MAUNDY THURSDAY 2021

 "The real presence" is a phrase that shouldn't be used by people who are without understanding. This phrase brings with it a stark reality shown in the photos below: Pic #1 portrays a wafer with JHS (or IHS) inside, which is the first 3 capital letters of Jesus' name, Iota, Eta, and Sigma (in the Greek Iesous), along with a chalice contain the blood of the Lamb shown slain below it; Pic #2 is Hoc Est Enim Corpus Meum ("This Is Truly My Body") an 1873 Lithograph by Courier & Ives.

This bring me to my address for Maundy Thursday:

“A Brief Address on Self-Examination”

1 Corinthians 11:27-29 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. NKJV

My Christian friends: In order for a man to examine himself depends first on objectively seeing who he is under God’s law. “Know Thyself” written in Greek, Gnōothi seauton, was inscribed in the forecourt of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. In a discussion on self-awareness, the Roman poet, Juvenal, quotes the phrase in Greek and states that this precept descended from heaven itself (de caelo). In Latin, the aphorism is generally given as nosce te ipsum. The Latin version of the aphorism is written on a plaque above the Oracle’s door in the sci-fi Matrix film series where it is rendered in non-traditional Latin; that is to say “thine own self thou must know.”

You don’t have to know Greek or Latin to understand St. Paul’s self-examination, for it is provided for you in our liturgical formula. However, the question may linger of whether you, purposing to come to the Lord’s Supper, have used the correct method that leads to true knowledge of self. That is the subject I will briefly address.

The most common way which true knowledge of self is obscured is to assume that you aren’t all that bad or that you have had some spiritual knowledge even from your birth. To assume that there is spiritual goodness in the natural heart of man makes it impossible to have a fruitful examination of self. The Bible states most emphatically, “For there is not a just man upon earth that does good, and does not sin” Ecclesiastes7:20; and that “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” Genesis 8:21.

St. Paul says in Romans 7:14-15, “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.” See then that the natural heart is spiritually wicked and all evil thoughts proceed from an evil heart. “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.” Jesus said this in Mark 7:21-23. If, therefore, man’s heart is bereft of any spiritual goodness, how then could you have true knowledge of yourself when you pretend to have a heart that is by nature good? This is impossible.

Another false examination that leads you away from the knowledge of self is to measure your life by the standards of others. There are many Christians who believe that this is a good means of self-examination, and it seems plausible, but it is not at all a Christian means; it is definitely carnal. This is explained by Jesus in the parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector. Luke 18:11-14, tells us: “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men — extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

So, your observation of others is at least superficial and your view of yourself is not then based on reality. This deals with the very heart of Jesus’ doctrine of justification. All in the world stands under the declaration of “Guilty” under the law as sinners. Yet the one who sees and acknowledges his sinful condition throws himself, by faith, upon the mercy and love of the Savior, who declares him justified before the very throne of God.

The only test that really examines who you really are is to hold up the standard of God’s Law. It is by this law of holiness that you should examine yourself prior to communing – it is God’s Law demanding moral perfection and holiness that is set up as your standard. You may not be a crass murderer, adulterer, or a thief, but do you “call upon God in every trouble, pray, praise, and give thanks”?

Do you yourself look forward to and delight in partaking the real, essential, physical body and blood of your Lord Jesus Christ, or do you see it as just a traditional thing that regular church people do from time to time not really in faith believing that the real body and blood of Christ, upon Jesus’ very words, are present with and makes a change within the elements of bread and wine? This last statement actually presents another danger, and probably the hardest to defeat in the process of self-examination: Reason takes hold of your senses to question the proposition of the genuine sincerity of Jesus’ clear words as He institutes His Holy Supper.

