Text: Luke 22:7-20

“Sacraments all the way down” Luke 22:7-20

Jesus is here. Right now. He’s in the house. For you. For me. And that’s no April Fool’s joke—although, I admit, as St. Paul did, that what we preach is foolishness to the world. A divine, tragic, comic, fairy tale that so many dismiss. It does sound a lot like an April Fool’s gag, I grant you. That the Son of God became Man, died on a cross for our salvation and comes to us here and now to forgive and renew and restore by His body and blood which is and is given by a bit of bread and a sip of wine by some mysterious Gift of His… that’s a lot to swallow. Our natural fear of looking foolish makes many shrink back from this Gift.

The Sacrament of the Altar. That’s what we’re here for this evening. That’s what our Gospel is all about tonight. But what is it, exactly, this Sacrament? It’s foolish, I know to think about it, to try to comprehend it, but let’s indulge in a little folly, you and me, just for a few minutes, shall we? Since Jesus is here, giving and guiding, I don’t think we can go too far off the rails, do you?

Here’s the thing that always puzzled me about the Sacrament of the Altar. The words of our Lord tell us plainly what it is and what it does: “This is my body,” Jesus says, “which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me…” and “this cup that is poured out for you is the new testament in my blood.” Matthew adds for the remission of sins and Mark that this blood is shed for many. But we’ll get there.

My trouble was always this: “isn’t Jesus here already? Don’t we remember Him already (and doesn’t He remember us, which I’ve always thought is probably the more important remembrance)? And where Jesus is present, isn’t He always present with His divine and human natures, His body and blood and spirit and all? So how is it that He says “this… this little piece of bread which I bless for you, this is My body for My remembrance, for sin’s forgiveness, for many”?”

Do you see the trouble? If we say that Jesus is only present with His body and blood and forgiveness and memory and divinity and spirit and humanity only when and where we have this Sacrament, then how is He the true God? If He is absent from us except in this Sacrament, then our life as His church is one of orphans, bereft and adrift, lost and lonely. And that can’t be, because He says it isn’t that way, that He is with us always, even till the end of time.

So if He is already present for us everywhere and always, if His love and mercy and forgiveness and grace and life and power always surrounds us and upholds us, then what do we get in this Sacrament we didn’t already have? Why does He make a big deal out of giving it to us this way if the Gift is one we already have?

We come here tonight and are as we believe and confess already the Body of Christ, already redeemed, restored, forgiven by Jesus drowned by Baptism in His death, raised up by His Spirit already into eternal life and the communion of saints. So how is it that Jesus says “Take and eat… this is My body. Do this in remembrance of me”? What changes when we receive this Gift?

I guess the short but somewhat shocking answer for us traditional Lutherans is “nothing.” Nothing changes outwardly when Jesus gives us His body and blood in the Sacrament. He was already ours. We are already His. He was here at the beginning of the service. He was with us at home getting ready. He’ll be with us in the car on the ride home and all through the night and tomorrow and the next. He never leaves us orphans. His forgiveness and mercy and grace surrounded us the day we were born, bears us all our days, even to our last breath.

It’s not like the bodily presence of Christ in the Supper inserts something into us or our world that wasn’t here all along. It’s not like we got our tank topped up with Jesus last Sunday, but are running a little low now and need a refill. As John the Baptist said, He does not gift Himself to us by measure, piecemeal, but always the whole kingdom all at once with Him.

So what do we get in the Sacrament?

Well to answer that, maybe we need to look not at the first celebration of the Sacrament but at the second celebration of the Supper. It’s also in Luke and took place just three days after the first one, the one in front of us this evening. There is only one Supper, one Sacrament, but many pull up a chair to this feast and each celebration is new, even if it might be the ten millionth time.

The second time the Sacrament was celebrated it was just three of them. Two disciples on the road to Emmaus, on Easter Sunday evening. They were sad and discouraged these two, because Jesus was dead and gone, they thought. So when Jesus Himself, risen from the dead, comes and walks along with them, they tell Him how sad they are that He is gone. And in one of the most comic scenes in the Scripture, Jesus just goes “Wow, that does sound sad! But are you so sure it didn’t all have to happen like this? Are you so sure your Christ is gone?” They were sure. And we laugh at them, but in so doing we are really laughing at ourselves, which might be good medicine, even the best.

They were finding this Stranger’s company oddly consoling so they beg Him to stay for Supper. And when He does and breaks the bread and gives it to them, their eyes were opened and they knew Him, and at that instant, He vanished from their sight, making them perfect April fools.

Luke, I think, likes to stick “the meaning” of it all into little corners of his book this way. And here, I’ve always thought, with my friend Art Just, is the real purpose and point of the Sacrament of the Altar: to open our eyes so that we will know Him, the Lord Christ, so that we will recognize that He has been walking and talking with us all afternoon, all the day long and into the evening, if only we had eyes to see and ears to hear Him!

The Sacrament is nothing more or less than a divine eye opener. To see what has always been. To recognize the One who has been walking with us all the journey long. “Sir,” some Greeks once begged of Philip the Apostle, “we would see Jesus.” And so Jesus who was indeed with them always, shows Himself through the Sacraments.

It’s like the woman who corrected a professor telling him the world stood on a giant turtle. When he wondered what that turtle stood on, she said “another turtle” and when he asked what that one stood on, she looked at him like he was the fool, exclaiming: “Why, it’s turtles all the way down!” so it’s Sacraments all the way down—the world ever and only stands on this.

Baptism, Absolution, Gospel proclamation—Sacraments, all the way down. But the ultimate Sacrament is Jesus Himself, come in our flesh, dying on the cross, rising the third day. He gives Himself in flashes like this, the bread, the wine which are His body and blood so that your eyes will open, so that you will see not what has finally come, but what has always been: forgiveness of all your sins, grace and mercy, life through His death, the life of Christ, yours now, all the way down, so that the Peace which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.

 Pastor Kevin W. Martin