+ Maundy Thursday – March 28th, 2024 +
Series B: Exodus 12:1-14; 1 Corinthians 11:23-32; Mark 14:12-26
Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church
Milton, WA
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We’ve all seen the Red Cross slogans plastered across city buses, websites, and bulletin boards.
Save a life. Give blood. Give blood. Give life.
There is a deep biological truth in these slogans. Your body needs blood to live. Without blood you die. To give blood is to give life.
And yet, for you who know the Scriptures, you can see an even deeper physical and spiritual truth in these words as well. You need blood to live body and soul. Without the blood of Jesus we die. When Jesus gives his blood, he gives you life. When Jesus sheds his blood he saves you, body and soul.
Whether intentionally, or unintentionally, the Red Cross echoes one of Scripture’s ancient promises: the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. (Leviticus 17)
What the Lord said in Leviticus he repeats throughout Scripture. Life is in the blood. Life is saved by the blood. Blood makes atonement. Blood covers sin. Cancels debt. Blood is poured out and death passes over. If the Bible were a body, the beating heart at the center of it would be the life and blood of Jesus. Anywhere you cut the pages of Scripture (Luther) it’ll bleed the blood of Christ. Every book, chapter, and verse; every prophet, promise, and preacher are vessels and veins, Christ’s cardiovascular system, pumping, coursing with his life – always flowing out of and back into the heart of the Scriptures: Christ crucified and risen for you.
The story of the Bible is the story of blood. Real blood. Flesh and blood. The blood of sacrifices made for sin. Until the day when the blood of the God-man was shed for all sin. The whole Bible pulses with Jesus’ death and resurrection, carrying lifeblood from the wounds and limbs of Jesus to you.
The story of the Scriptures is the story of God saving your life by giving blood. When Jesus gives blood, he gives you life.
When God covered Adam and Eve, naked in guilt and shame, he did so by the shedding of blood. So the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. An animal slain. The innocent for the guilty. There was life in the blood.
When God made a covenant with Noah after the flood – before he put his bow in the sky as a sign of his promise – there was shedding of blood. Sacrifice. A life for a life. Life in the blood.
When God made a covenant with Abram the sacrifices (heifer, goat, turtle doves) were all cut in half, he gave life and his promise by the blood. “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the Lord, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Life. Inheritance. Righteousness. All by the blood.
When God struck down the Egyptians and rescued his people from slavery and bondage, he did so by the shedding of blood. The Passover lamb was sacrificed. Blood and life in the lamb.
The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.
Year after year, Passover after Passover. Sacrifice after sacrifice, God’s promise to give life by the blood. In the tabernacle, and later the temple it was spoken: “This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” The Scriptures beat in tune with the rhythm of God’s compassionate, gracious heart. Until one day an angel appeared to Mary and told her something marvelous.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
Within Mary’s womb, not far from her own beating heart, God himself made His home with us. He would be as, Adam said of Eve, truly flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone…and blood of our blood. With one great, important exception. In his flesh and blood no curse of sin was found, for he is holy, innocent, without sin. In the Jesus’ blood, in the blood of the God-man, there is our cure. When Jesus took on human flesh and bone and blood, he did so to save you. And when Jesus gives blood, he gives you His life.
He is the lifeblood of this night we call Maundy Thursday. When Jesus sheds his blood he saves you, body and soul. And when Jesus took bread and wine that night of the Passover, that night of the first Lord’s Supper, that night before he shed his blood on the cross, he did something old and new all at once. Up until that night, God had said not to eat or drink of the blood of the Passover lamb. Why? Because Scripture was waiting for the day – this day, this night – when the Passover Lamb would give his flesh and blood for you to eat and drink for the forgiveness of sins.
And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” 23 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. 24 And he said to them, “This is my blood of the[c] covenant, which is poured out for many.
When Jesus gives you the bread he gives you his flesh. When he gives you the cup he gives you his blood. Real blood for real sinners from a real savior with real bread and wine for the real forgiveness of sins. When Jesus gives his blood he gives you life in body and soul.
Here is your life. Life in the blood of Jesus. He gives blood. He gives life. Given and shed for you.
Tonight, when Jesus gives you his body and blood for the forgiveness of all your sins… When Jesus sheds his blood he saves you, body and soul.
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for[f] you. Do this in remembrance of me.”[g] 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
A blessed Maundy Thursday to each of you…
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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