It is impossible to obey God’s Word to examine self with a blithe, superficial, and routine attitude. Unless you use the spiritual meaning of God’s law to examine yourself, without pity or mitigation for self and void of excuses, you will never know the wretchedness that lies in your heart. But when you no longer make excuses for your sins, you will see that your effort to keep God’s Law, by a life of perfect obedience, shows only the depths of your guilt. In Romans 3:20, St. Paul writes: “Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”

This is indeed the highest office of the Law, to make sin a personal thing. And without being convicted of sin, you will never truly desire the sweetness of the Gospel that delivers you and lifts up your spirit. On being convicted of your sins, once that is accomplished then the question of faith is issued, namely, that which St. Paul asked: Romans 7:24-25, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Therefore, you should always go to your Savior with your sins, acknowledging that you, like St. Paul, should be considered the chief of sinners.(cf. 1 Timothy 1:15-16) “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief .”

By faith, make what Christ has done for you your own possession and thus truly “know thyself” not only as sinner but also as one of His saints this day as a new creature in Christ Jesus. For Christ is the friend of sinners as HE offers you, personally, the benefits of His life and His death, His resurrection and His justification before the heavenly Tribunal! God the Father then imputes the righteousness of Jesus to your own personal account – and Christ’s righteousness cannot fail to save to the uttermost.

Now, then, St. Paul gives this warning: “For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.” Therefore, within the exhortation of The Order of the Confessional Service in The Lutheran Hymnal of 1941, prior to partaking in the Body and Blood of our Lord, we confess thusly:

“…But if we thus examine ourselves we shall find nothing in us but sin and death from which we can and nowise set ourselves free. Therefore our Lord Jesus Christ hath had mercy upon us in hath taken upon Himself our nature, that so he might fulfill for us the whole will and Law of God and for us and for our deliverance suffered death and all that we by our sins have deserved and to the end that we should the more confidently believe this and be strengthened by our faith in a cheerful obedience to His holy will, He hath instituted the holy sacrament of His supper in which he feedeth us with His body and giveth us to drink of His blood.

“Therefore whoso eateth of this bread and drinketh of this cup firmly believing the words of Christ dwells in Christ and Christ in him and hath eternal life.”

You must also examine and see that Christ’s Body and Blood are truly, in essence and reality, present with the bread and the wine. It is not up to the individual to say that the body of Christ is only symbolic of the church or it’s not really physically present; or rather it is in this form or that form. Martin Chemnitz, the second Martin of the Reformation, said in his Enchiridion (Greek for a handbook or manual) thus in regard to question #258, Are the body and blood of Christ present in the Lord’s Supper? “Yes. For the Son of God, the Truth itself, says of that which is offered and received in the Supper: ‘This is My body; this is My blood.”

Furthermore, to answer question #260, Chemnitz answers: “Christ instituted and ordained His most holy Supper in the form of his Last Will. Now it is a violation of civil law, in fact a crime, if someone wrests and twists a testament of a good and honest man beyond and contrary to its meaning. It is very much greater and more grievous offence to do anything to the testament of the Son of God by changing or perverting its words, especially since Paul says: ‘He that does not discern the body of the Lord,’ of which the words of the supper speak, ‘eats and drinks judgment to himself,’ 1 Corinthians 11:29. The words of the Supper are known, plain, and clear in their natural and true sense. When I ask, ‘What is present in the Lord’s Supper and offered by the hand of the minister and received by the mouth of those who use it? Is it only bread and wine?’ He, who is Truth itself, answers: ‘This is my body; this is My blood.’ Thus Paul says, 1 Corinthians 10:16, that a breaking and communion, that is distribution and partaking or receiving takes place in the Lord’s Supper and that it takes place by outward eating and drinking with the mouth for he says eat and drink. Now I ask what is distributed and received when the bread is distributed and received in the Lord’s Supper, Paul answers that it is koinonia that is distribution and reception of Christ's body.”

Therefore, receive as a faithful pledge, this Sacrament of the real, essential, body and blood of our Lord, that your sins might be made white and pure as snow. For as the Lord God speaks through the prophet Isaiah:

“Though your sins are like scarlet,

They shall be as white as snow;

Though they are red like crimson,

They shall be as wool!”

Amen.