When God Enters the Story: A Maundy Thursday Sermon

I didn't have a blog post ready to publish this morning. Instead, I decided to share with you the transcript of a sermon I preached on Maundy Thursday at Lincoln First United Methodist on April 18^th, 2019. It's a bit longer than most of my previous blog posts but I think you will enjoy it. My goal was to trace how, in the Lord's Supper, the entire history of God's salvific in-breaking is remembered and reenacted. The sermon was well-received but the highlight of the night was partaking in communion. It was a humbling moment for me. No matter how well I preached or how profound my thoughts, nothing I said could compare with what God was doing at the altar, making Himself known in bread and wine. At any rate, I hope you enjoy, "When God Enters the Story."     

Let’s pray:

Teach us to seek you, O God. In seeking, find you and in finding, love you that we may come to participate more fully in the Divine life and more closely resemble your Son, to whom all honor and glory and power is due, forever and ever, amen.  

Introduction:

It’s a psychological fact that tastes and especially smells can elicit strong memories. For instance, I can’t eat pumpkin pie without thinking of my grandmother. At almost every family get-together, she would bake a fresh pumpkin pie. What was remarkable about this is that she was a diabetic and dying of breast cancer. She couldn’t ever eat her own pies, other than a small taste to make sure the flavor was just so. Her making was a pure act of sacrificial love. And when sacrificial love like that enters your story, it has a way of changing everything.

Scripture:

Tonight, we celebrate a memorial meal. On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he had an intimate last meal with his disciples. My text tonight comes from 22^nd chapter of the Gospel of Luke.

Now the Festival of Unleavened Bread arrived, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John ahead and said, “Go and prepare the Passover meal, so we can eat it together.” (Jumping down a bit)

When the time came, Jesus and the apostles sat down together at the table. Jesus said, “I have been very eager to eat this Passover meal with you before my suffering begins. For I tell you now that I won’t eat this meal again until its meaning is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.” Then he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. Then he said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. For I will not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God has come.” He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.  “But here at this table, sitting among us as a friend, is the man who will betray me. For it has been determined that the Son of Man must die. But what sorrow awaits the one who betrays him.” The disciples began to ask each other which of them would ever do such a thing.

We’re jumping in the story halfway through. In the first nine chapter of the book, Luke has covered about the first thirty years of Jesus life, fast forwarding through Jesus’ story and then, at chapter nine, he starts going in slow motion, zooming in on Jesus’ last week or so on earth. At this point in the story, Jesus is just about to be betrayed. His death is immanent. In the midst of this suspenseful drama, Jesus eats a meal.

The Passover Meal:

This wasn’t just any meal. Luke tells it that is was a “Passover meal.” He’s asking us to thumb back in our Bibles to the second book, Exodus. In the very first book, Genesis, God creates the world. Everything goes sideways and the world falls to pieces. But God has a plan. He calls Abraham and his family to serve him and that through Abraham and his family he will bless all the nations of the Earth. A bunch of crazy stuff happens and Genesis ends with Abraham’s whole extended family in Egypt.

Exodus picks up the story a few years later. Again, stuff has gone sideways. The Egyptian Pharaoh has enslaved Abraham’s family, the Israelites. They’re forced to work at backbreaking labor and, worst of all, Pharaoh orders all the male Israelite children to be killed. In Exodus, Abraham’s family, God’s people, are enslaved by Pharaoh and the Egyptian gods. Abraham’s family calls out in prayer to God. At this moment, God enters the story to do what he always does: to put things right. Biblically, this is what salvation means, putting things back in their proper order. Whether we’re talking about the disorder caused by oppression or sin or relational brokenness, God is in the business of putting things right.

So, God sends Moses to plead with Pharaoh to let his people go. Pharaoh says no. God sends ten plagues on the land of Egypt, each one attacking the domain of one of Egypt’s gods. Ten times Pharaoh says no. On the tenth time, the story slows down and God explains the Passover feast. When he finished giving instructions, God told Moses:

Remember, these instructions are a permanent law that you and your descendants must observe forever. When you enter the land the Lord has promised to give you, you will continue to observe this ceremony. Then your children will ask, ‘What does this ceremony mean?’ And you will reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt. And though he struck the Egyptians, he spared our families.’

This meal served as a yearly reminder of what God had done for the Children of Israel. When Israelites wondered if God would be faithful to them, through hardship and failure, they would look back at the Passover. Because God entered the story of Israel way back then, Israelites knew that God would keep entering their story to set things right.

When Jesus invited his disciples to the Passover meal, he was inviting them to remember how God entered the story of Israel, bringing them salvation and safety. This is why Israel trusted in the Lord. This is why they followed his commandments. Before God entered the story, they were enslaved and oppressed. Then God entered the story. When God enters a story, it has a way of changing everything.

