St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Maundy Thursday – April 13, 2006

Dear fellow believers who hunger and thirst for the body and blood of our Savior:

It’s always awkward when it happens. Good friends have invited you to dine in a fine restaurant. Now it’s time to pay. "Let’s go Dutch," your friends say. Since they invited you, you had assumed they were paying. Forcing a smile, you reach into your pocket for your wallet. Inside you’re sighing and thinking, "I guess there is no free lunch."

Tonight our Savior has invited us to the most precious meal of all history. The Lord’s Supper. But relax. There’s no need to pull out your wallets. Our Savior knew we would come to this meal as spiritual paupers. Still he said, "Take and eat. . . . Drink from it, all of you."

"This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." That was the charge leveled against Jesus by Pharisees and the teachers of the law. They made it on a day when "tax collectors and ‘sinners’ were all gathering around to hear him" (Lk 15:1,2). This wasn’t the first time. These religious leaders simply did not approve of the company Christ kept. Their charge was meant to discredit Christ or perhaps convince him to see the error of his ways.

But Jesus didn’t listen to his enemies. "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them" remained the theme for Jesus’ ministry to the very end. How could it be any different for the Savior who said, "The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost" (Lk 19:10)? Jesus knew why he had come. He knew who needed him. "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners" (Mk 2:17). Outcast lepers, prostitutes, blind beggars along the roadside, tax collectors—Jesus had time for them all. He had love for them all. A love that moved our Savior to invest 33 years of holy, selfless, sacrificial service in a sin-infested human race that "did not receive him" (Jn 1:11). A love that led our Savior to the cross.

"This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." To the very end, this remained the motto for Jesus’ ministry—even in the upper room. "But wait just a minute," you object. "Weren’t the apostles the only ones invited to that first Lord’s Supper? Aren’t we talking about the cream of the crop, when it comes to believers?" It’s true, that the first Lord’s Supper in the upper room was limited to just the apostles. Well, almost all of them. When you compare all the gospel records, it seems that Judas left before Jesus served his precious meal. But the 11 apostles who remained were hardly choirboys.

Matthew, a tax collector, was there. He also went by the name Levi. It was Levi’s calling, three years earlier, which prompted the Pharisees to charge Jesus with the sin of eating with sinners. Tax collectors in Jesus’ day were deemed traitors and cheats. They are still not very popular in most circles.

The brothers James and John were there. Earlier Jesus had tagged them with the nickname Boanerges, Sons of Thunder, because of their misguided, self-righteous desire to rain fire and brimstone down on those who rejected their master.

Then, too, Peter was there. He was the apostle who suffered from a persistent case of foot-in-mouth disease.

And so the list goes. "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." That’s the only reason any of the apostles received an invitation to the upper room.

The same is true this evening. All walks of life are represented here. Husbands and fathers, wives and mothers, sons and daughters, professors and students, white collar and blue collar workers. Yet, no matter where we come from or who we are, not a one of us deserves an invitation to dine with the Savior. Why? Because we come loaded down with sin. All too often it’s the same sins we brought with us the last time we came to the Lord’s Supper. Arguing with a spouse. Bickering with a brother or sister. Struggling with a hot temper. Never finishing homework. Savoring tasty morsels of juicy gossip. Always worrying about the future. Won’t the day come when Jesus will tire of our sinful company? His word of invitation provides the answer. "Take and eat; this is my body. . . . Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." Jesus still speaks a word of invitation to penitent paupers like you! and me. He wants us to be with him, united with him in the Lord’s Supper in a miraculous way. United with him forever in heaven.

If good friends invited me to the best restaurant in town and made it clear they were paying, would I go? Would I? Where’s my coat; I’m ready now! Jesus Christ your Savior has invited you to the most precious meal of all time. Don’t ignore his invitation. Don’t take it lightly, because providing this meal didn’t come cheap. "This is my body. . . . This is my blood." "Given for you . . . poured out for you." Our Savior bought this meal at the highest cost. Just a few hours later on his cross! There, the precious blood of Christ was shed for you and me. There Jesus suffered. There he died. There he paid in full for your sins and mine.

And there God’s Passover Lamb, our Passover Lamb, was sacrificed. The very body and blood Jesus offered on the cross are offered to us now—in a miraculous way—in, with, and under the bread and wine of his Supper. Read St. Paul’s instruction in 1 Corinthians 10 and 11 if you doubt it.

But can it be that Jesus has changed his mind? Do we know for sure that he still speaks this word of invitation? Sometimes we make invitations and live to regret them. Maybe because they end up being a whole lot more work than we had envisioned. Or maybe because we have sticker shock when we see the bill. Did Jesus come to regret the gracious invitation he made that first Maundy Thursday night? Stand beneath his cross on Good Friday and listen.

"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Lk 23:34). Jesus counted the cost. He stayed on his cross. He prayed for you and me from that cross. He had no second thoughts.

"Today you will be with me in paradise." Even on the cross, Jesus welcomed sinners. Tonight, once more, he welcomes you and me.

"It is finished." The blood of God’s covenant Lamb has been poured out for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus shed his blood to make sure that "neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Ro 8:38,39). We have our Lord’s guarantee. "‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you" (Isa 54:10). The Lord’s Supper has been bought and paid for. So take and eat; take and drink. The invitation still stands.

"Given for you . . . poured out for you." Quite a few years have passed since I was a student in a youth confirmation class. But the pastor’s instruction on these words still rings in my ears as if I heard them yesterday. "For you, these two words are intensely personal and so comforting. At the Communion rail, for a moment, it’s just Jesus and you." No one else may know what I have done. No one else may know exactly what I’m feeling. I may not even remember all the stupid things I have done. But Jesus knows, and he invites me to this meal of grace anyway. Again and again and again. As often as I come, hungering and thirsting for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus wants me to know that what he did for the whole world, he did for me. For you.

Tonight Jesus speaks his word of invitation once again. "Take and eat. . . . Drink from it, all of you." Come to the meal that unites us sinners to our Savior. Come to the meal that Jesus paid for. Amen.