear way we see that the Passover feast obviously points us to the Lord’s Supper. In the Passover feast a spotless male lamb was slaughtered, its blood spread so that the angel of death passed over, and the lamb eaten with unleavened bread. In the sacrament of the altar the Lamb of God, Jesus, who has been slain and whose blood has been shed so that death may pass us over, is eaten along with unleavened bread. The Passover foreshadowed what Christ would deliver to us in this sacrament. When the Lord said that this feast shall be a statute forever, it is, because the Passover is fulfilled in the Lord’s Supper today. When you partake of the Lord’s Supper, you are partaking in the Passover, but not just as a memorial but as the real thing. 

While the Passover leading us to see the Sacrament is quite obvious, our daily bread also points us to Christ. In a way, all of the food that we fill our bellies with from day to day is meant to direct us to the bread of heaven in Christ Jesus Himself. Just as we ought to properly eat healthful food, so too ought we to eat the Lord’s Supper in a healthful, worthy way.

“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.” 

When we eat of this food here at the altar, our Lord instructs us to eat it worthily and warns us of the dangers should we eat it unworthily. This explains why not all are permitted to eat of this food, since to partake of it in an unworthy manner would be bad for their souls. So before we partake of this supper, let us be prepared so that we might eat it worthily.

First, let us know and believe that we are eating the real body and blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins. Second, let us examine ourselves, realize our sin, so that we might receive the body and blood for our forgiveness. Third, let us partake of this one bread and one cup as one body in Christ, and find the willingness to remove divisions and preserve unity with one another; this means that we resolve to amend our own lives for the sake of the church’s unity.

All of this preparation that leads us to worthily receive the Lord’s Supper means that we must be particularly humble. This humility is learned through Jesus. He laid aside his outer garments, took the role of the house slave, and washed His apostles’ feet. He did this not to teach us to wash each other’s feet, but to teach us to love each other as He loves us. His humility extends far beyond washing twelve men’s feet, since His loving humility took Him all the way to the cross. From that cross He doesn’t just wash some feet from dust, but our souls from sin. From the cross He feeds us not just bread and lamb, but His body and blood, slain because He loves us. 

Food is kind of a big deal. We even come to church for the food! Not for some pizza and pop, not even for some roasted rack of lamb and rolls. But here is given for you the very Lamb of God, the Bread of Life, who from His wounds gives you to drink of the river of life which flows from Him to the chalice and to you.