Covenants Require Blood (Maundy Thursday)

Biblical Texts: Exodus 24:3-11, Hebrews 9:11-22, Matthew 26:17-30

Maundy Thursday is the night where Christ gave his disciples the meal we celebrate as the Lord’s Supper. It is also the night that he washed his disciples feet and gave them a new command. That new command was to love one another and is where the Maundy comes from, the latin Mandatum (think mandate.) There are other Christian traditions that focus on those latter two, but I’ve always titled to the sacrament. In the full service I pull out the full versions of some elements that get compressed or skipped in a regular service. We do a confessional address and a long form of confession and absolution. It is a full examination of ourselves before we receive. We “pass the peace” which is not just some hippy leftover (although it is usually that), it stands at the place where Jesus would say if you have something against your brother leave your sacrifice and go make peace with him. Then come back. We make peace with our brothers and sisters before receiving. And at the end of the liturgy we strip the altar and it is left there cold and bare in an empty upper room. So what you have recorded here is the readings and the sermon, but it is one of those nights where the liturgy carries more of the story. That isn’t to say the work is not put in or that the preaching is unimportant. It is. It is just to say that Holy Week services are something different. Something you can’t even begin to capture digitally.

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When God Enters the Temple

Biblical Text: John 2:13-22
Full Sermon Draft

We are often pretty good at realizing when something that shouldn’t be at the center of our life is, and when something that should be isn’t. We just aren’t that good at changing. That is part of the message of the Cleansing of the Temple which the evangelist John makes the theme of the ministry of Jesus. We are not good at centering the right things, but Jesus has come to cleanse us and to keep us centered. The Temple was supposed to be at the center of the life of Israel, and of course it was a “true myth” in Lewis’ terms. God really was in the temple at the center of Israel. But we are very good as creating distance and de-centering the things that should be there. Jesus cleansed that temple and pronounced the new one. The temple of the new covenant would not be made of stone, but of living stones. The cornerstone which would be Christ. This sermon thinks through what it means when God comes to the temple – both old and new.

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Great Expectations

Biblical Text: Luke 24:13-35
Full Sermon Draft

The text is the Road to Emmaus. Luke likes road trips. Chapters 10 through 19 are known as the road narrative as all the action is suppose to take place while Jesus is walking from Galilee to Jerusalem. The Emmaus Road I think is Luke’s poetic description of the Christian life. I don’t comment on in in the sermon, but imagine Luke himself for a moment. He interviewed all these people: Peter, John, James, Mary, Paul. All these people who knew the physical Jesus and testified to the resurrected Jesus. Luke knew him through them, and through the breaking of bread.

Life is full of expectations. The road to Emmaus present in the sermon is how we have wise expectations instead of foolish ones. The main part of that is recognizing Jesus. And we are given to recognize him in the Sacrament and the Scriptures – Word and Sacrament. Our life here, after that recognition is a walk toward the New Jerusalem. Now the walk and the witness, next year in Jerusalem. And as on of the metaphors has it in the sermon, next year happens. I’m a Cubs fan. It does.

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Maundy Thursday – Confessional Address

Full Draft

The Confessional Address in the title was something we as a congregation heard at the start of the service. If you have a Lutheran Service Book you can see one very much like it on pg. 290. These things as the sermon will say used to be standard in communion services. They would be prior to the Lord’s prayer and remind all what and why we are doing in the Lord’s Supper. Seeing as the entire point of Maundy Thursday is to receive Christ’s mandate, whether that is taken as “love one another” or “do this in remembrance” it seemed a good liturgy to use and understand.

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Earnest Desire – Maundy Thursday

Biblical Text: Luke 22:7-20
Full Sermon Text

This reflection on Maundy Thursday and communion expands on the emotion expressed by Jesus in “earnestly desired” to celebrate the Passover with the disciples. The trouble is never the passion, but how it is directed. Jesus teaches us the proper direction and gives us a gift to help.

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Manger to Table

Biblical Text: Luke 2:1-8
Full Sermon Draft

Doing prep reading for Christmas day this year I was struck by the consistency of the commentary of the Church Fathers on this text. This sermon attempts to proclaim what they would. That the savior, from birth, has always been offered up as the bread of life for our eating. And this eating takes us from animals to reborn humans. Merry Christmas.

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A Hidden Transfiguration

Biblical Text: Mark 6:30-44
Full Sermon Draft

The text is the feeding of the 5000 which is portrayed as a foreshadowing of the Last Supper, so this sermon is about communion. A moment of self reflection here, compared to most of my sermons which are unified pieces around a single theme and following a single outline. This one is a little more Pointillistic. Two parts, a catechism part which builds up pictures around a review of Luther’s Catechism on the Lord’s Supper and a compare contrast section looking at the Crowds desires and reactions and Jesus’ desires and reactions. Jesus’ desires, expressed in the Lord’s Supper form us into His people. And that is often at cross-purposes with what we think we desire (i.e. the crowds). For me the picture that ultimately emerges is which people to you want to be a part of: those invited to the meal or those looking for a general/king. And that has a surprising number of personal applications.

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Parabolic Questions

Biblical Text: Matthew 22:1-14
Full Sermon Draft

The text is the third parable in a row that Jesus has told to the Chief Priests and the Elders in the temple. By this time the meaning at the time of telling is obvious, but the question is what does it mean on the other side of the parabola’s line of symmetry.

This sermon, with the help of Augustine and Gregory the Great, stakes out what it means for the church. In particular it looks at three things: 1) Where are we confronted with Jesus today?, 2) What do we take the wedding garment as? and 3) Do these things themselves point to something greater? Along the way we tackle a few other modern questions that cling to this parable.

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The Abundance of Broken Pieces

Biblical Text: Matthew 14:13-21
Full Sermon Draft

The setup to the feeding of the 5000 in Matthew is the core of Jesus’ revelation of God. Even when rejected and doomed, Jesus has compassion on his persecutors and heals their sick. The parabolic miracle demonstrates for us a couple of things. It clearly demonstrates the continued providence of God, but the bread is not just bread. The abundance of pieces are not just broken leftovers. God wants to give us more than just bread. He wants to give us himself. This sermon looks at how He does this.

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Sacramental Life – A Maundy Thursday Meditation

John’s gospel is what is sometimes called thick. This is my attempt to ponder John’s Last Supper, which is a Last Supper and not one at the same time. The icon at the left is the footwashing. That is what John talks about when the synoptics relate the institution of the Lord’s Supper. This sermon meditates on how John captures the sacramental life: Baptism, Lord’s Supper and Confession in one scene. And then relates how we live that sacramental life.

Full Sermon Draft

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