Shepherd of the Springs
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

From the Holy Gospel: For This is my blood of the Testament, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. [Matthew 26.28] 

     This is Palmarum, Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. This is the only Sunday of the church year with two separate Holy Gospel readings, one for the event of Palm Sunday, and one for the start of Holy Week. As this Divine Service began, you heard the Palm Sunday record. Just moments ago, you heard a portion of the Passion History according to St. Matthew

     Also, during this Lenten season, you have been given an exposure to the Six Chief Parts of Luther's Small Catechism, concluding  today with the Sacrament of the Altar. Thus, the Sixth Sunday in Lent annually presents to you a triple “replay” in record of the passion history of our Lord, of which, this year we will be focused a review of on the Lord's Supper.

I.

The unique gift that God gives you in the Sacrament of the Altar, the gift not received elsewhere among God’s blessings, is the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Every means of Grace, from Baptism, to the proclamation of the Gospel in daily life, to Confession and Holy Absolution, to the Lord’s Supper, give you the forgiveness of sins, and because of that forgiveness, they all give you life and salvation. This constant replay of the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation is what makes these God-ordained activities into means, or channels, of grace. And in Holy Communion, it is the very body and blood of Christ that is given to you for forgiveness, life, and salvation. Nevertheless, there is something unique that is given to you in the constant replay of the means of grace, and specifically in the Sacrament of the Altar, that unique gift is Christ’s true body and precious blood.

How it is that the true body and blood of Christ are given you in the Sacrament is not told to you by God. Every explanation of how the real presence of the body and blood of Christ happens to be in the elements of the Holy Supper, we are not told by Holy Scripture. All efforts to explain it, as our Roman Catholic friends do -- or to explain it away as many of our Protestant friends do – either says what Scripture does not say or rejects what Scripture does indeed say. How it is that the true body and blood of Christ are given to you in the Sacrament remains a mystery. But, THAT it is that the true body and blood of Christ are given you in this Sacrament is told to you by God. The words, “This is My body – This is My blood of the Testament,” stand forever, against all rejection and all doubt.

We call this unique gift, “The Real Presence” of Christ in His body and blood. By “Real Presence, “ we mean something beyond and distinct from the truth that Christ is with us everywhere and at all times. Jesus, in His Words of Institution, makes it both simple and clear, that the Real Presence in the Sacrament is the Real Presence of His body and the Real Presence of His blood. We believe this “Real Presence” of body and blood in the elements of bread and wine, because that is exactly what the Scriptures teach.

In our catechism, Lutherans use additional words and phrases that sometime sound as if we are adding to Scripture, such as the phrase, “in, with, and under.” But we use these terms, not add to Scripture some human notion about how it is that Christ’s body and blood are truly present in the Sacrament. Rather, “in, with, and under” are simply terms to emphasis the one, basic truth, “This is My body; this is My blood of the Testament.” We have no Word from God as to how the body and blood are present. But we have the sure Word of God that the body and blood are indeed present in the Sacrament of the Altar.

II.

But, then some will ask, “So, what’s the point? What’s the purpose?” The point and the purpose is this: In the Sacrament you receive the body and blood of Christ as the New Testament of God’s relationship to you. It is both sad and misleading that most every English translation translates the key term in our text, “Testament,” as “Covenant.” Now, the word, “covenant,” is not necessarily wrong, for Scripture uses this term, especially in the Old Testament, in two ways. There is the divine covenant, in which God pledges His commitment on the basis of nothing other than His say-so. It is a one-way covenant.

The Old Testament also knows and uses the word covenant as a two-way commitment, called a “suzerain” Covenant in Middle East history. This is not just and two-way commitment, but rather one between a master and the servants, between a victorious king and a conquered and defeated king. God’s Old Testament covenant between Himself and Israel, is such a two-way covenant.

But the commitment that God makes through Christ to you, the commitment marked by the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, is not a two-way deal, not a superior – inferior arrangement. The diatheke, as the Greek puts it, is this covenant of Divine commitment, made without agreement or consent or even promise from the other party. It is, as we use the phrase in legal English, God’s last will and testament in Christ. It is the New and final will and testament. It is the New Testament in Christ’s body and blood.

Why “in Christ’s body and blood”? Because the testament actually means something only when, by, and in the death of the testator, the author of the testament. And Christ places His body and blood into the Sacrament as the true testimony that the testament is in force; its promises have been engaged, by His death. His body and blood testify that Christ’s work is finished, and its results are now in force, for you.

This week we call “holy week,” replays again this year this gift of a new testament, from Christ, to you, that you might know for certain that this sacrament of bread and wine is in fact His body and blood, the replay of the gift and promise to you of the of the New Testament of forgiveness, life, and salvation.