NOTE: You can listen to our Palm Sunday and Easter Services on our website, www.firstgrandville.org; go to Resources – Downloads – Sermons. Our Maundy Thursday service is available on CD. Please call or email if you would like a copy.
Matthew 26:26-29
The Table (Remix of Maundy Thursday message)
“While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.” Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you, I will never drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom.” Matthew 26:26-29
Growing up, we didn’t have a lot of money. But when some special occasion came up, we would do our best to celebrate. Once in a while, we would go out to brunch at this place in Totowa, New Jersey called the Bethwood. Still to this day, it remains in my heart and mind a very special place. The Bethwood was not Friday’s, or some ordinary place like that. We went to the Bethwood only for very special occasions.
At the time, the Bethwood brunch seemed to be the closest thing to Heaven. Surrounded by loved ones and feasting on what appeared to be an endless supply of food. Often, looking around the table, I could see my parents, my brother Ryan, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. It was joyous time. You could forget whatever was going on and just be there. And the food! The carving stations, the waffle and omelet stations, the seafood, muffins, salads, breads, petit forts, fruit and more! It was truly a feast.
There was another kind of feast many, many years ago. It didn’t have the same food, but it had some other very important ingredients in abundance. When Jesus gathered his disciples around an ordinary table for the last time for supper, it was a feast of love, grace and promise. Let me show you…
It was a feast of love, because when Jesus, “took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is my body,” he was talking about how he loved his disciples and all those who would come to believe Him so much that he would offer his body – broken on the cross. The kind of love that says, “I am going to love you even when it costs me everything – my body, my life.” No greater love than this (John 15:13)…
It was also a feast of grace because when Jesus, “took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,” he was talking about how far he would go to secure forgiveness for us even when we don’t deserve it. He would literally pour out his blood for our sake on the cross. Covenant in real life means “I forgive you no matter what and I stay in this relationship no matter what.”
And think of this. Jesus talks about love, grace and covenant while sitting with people he knows will scatter and forsake him just a few hours from then. Remember Psalm 23: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Here he is sitting with people who would resemble enemies and yet he still has grace for them. How do you turn an enemy into friend? There is just one way. You can’t force enemies into being friends; it never works. The one way to make enemies into friends is grace; a second chance.
Speaking of second chances, the table at which Jesus sat and we return to sacramentally, is a table of promise. Jesus says, “I tell you, I will never drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom.” Even with their forsaking him, even with his death and resurrection, Jesus promises they will be reunited at another feast, with new wine, in the Father’s Kingdom, which will have no end.
If I were to make a reservation at the Bethwood for brunch this Sunday, and go there, very few of the people I originally went there with would be able to make it. Because of death and because of distance, it wouldn’t and couldn’t be the same. The food I am sure would be wonderful. But as I looked around the table there would be many empty seats.
But in this season, I remember that thanks to Jesus’ love, grace and promise, there will be another feast, worlds better than the Bethwood – an eternal, joyous celebration with Jesus at the head of the table and surrounded again by those familiar faces I so miss as well as many more.
The miracle of the Lord’s table each time we return to it, is that a piece of wood and some bread and some wine or juice can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, “strengthen and feed us unto life eternal,” turn people into brothers and sisters, turn enemies into friends, project the present into the future, offer a foretaste of life in God’s Kingdom, and take seemingly and often invisible things like love, grace and promise of Jesus Christ, and make them wondrously visible.
Amen.
Discussion Questions
- What are some of your thoughts about communion?
- What would it have been like to have been at the first Lord’s Supper?
- What about the love, grace and promise of the table? Which of those do you connect with most?
- How can we return and approach the table in new ways, appreciating and mindful of all the above?
Living Water 