Maundy Thursday - We Will Dine with Our Lord Again - Luke 22:14-18

We Will Dine with Our Lord Again

Luke 22:14-18 – April 9, 2020

I feel bad for anyone who has a March or April birthday. This year, you had to celebrate your birthday either alone, or with only a few people. You couldn’t invite your friends over. You couldn’t go out. You couldn’t celebrate like you usually might.

I feel bad for you high school seniors. You’re having to miss out on the last months of senior year, all the events you were looking forward to the most. The last sports season. Prom. Possibly graduation at this point. It’s understandable if you’re disappointed you won’t get to celebrate your last year of high school.

This year, we won’t be able to celebrate Holy Week like normal either. We won’t sit in church as the lights grow dim on Good Friday. We won’t pack in the church on Easter. We aren’t even be able to come together for the Lord’s Supper tonight. And yet, tonight Jesus gives us this comfort: though we can’t celebrate together this year, he will give us a celebration to top all celebrations. We will dine with our Lord again.

I. Gathered around his table.

It was around 6 or 7 in the evening. Everything necessary for the Passover meal was secured. They had the room. They had the lamb, the matzah bread, the bitter herbs, the wine. After washing his disciples’ feet, Jesus reclined at the table. The disciples took their places around the table. They waited for their Lord to speak first.

Jesus began the supper by saying, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.” As the time came closer for Jesus to die, he eagerly desired to set in motion events that would change the world forever. Tonight, this Passover meal marked the end of an era.

The Jewish people celebrated the Passover as a reminder of where they came from. 1,500 years before Jesus lived, God performed another act of salvation. The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Israelites lived under the burden of slavery in Egypt. After Jacob’s sons died, the Pharaohs forgot how God had used Joseph to save everyone from starvation in a famine. They made the Israelites their slaves to build their palaces and storerooms.

But God had not forgotten his people. He called Moses, an Israelite who grew up in Pharaoh’s palace, to lead his people out of Egypt. He sent Moses to Pharaoh to give him God's command: “Let my people go!” But Pharaoh refused to listen. Even after God sent not one, not two, but nine plagues on the Egyptians, Pharaoh still refused to let God's people go.

So, God threatened a tenth and final plague. A plague worse than destroyed crops, painful boils, or pesky gnats. He threatened to kill the firstborn of every household in Egypt. Even after seeing all nine of the other plagues God performed, Pharaoh still refused to listen to God even when his own son was threatened.

God was going to send this plague. But he would not touch his people. He told each family to take a year-old male lamb, one without any kind of defect, a perfect lamb. And on the day this plague would come, they were to slaughter the lamb and put its blood on the sides and the tops of the doorframes. They roasted the meat and ate it along with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast.

God promised their protection from the plague. He told them, “The blood will be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you.”

This last plague made Israel free. The blood of the lamb saved them from death. Pharaoh finally allowed the Israelites to leave Egypt.

Jesus and his disciples celebrated this Passover every year. Every year, they remembered how God had brought his people out of slavery. Every year they remembered how the angel of God passed over the people, sparing them from death. It was a reminder of God's protection and salvation.

But that Thursday night, Jesus celebrated his last Passover before his suffering. As a human being, Jesus needed that reminder of God's protection and salvation. On this Passover, he was to be the Lamb without blemish or defect, the perfect Lamb. He was to shed his blood for salvation. He was to take the place of the whole world so that death would pass over.

Oh, how he longed to celebrate the Passover one more time with his closest companions. These 12 men, who’d walked with him for 3 years, who’d learned from him, who’d lived alongside him. One more communal meal before his death. Looking at the faces of sinners he would redeem. Reminding himself why he had to go to the cross. This was Jesus’ last Passover. He would not eat it again until it found fulfillment in the kingdom of God.

Jesus’ last Passover is truly the end of an era. It is the last Passover. Though people still celebrate the Passover today, Jesus, on that night, brought it to fulfillment. He established a new meal in its place. Rather than meat from the lamb they slaughtered that afternoon, he gives his disciples the body of the Lamb of God, his own body with the bread. Rather than blood painted on the doorframe, his gives his disciples his own blood to drink with the wine. In this meal, he assures them that their sins have been forgiven and that death has passed over them. Because of the coming sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God, they do not have to fear death.

