The Highest Points

Text: Mark 14:12-26

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

            There are certain cues when we reach the high point of things. When we reach the climax of a story, film, or book series, we know it from the intensified conflict and resolution. We get clues—rhythm, pitch, tones—when a musical piece is reaching its pinnacle. Even an evening out with friends and family has its natural crescendo, building to some event that will serve as the anchor of our memory of the night. This is also true of the Divine Service.

            We’ve been spending this Lent looking at the parts of the service. Each has its importance. That’s why over the centuries the Church has weighed, evaluated, reevaluated, kept, and discarded different parts. But those parts of the service that have remained all stay in order to do something. They show us something. These parts teach. They remind us of things we can forget out there in the world. They deliver gifts from the Lord to us. But there is a high point in the service. It’s there not because the Church has chosen to keep it or refine it based on personal opinions or preference. It’s the high point of the service because it reflects the high point of our Lord’s own work during His time on earth. It comes from our Lord Himself. The highest point of our service, every single week, whether it’s a feast day or a regular Sunday morning in ordinary time, is the Lord’s Supper.

            This pinnacle of the service has been pointed out in different ways throughout the history and practice of the Church. In places where the service is chanted, the Lord’s Supper—namely, the words of Jesus that makes the Lord’s Supper what it is—are chanted in the highest tone that matches the tone of the Gospel reading. In some places, to show their deep reverence for the mysteries contained in the Lord’s Supper, people will bow their heads at the words of Jesus spoken in the service at this point. No matter what indicators are observed, the entire flow of the service leads up to this. Beginning at the headwaters, the fountain of Confession and Absolution, bringing us back to our beginning in Baptism, we follow the stream through the Introit, entering our risen Lord’s presence, the songs celebrating the salvation He’s won, the readings revealing Him, the preparation and prayers getting us ready to stand before our Lord and our God, Jesus. We prepare for this Sacrament in and out of the service, studying the Word, learning what it is that Jesus is giving us in the Supper, and why we need it. We have Bible study and confirmation class, personal devotion and prayer, so that we’re ready for this peak of the service. In fact, in the ancient church, it was at this point, just before the Lord’s Supper, that those who had not yet been taught about the Supper would be excused and the doors would be shut and locked—this part of the service is for those who have come to know and trust their Lord. Those who are prepared, who have been following the flow of the service, traveling through the teachings of Christ, they were to receive it; those who had not made that journey yet were not prepared.

            And then we reach the point the service that we’ve been leading up to: the words that tell us what this is all about and why we’ve gathered here as the Church. We have the Words of Institution, the words spoken by Jesus Himself when He gave this precious gift to His Church on earth, to be received again and again until He returns. “Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to the disciples and said: ‘Take eat; this is My body, which is given for you. This do in remembrance of Me.’ In the same way also He took the cup after supper, and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, saying: ‘Drink of it, all of you; this cup is the new testament in My blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’”

            The Words of Institution, the words spoken by Jesus as He Himself was entering the high point of winning our salvation, the night He was betrayed, the beginning of His Passion, these words tells us precisely what it is that we’re receiving the Sacrament. “Take; this is my body…This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for the many.” It is no symbol that Jesus is creating, for no symbol could actually be offered as a sacrifice and poured out on behalf of others. In all His time with His people ever since Mount Sinai, even ever since the first sacrifices offered by Adam and Eve and their family, never was a symbolic body of an animal to be offered; never symbolic blood shed. No, just as it always has been with our Lord, when He speaks the Word, things are as He says. He speaks in the beginning, “Let there be light,” and there is light. He commands demons to come out of those they torment, and they can do nothing except come out. He tells storms to be quiet and they are instantly calmed. So here, our Lord says this bread is His body and it is so. He says the wine in the cup is His blood and it is so. He says that you are forgiven, and it is so.

            All that Jesus would win for us after His betrayal and arrest, through His scourging, the stripping of His garments, the whipping, the hours of darkness and pain on the cross, His sacrificial death—all of that forgiveness, dying in our place as the our eternal Passover Lamb, our sin offering—all that would be delivered in His body and blood, given for us to eat and drink in faith—trusting that it will be given to us by grace, earned by what Jesus has done, beginning on this holy night. And so the words are repeated every service. Other elements change from week to week—the hymns, the readings, the introit, the prayers, and so on. But these words of Jesus remain, repeated, because we always need to be reminded, we always need to re-learn what it is that we’re being given, why it’s being given to us, and why we need it. It’s not a magic formula that turns things from one substance to another. It’s not simply reliving the event through some sort of dramatic reenactment. It’s Jesus’ simple words—clear, powerful, enlightening. It’s His words doing what they say, just as they always have done.

            So we spend the entire service preparing. We spend time preparing outside the service too. We have our first communicants this evening, those who will be receiving the Lord’s Supper for the first time. They’ve been preparing with me, with their teachers in the faith, and with their parents. They’ve been watching, listening, learning, and they have confessed what they believe about the gift Jesus is about to give them, the first of many times He will bless them and strengthen them with His body and blood.

            All of us are preparing to enter this holiest time of the Church year. And as God has always done, we’re entering this holy place with eating. When the Lord confirmed the covenant with His ancient people at Mount Sinai, He called up Moses and Aaron, Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel to be in His presence. And in His very real presence there, they beheld God and ate and drank. And again, whenever sacrifices would be offered in the tabernacle and temple, His people would be in His presence before the Ark of the Covenant and eat and drink. On the night He was betrayed, Jesus’ disciples sat in His presence in the room and ate and drank, according to His instruction. And so we, all of us preparing for the fullness of that salvation—what we’re looking forward to—eat and drink in Jesus’ real presence, as we get a taste of eternity, sampling the marriage feast of the Lamb in His kingdom which will have no end, eating and drinking in the resurrection, in the presence of our God forever—the very highest point of all eternity. In the name of Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Amen.