Eating And Drinking.

"Take, eat; this is my body...Drink of it all of you, for this is my blood." (Matthew 26:26-28)

But still, can He really of meant for us to actually eat His body and drink His blood and do so for the forgiveness of sins? Isn't that just beyond the pale of possibility? Again, the New Testament is not ambiguous on this.

St. Paul also declares, "the cup of blessing which we bless is it not a participation or communion in the blood of Christ?" And St. Paul flat out tells you that whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy matter is not guilty of bread and wine but guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. So we are to examine ourselves before we partake.

And again, just as the witness of the Church through the centuries is universal about the reality of the bread being Christ's body, so also the contents of the cup being His true blood, and bringing to us all that blood has won for us.

.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Words Of Institution

"The natural understanding of the words of institution 'This is my body; this is my blood,' and you extend that then also the words, 'Do this in remembrance of me,' already provide a proper understanding of the Lord's Supper. Because you can't do what Jesus is doing with His disciples if you can't repeat that; if you can't do the same thing He is doing with them. So when Jesus says, 'This is my body,' of course, we take Him at His word that it is His body, and it has to be His body down the road in the future. So then, the natural understanding of the words already creates a proper understanding of the Lord's Supper."

-Dr. Jacob Corzine

Build Back Better

In that day, I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old. (Amos 9:11)

God is going to "build back better." It was this passage that St. James quotes in the great Jerusalem council (see James 15:13-17). The Lord had foretold that the Gentiles, too, would find welcome at the time that the Lord restores the booth of David by sending His Son in the flesh to suffer and die to raise victoriously and reign over all until His enemies are placed beneath His feet.

In the Scriptures, bread tends to be associated with the Fall, sorrow, and life in this fallen world like Genesis 3:19. But wine now is associated with eschatological joy, with the feast of the kingdom of God. And so a time of abundance is foretold when the mountains will drip sweet wine, and all the hills will flow with it. You can't help but think of that first of signs, which Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee (see John 2:1-12). It's as if though He is waving this verse from Amos in their faces, manifesting His glory, and announcing in His person the arrival of the messianic age.

Now, if Christ is the fulfillment of the restoration of David's kingdom, and this includes the Gentiles, then the "They shall build the ruin cities and inhabit them, and they shall never be uprooted from there again" does not refer to some restoration to Palestinian soil. This points to the home which God prepares for His people (Hebrews 11). God has prepared for us a home, a heavenly inheritance. Here in this world, we don't have a final home, but God has a final home for us, and we will arrive there, at last, a home prepared by and through the gift of His Son into our flesh and blood to restore, and to rebuild the fallen down house of David.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Winepress

 And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the winepress, as high as a horse's bridle, for 1,600 stadia. (Revelation 14:20)

"Outside the city" brings remembrance that Jesus suffered outside the city as He trod alone the winepress of God's wrath for us. He bore what we could never bear and did it to save us from that wrath forever. But if anyone rejects what Jesus did outside the city, if they persist in their rebellion against the true king well, then the horrible picture of this passage comes into play. The blood is depicted spread in a 184-mile radius around the holy city and as high up as a horse's bridle. That horrible image suggests the complete and utter torment that awaits those who persist in refusing Jesus as their king.

People always like to image gentle Jesus, meek and mild, and yet the Jesus you meet in the pages of the New Testament has more than a little bit of an edge about Him. After all, He bluntly said in Luke 19:27, "But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me." That is exactly what this verse from Revelation depicts.

So people loved by God; there really are two ways this whole thing ends. Jesus makes that so clear in His parables of the end. Just read through Matthew 25 one more time. On the one hand, there is the joyful gathering of the saints to the Lamb carried home by the angels, welcomed into the kingdom to heaven to blessedness. But then there is the fearful, frightful, terrifying judgment that awaits without any doubt all who continue in revolt against King Jesus to their last earthly breath. They want nothing to do with Him; they want nothing from Him. Even though in love for them, He too has born the fullness of divine wrath which their sins demanded that they might be all atoned. Heaven or hell, folks, there is no middle ground.