But what if you don’t desire to take Communion? What if you’re not missing it right now? Then, I encourage you to ask yourself these questions: “How well have I carried out my responsibilities according to the Ten Commandments as a husband or wife or single person, as a parent or child, an employer or employee, a teacher or student? Have I loved God with all my heart, gladly heard his Word, and patiently endured affliction? Have I been disobedient, proud, or unforgiving? Have I been selfish, lazy, envious, or quarrelsome? Have I lied or deceived, taken something not mine, or given anyone a bad name? Have I abused my body or permitted indecent thoughts to linger in my mind? Have I failed to do what is right and good?”

Asking yourself these questions, you realize that in some way or another you have sinned. You can try to make excuses. You can try to hem and haw. But God is not interested in excuses for sin. The intention or the motivation is irrelevant. You’ve sinned. You need the forgiveness Christ offers in his Supper.

That’s why Jesus has given us this meal to eat and drink until he comes again. We continue to sin even after coming to faith. He still offers us the forgiveness he won on the cross through his sacrifice of body and blood. 

But for a time we can’t gather around the Lord’s table as we usually do. Some of you have come in for private communion, and I encourage more of you to come and dine if you are able. But even so, you feel cut off. Though you receive his body and blood for the forgiveness of your sins, you miss the communion part of Communion. The part where you stand side by side with other Christians and confess together that you are receiving the true body and blood of the Lord for the forgiveness of sins.

Jesus didn’t intend for us to celebrate his supper alone under normal circumstances. His supper unites us together as the Holy Spirit says through the Apostle Paul, “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.”

But we are not living under normal circumstances. Like Jesus, we long to celebrate this meal with each other before continuing on our journey through this world. We want the strength it provides to our faith, to go on trusting in God even when the world is turned upside down, to know that Christ still died, Christ still rose, Christ still reigns.

When Jesus established the Lord’s Supper, he said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” When he said, “Do this,” he didn’t mean, “Do this now one time and then never again.” His words there mean, “Continue to do this.” When the Holy Spirit records Jesus’ words in 1 Corinthians 11, he says, “Do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” Our Lord has given us this Supper to eat and to drink again and again until he comes. He will allow us to come together again around his table. He will reunite us. Our longing desire will be fulfilled.

II. At the Wedding Feast of the Lamb

For now, we don’t know when that will be. The government isn’t allowing gatherings of more than ten people. If your family is large enough, that means it’s just you and me for Communion. If you die before all these restrictions are lifted, you may never gather with your fellow believers on earth again.

Jesus himself was not going to eat the Passover meal again on earth. In just a few short hours, he was going to be arrested, tried, tortured, and killed. He would rise again, but his time on earth was over. He ascended back into heaven.

And yet he said to his disciples, “I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God. … I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”

Already on Thursday, Jesus looks past Friday to Sunday. In less than 24 hours he will die. He won’t be on earth for another Passover. He will rise again. And in heaven, he will celebrate with all his believers whom death has passed over forever.

This meal we eat and drink is a preview of something greater. It is a reminder of the feast that’s waiting for us. John records in his Revelation the words of the angel: “Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” When we all gather together in heaven, we will celebrate the fact that death has passed over us forever and we will never die.

I know you’re missing normal life, when we get to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries and graduations. When we just get to live life here on earth. I know there’s not much that can take away the disappointment right now. It’s hard right now. But time will pass. The Holy Spirit gives you this encouragement: “We must go through many troubles on our way to the kingdom of God.” It’s not easy to wait for the celebration in heaven. It’s not easy to go through these troubles. But we have our end goal in sight. We pass through these troubles on our way to our heavenly home.

I know you’re missing the community we have here. Many of you have told me so. You’re missing the times we spend together in worship, that we come together around the Lord’s table and receive his body and blood together for the forgiveness of sins. But nothing on earth or in hell can stop the Church from doing its work. As Jesus said, “On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” We will dine with our Lord again. Amen.