Jesus Enters the Story:

Then, Jesus flipped the script, “He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” After supper he took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.”

Jesus took the symbols of God’s story in Exodus and made them about himself, about his sacrificial death.

God’s work through Israel’s story set the stage of Jesus to appear. However, God’s work in Israel did not deal with humanity’s biggest problem: Sin. This is Sin with a capital “S.” That is, not the individual sins we commit but the brokenness and disorder of the human heart that turns us away from God. Without Christ, we are all enslaved to Sin and death. Just as God came to free the Israelites from Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt, Jesus, God and man, came to free us from the power of Sin and death. Jesus entered the story to vanquish these foes and put the world right, not as a crusading king, but as a suffering servant. He saved us through sacrificial love, becoming the lowest of the low. God entered the story of the world and changed everything.

After Jesus’ resurrection, his apprentices passed down Jesus’ words from generation to generation. From generation to generation, they reenacted the events of that sacred night. Before we know almost anything about the early Christians from sources outside of the Bible, we know that they were practicing communion.

My grandmother’s act of simple sacrificial love has impacted my family in some pretty profound ways. When I was graduating my high school, my Aunt Sandy, suffering from colon cancer, made it a point to be part of the preparations for my graduation party. She asked my mom if she could bring pies for the guests, in remembrance of my late grandmother. Grandma’s sacrificial love in a pie was being passed from one family member to the next. The pies were both an act of remembrance and imitation. We remembered her in the eating and my Aunt Sandy imitated her in the baking.

Jesus enters Our Story:

Back to the story to us, the descendants of those ancient Christians reenacting that night again. In communion, we remember How Jesus entered the story. But that remembrance does more than just spur our memories. The great apprentice of Jesus St. Augustine wrote, “You move us to delight in praising You; for You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.” Jesus has entered our individual stories to set our restless, disordered hearts right. He saved us and set our stories right. When God entered my story, it changed everything.

That has implications for how we live. It’s important, even necessary, to remember that our story is different. We’re called to live a story of sacrificial love that looks like Jesus’ story. We’re not there yet. We need to examine ourselves to remember that God is still setting our lives right. We’re a work in progress. The good news is that God keeps entering our story. Every time we take communion, Jesus enters our story in his blood and body. God’s grace is poured out afresh at the communion table. Take heart. God is entering our stories tonight. He also isn’t done entering the story of the world.  

The Meal in the Kingdom:

My grandma passed away in 2003. My Aunt Sandy in 2015. I look forward to seeing them in the resurrection, when God enters the story of the world again to set all things right. Every time I taste a pumpkin pie, I am reminded that my grandma’s story is not over and I will taste pies made by her in heaven.

Communion, too, is an act of anticipation. “I have been very eager to eat this Passover meal with you before my suffering begins,” Luke tells us Jesus said, “For I tell you now that I won’t eat this meal again until its meaning is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.” Communion remembers the cross, but its meaning is not found there. The meaning of communion is found in Jesus’ resurrection, ascension, and Second Coming. God’s story is not over. He’s going to enter the story of the world and put everything right once and for all. Remember, the Bible ends with another meal, the marriage supper of the Lamb. Communion reminds us that God isn’t done with the story of this world.

Conclusion:

God entered the story the Israel and saved them from the power of Egypt in Exodus, he entered our story in the cross and saved us from Sin and death, God entered our story to put our hearts right and fundamentally change the way we relate with each other and he is entering the story at the end of time to save the whole world from the brokenness of the fall. From Exodus to Revelation, God has entered, is entering the story, and will enter the story. When God enters the story, everything changed.

All of these images are held within the bread and cup, our intimate meal with the God who saves. In a very real way, God physically enters our story each time we take communion as the bread and wine become for us the body and blood of Christ. God is entering our story in sacrificial love to put things right. And when God enters our story, everything changes.

Application:

As we prepare to receive communion, I would like to invite you to reflect in contemplative prayer. What does it mean for God to enter your story? How might it have felt to be a part of when God entered the story in the Exodus or at the Last Supper? How can those images help you understand what it is like to have God enter your story? What did that moment feel like when God entered your story in sacrificial love and began to set everything right? On the other side of the coin, what are some areas in your story where you are hesitant to allow God to enter? What might it look like to allow him to start setting those broken bits of your story right?

May God bless you this night and may you feel him enter your story again at the communion table. Let’s pray. 

Closing Prayer from the Didache:

We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David Your servant, which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory forever. And concerning the broken bread: We thank You, our Father, for the life and knowledge which You made known to us through Jesus Your Servant; to You be the glory forever. Even as [grain] was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one [loaf], so let Your Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Your kingdom; for Yours is the glory and the power through Jesus Christ forever. [Amen]