-Pr. Will Weedon

Passover Sader

Many Christians that would gather during Holy Week to celebrate a quote-unquote Christian Passover Seder meal would be surprised to discover the origins of the Jewish Passover Seder were within the sect of the Pharisees. Ironically, Christians who would want to learn about the context in which the Lord's Supper was instituted would turn to the liturgy of the Pharisees to teach them about the meaning of Jesus' words.

Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper in the context of the Passover and most likely not from the Seder liturgy. Jesus commanded us to "do this" in remembrance of Me. What was the "do this" referring to? What Jesus is telling us to do is the Lord's Supper - the Eucharist meal He instituted the night He was betrayed. That is His gift to the church and what He commanded and authorized to have the church celebrate and to "do this" in remembrance of Him. It belongs to us because it's given to us by the Savior Himself.

Whatever took place before no longer matters. The church is given this Supper; this bread; this wine; this body; this blood. It makes no sense for Christians to gather around a Passover Seder than for them to gather around another sacrificial lamb."

-Dr. Dan Gard 

Gathers

The eight verbs Luther's Small Catechism assigns to The Holy Spirit, which are drawn out from the Scriptures, are: calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies, keeps, forgives, raises, and gives. Here is a closer look at the Holy Spirit's work of gathering.

The evangelical instinct to think about the Holy Spirit is very individualistic. Our Lutheran instinct goes against this. It is true the Holy Spirit works in each one of us to give us faith; each one of us believes, but we do not remain alone, and the Holy Spirit gathers us to the preaching of the Word. He gathers us through the preaching of the Word, and to the preaching of the Word, and this is what it's meant to be "Church," to be brought and adopted in the family of God, so that not only Jesus our brother, but we also have brothers and sisters in Christ in the holy Christian Church. The Church is the fellowship of all those who believe in Jesus.

We can't see faith, so the Church is made known by the preaching of the Gospel, which creates faith, and the right administration of the Sacraments, which creates faith, and those means the Holy Spirit uses to create faith is the way we also identify the holy Christian Church. Christians are gathered together people; we were never meant to believe on our own. Yet while it's possible to have faith and be apart from the visible Church, it's dangerous, and it's also sinful.* The Holy Spirit gathers His people, and He gathers so we can hear the Word together, pray together, give thanks to God together, and eat and drink the body and blood of Jesus together. This is all the Lord's will for us.

*Luther's Small Catechism - The Third Commandment: Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we may not despise preaching and His Word but hold it sacred and gladly hear and learn it.

-Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller

New And Old

"No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out, and the wineskins will be ruined." (Luke 5:36-38)

New and old are the operative words here. Jesus has brought the new, which simply can't be patched onto the old. The old law and the piety it evoked cannot hold the gospel joy bursting on the scene with Jesus. It will require a new garment, or it will tear, and the old one will not match. This is Jesus' reflection on the rupture with the synagogue and temple Judaism that He saw clearly before it happened. 

St. Cyril of Alexandria, in the fifth century, wrote: "The first covenant has grown old, nor was it free from fault. Those who therefore adhere to it and keep at heart the antiquated commandments (meaning ceremonial law) have no share in the new order of things in Christ. In Him, all things have become new."

You can't squeeze the Christian gospel joy into the old forms without destroying them and spilling the wine. Isn't that exactly what happened? As the gospel joy got poured into those old ceremonies, they began to creak and tear, and before long, they were deflated and empty, and the gospel joy spilled out from them upon the earth for all people. 

St. Luke chronicles this happening in the Book of Acts as temple, synagogue, circumcision, and dietary laws are all burst open by the gospel itself, which spread out to all the world. It creates a piety suitable to it, a piety that is clearly indebted to the old form but also uniquely transcends them. But instead of Passover, paschal or Easter, and the Eucharist. Instead of the old Pentecost, the new Pentecost - the giving of the Spirit in Baptism. Instead of tabernacles, Christmas, when God tabernacled in our flesh. Instead of circumcision made in the flesh, baptism. Instead of sacrifice, confession, and absolution. It just rolls on and on.

-Pr. Will Weedon